-- projects --
"Bird with Strings"-w/ Hartford Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble
it is a privilege and challenge to get to interpret the music from this deservedly well-known album!
here is an excerpt of an article by Owen McNally about a recent performance:
Alto saxophonist Kris Allen takes on the challenging lead role as Bird. A onetime prodigy at West Hartford's Hall High School jazz program, Allen has a solid reputation both as a resourceful, much sought-after saxophonist/composer sideman and busy educator.
He was a protégé of the late, great alto saxophonist and longtime Hartford resident Jackie McLean. As a wunderkind alto saxophonist growing up in Harlem, McLean was a protégé and close friend of Parker. So there's an unbroken line of mentor/protégé relationships from Bird to McLean to Allen.
Despite that stylistic bloodline, don't look for Allen to play carbon-copy recreations of Bird's solos off the original recordings. Bozzi's project, in any case, is not that kind of note-for-note tribute, but rather an adaptation that captures the essence of the seminal album's spirit and the vibrancy and invention that Bird embodied.
Allen makes knowledgeable quotes from Bird's works interspersed among his own original, free-flowing, expressive, bebop improvisations. While inflected with Bird's signature robust warmth and depth of feeling, Allen's solos simultaneously stand tall on their own artistic merit
The Bird with Strings project's premiere last March was part of the HSO's "Musical Dialogues" series. This time out, however, the encore presentation is organized by Bozzi and underwritten by the Evelyn Preston Foundation. The event is held rain or shine. Information: 860-794-9241.
St. Pauls Jazz Lauds
myspace.com/stpaulsjazzlauds
http://www.stpaulswired.org/blog/2008/nov/21/jazz-reflections-be-still/
Ameripanicans
