THE VIBRAPHONE SUMMIT brings together 4 of the most outstanding vibraphonists of our time: JOE LOCKE, JASON MARSALIS, WARREN WOLF, and CHIEN CHIEN LOU, in a concert program dedicated to Milt Jackson.
JOE LOCKE:
Joe Locke is widely considered to be one of the major voices of his instrument. He has performed and recorded with a diverse range of notable musicians, including Grover Washington Jr, Raul Midón, Kenny Barron, Eddie Henderson, Cecil Taylor, Dianne Reeves, Eddie Palmieri, Ron Carter, The Beastie Boys, the Münster Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the Orchestra da Camera della Sardegna and the Lincoln, Nebraska Symphony.
Long known to be a soloist capable of stunning physical power and broad emotional range, it was not until the last decades that he emerged as the composer, bandleader and conceptualist that he is considered today. Locke is a six-time recipient of the Jazz Journalists Association’s Mallet Instrumentalist of the Year Award, has received two Earshot Golden Ear Awards for “Concert of the Year” and the 2013 Hot House NYC Jazz Awards for Best Vibes Player, and keeps topping critics and readers polls. He holds the title of Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy Of Music (Hon ARAM), London, and is an active clinician and educator in the United States and in Europe. In 2016 Joe was honoured with induction into the Music Hall of Fame of his hometown Rochester, NY.
JASON MARSALIS
Jason is the son of pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis and his wife Dolores, and the youngest sibling of Wynton, Branford and Delfeayo. Together, the four brothers and their patriarch Ellis, comprise New Orleans venerable first family of jazz.
In 2013, Jason released a recording as a leader on vibes entitled “In a World of Mallets”. The album went to number 1 on the CMJ Radio Charts and also won an Offbeat Magazine award, a New Orleans music magazine, for best Contemporary Jazz Album.
With each passing year Jason Marsalis continues to grow and develop as both a composer and performer. The maturity and command he possesses over his music is evident to those who have heard or seen him.
WARREN WOLF:
Warren Wolf is a multi-instrumentalist from Baltimore, Maryland.
He is an International tourin musician and has performed throughout North America, South Amreican, Europe, Asia, African, and Australia.
He has made 10 recordings as a band leader, most notably for Mack Avenue Records. He is a member os the SFJAZZ collective and Christian McBride’s Inside Straight. He is a faculty member at the Peabody Cnservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in San Frnacisco, CA.
Warren Wolf endorses Musser Vibraphone and Marimbas, and Innovative Percussion Mallots.
CHIEN CHIEN LOU:
Classically trained in contemporary percussion in her native Taiwan. Chien Chien Lu, the emergent vibraphonist best known, to date, for recording and touring with Jeremy Pelt Quintet, is excited to release The Path, her genre melding debut as a leader.
Accompanying Chien Chien are an elite cast of musicians, a group sourced principally from Pelt’s ensemble-with the blessing of the maestro. Such a strong blessing, in fact, that Pelt himself appears here on his young protege’s debut, alongside bandmates Richie Goods on acoustic and electric bass, Allan Mednard on drums, and Ismel Wignall on congas/percussion.
Goods, in addition to producing the album and arranging its two most recognizable standards, introduced Chien Chien to guitarist Quintin Zoto and pianist Shedrick Mitchell, both of whom prove indispensable here. Though this is not the first time Chien Chien and Mitchell have played together-both played on Goods’ most recent release, My Left Hand Man, a tribute to Goods’ mentor, the late pianist Mulgrew Miller. And so here we have yet another example of jazz’s circle of life: musicians paying mentorship forward.
