Boston

Boston

Rebecca Parris opens Mass Dance Festivals

Rebecca Parris was born on December 28, 1951 in Newton, Massachusetts into a family of educators and musicians. Her early career is marked by studies with world-class vocal coach, Blair MacClosky, and attendance at Boston Conservatory. At first she toured with top 40’s bands, then became immersed in the American jazz genre of singing, developing her distinctive version of improvisation, scat, exemplary phrasing, and masterful story telling.

Parris has performed worldwide with great jazz legends, including Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Rich, Wynton arsalis, Gary Burton, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Terry Gibbs, David “Fathead” Newman, Norman Simmons. Harold Jones, Andy Simpkins, Gerry Wiggins, Bill Cunliffe, Red Mitchell, Buster Cooper, Nat Pierce, and many others. Rebecca has performed at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival in '90 & '95, North Sea Jazz Festival, Oslo Jazz Festival and of course the ever-so-hip International Floating Jazz Festival, and continues to exemplify American jazz singing across the globe.

Rebecca's latest release is You Don't Know Me on the Saying It With Jazz label. Rebecca performs some well-chosen standards with her long-time trio: Brad Hatfield, piano; Peter Kontrimas, bass; and Matt Gordy, drums. Rebecca's previous releases include her all-ballads CD, My Foolish Heart, The Secret of Christmas, A Beautiful Friendship, with the Kenny Hadley Big Band, Double Rainbow with Eddie Higgins and Michael Monaghan, A Passionate Fling, Love Comes and Goes, and Live at Chan's. (go to: http://www.rebeccaparris.com)

Additional to performing, Rebecca is a noteworthy vocal teacher, widely in demand, from students near and far, that don’t mind traveling to benefit from her instruction. She is also a community activist who has led benefit concerts for numerous charities and causes, is an ardent supporter of “Save School Music,” and a recent advocate of the “Massachusetts Dance Festival.”

Rebecca Parris will be opening for two weekends of dance festivals during the first statewide MDF events, beginning on Saturday August 21^st @ 8:00 pm, at the Boston Ballet top floor performance venue, and the following Saturday, August 28^th, and the Fine Arts Center in Amherst. She will perform a few of her favorite jazz songs, then turn the stage over to 11 professional dance companies for the evening.

Having just attended another spectacular performance by Rebecca last night, I can vouch that our regional icon and “First Lady of Jazz” from Massachusetts, is fully engaging in her playful, serious, sensuous way, that pulls you into an astounding musical experience.

Ticket prices for August 21^st and 28^th are $25.00 at the door, $20.00 in advance. Go to: http://www.massdancefestival.org/tickets.html to order in advance.

Massachusetts Dance Festival 2010 statewide events

Massachusetts Dance Festival’s first annual statewide events, sponsored by the UMass Amherst Department of Music and Dance, will be held August 21^st and 22^nd at Boston Ballet, 19 Clarendon Street, Boston, and August 28^th and 29^th, at UMass Amherst (Totman Building) and The Fine Arts Center, Amherst. 2010 events at both sites include Saturday evening performances by eleven professional dance companies, and Sunday late afternoon performances by eleven emerging dance companies, representing genres of ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary, aerial, multimedia, East Indian, and hip hop/jazz. Each presentation reveals the sheer creative power of dance – the breadth of training and talent across the Commonwealth – of physicality, technical excellence, emotional exuberance, and compelling artistry, that is certain to attract and engage audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

Innovative choreographies of two weekends include: 1) “Marionette,” which questions the notion of “success,” reflecting the “struggle to get ahead in business, financial, and personal lives…driven by relentless social images,” choreographed by Katherine Hooper of BoSoma Dance Company, where athleticism and the “constant energy of phrasing” propels dancers ahead three steps, and back only two; 2) A dramatic selection by Contrapose Dance entitled “Sanitas,” which approaches society’s “recent obsession with cleanliness and staying free of sickness,” plummeting deeply into the human psyche … gripping audiences while challenging dancers through feats of athletic and artistic elocution; 3) Monkeyhouse dancers’ newest creation, “Against the Odds,” which “explores themes of endangerment and stagnancy,” and the enormous effort required to get “unstuck,” using a series of ‘found sound’ recordings of rain and train station buskers; 4) A multi-media celebration of the Connecticut River by Sorvino Dance Project called “Downstream,” where fluid movements are adapted to the power, stillness, and interruptions of the river, against a backdrop of Sam Pettengill’s visual artwork, and a magnetic improvisational and polyrhythmic musical landscape; 5) An energetic and uplifting piece, Mariah Steele’s “Simon & Garfunkel Suite,” which portrays a “desire to celebrate life and the human experience in all its grit and humor, dust and glory… a love of community, awe of our bodies’ vast capabilities … and a deep faith in humanity.”

Additional to dance performances are 40 classes of dance instruction for adults and children in Boston, August 21^st and 22^nd, between the hours of 11:00 am and 5:00 pm on Saturday, and between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm on Sunday. Adult and student classes in Amherst on August 28^th and 29^th begin at 11:00 am and end at 5:00 pm on Saturday, and begin at 11:00 am and end at 3:00 pm on Sunday, culminating in 20 classes over the weekend. That’s a total of 60 dance classes taught by Massachusetts master dancers and teachers, K-12 educators, and industry specialists, covering genres of ballet, jazz, tap, modern, contemporary, African, Cuban Salsa, hip hop, inclusive dance for physically disabled dancers, and a diverse range of innovative children’s dance classes. Specialty workshops on dance photography, managing a successful cultural business, and healthy dancers will also run adjacent to movement classes, offering a full spectrum of activities for all ages and levels of audience participants.

MDF’s Emcee for both Saturday nights is Massachusett’s native and national jazz icon, Rebecca Parris, who will open both performances and sing two of her favorite, popular jazz standards. She is an ardent supporter of music and dance performance and education in Massachusetts, and a tireless promoter of the Massachusetts Dance Festival’s mission:

“… to revitalize dance and arts-related professions by developing partnerships with businesses, corporations, institutions and communities. Massachusetts Dance Festival believes that dance, as a major component of arts and culture, is essential to meaningful lives and healthy communities. Dance and arts education contribute to quality life in the 21^st Century by providing rich education for youth and promoting cultural understanding and tolerance within diverse communities.”

MDF is a registered 501(C) 3 non-profit, with its 2010 summer dance festival supported by: Body Grooves, Boston Dance Alliance, Dancing Arts Center, the Dance Inn, Hot Stepz Magazine, North Shore Dance Alliance, Red Fez Restaurant, and Teddy Shoes. Senator Sonia Chang Diaz, Chair of the Tourism, Arts, and Cultural Development Committee, endorses the Massachusetts Dance Festival.

Tickets are $25.00 and can be purchased in advance or at the door. Discounts are available for Boston Dance Alliance Members, students, senior citizens, and groups of 10 or more. Call: (508) 429-7577 for ticket sales information. You may also pay for tickets in advance, through Pay Pal, at the Massachusetts Dance Festival web site http://massdancefestival.org.

For a full listing of performing artists and adult and student dance classes, go to: http://www.massdancefestival.org/performers.html and http://www.massdancefestival.org/schedule.html.

MDF can help to establish Massachusetts as an important destination for arts, culture and tourism.

Cubist CD Release Concert at Ryles Jazz Club

Lisa Leake

A huge THANK YOU to our friends and colleagues who attended Cubist's CD release concert; the venue was packed, and it was a tremendous success because of you! Here are the first photo's - many more to come. We did not get email addresses for those who are new and want to be on the bandpage, so please, go to:http://www.cubistband.com/guestbook.htm

Jerry Leake's Cubist, Review by John Garelick

http://thephoenix.com/boston/music/100922-pardon-the-interruption/?page=1#TOPCONTENT

Percussionist Jerry Leake calls it Cubist — which also is the name of his new album (on his own Rhombus Publishing label), and which he celebrates at Ryles this Friday. These concepts take in the continuum of the jazz and ethnic-folklore traditions — not just sequential chronology, but also simultaneity: all traditions existing at once, side by side and on top of one another. To that, Leake would also add the varied perspectives of mathematics involved in his encyclopedic knowledge of world rhythms, and the density one associates with Cubist visual art. The album’s subtitle is Shapes of Sound and Time.

That may all sound daunting, but Cubism is, above all, an album of body-moving grooves. Long a valued sideman in town, Leake is best known for his collaborations with Moroccan-dub jammers Club d’Elf and Indo-Afro-jazz fusionists Natraj. He pinpoints Cubism as being halfway between the loose, trippy jams of the former and the tightly composed formalism of the latter.

With its orchestral scope, crystalline transparency, and melodic focus, Cubism sounds like a band, but most tracks are no more than two or three people: Leake playing layers and layers of varied percussion, he and his wife, Lisa, overdubbing vocals, and Randy Roos — who was also Leake’s production partner — playing a small arsenal of guitars.

As Leake describes it, he made repeated trips to Roos’s home studio on Squam Lake in New Hampshire, loading up whatever percussion he’d need for a particular set of tracks — Indian tablas, African balafon, Indonesian gamelan — and adding a new layer with each visit. In many cases, he would mix the flavors of different traditions. “Na Yella Bo” matches a 12/8 African Dagomba rhythm with a 12-beat alegría flamenco cycle; it’s played with, among other things, gung-gong bass drum, cajón, and handclaps. On “Geo,” he shares credit with one of his mentors, the MIT Indian-music scholar George Ruckert, using one of Ruckert’s ginti rhythmic patterns but bringing in turntablist (and fellow Club d’Elfer) Mister Rourke rather than tablas. Leake also asked fellow New England Conservatory faculty member Ken Schaphorst to orchestrate the jazziest of the tunes here, “Smile.”

One of the players from “Smile,” revered reed-and-flute man Stan Strickland, will be part of the Ryles Cubist line-up, which will also include the Leakes, Roos, keyboardist Steve Hunt, bassist Brad Barrett, and drummer Marty Wirt, with another guest from the album, Noam Sender, on ney and vocals.

Intercultural Drum/Dance "Rhythm Bootcamp" Summer 2010

Summer Intercultural Institute: World Rhythm Boot Camp

Jerry Leake, Director and Drummer
Lisa Leake, Dancer, Vocalist
Sunday July 18th-Saturday July 24th
Schedule: Saturdays and Sundays 9am-3:30pm
Weeknights 6pm-9pm

In this intensive workshop, rhythm theory and practice merge using a 3-tiered method of reciting African and Indian drum compositions, playing counter stick patterns and applying basic movement to ground one's musical time. Musicians and teachers will find this a useful entry point into African and Indian Cultures. Sticks, CDs and detailed handouts provided at a minimal cost. On the final evening of the workshop, students will participate in an informal public performance with faculty and guests in a festive envoironment of music, dance and food. The classes are demanding, but prior experience with drumming is not expected or required. Participants include college music faculty, K-12 teachers, committed amateurs, professional performers, students of all ages, jazz musicians and composers.

*This institute qualifies for 28 professional development points.

Tuition:

2 SCE Credits: $1050

Early-bird discount SCE credit tuition: $960
(registered and paid in full by June 7)

Non-credit: $685

Early-bird discount non-credit tuition: $595
(registered and paid in full by June 7)

Weekend pass (Saturday & Sunday): $95

All the above require $35 registration fee.

Evening passes (Monday-Friday): $75 per day (maximum: 3) No registration fee

http://necmusic.edu/continuing-education/summer-session/intercultural-institute

A FREE Booking Site for Musicians: Gigmaven

Check out "The Cubist Band" and BOOK US @ http://www.gigmaven.com/cubistband