Jazz Legends

The Jazz Evensong Quintet continues its tradition of kicking off a new season with a celebration of traditional jazz. New Orleans is widely considered the birthplace of jazz music, and this style is still universally admired and practiced throughout the world. Devotees of such artists as Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke and many others, are still inspired to emulate their accomplishments in this style to this day. Such groups as Tuba Skinny, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the Rebirth Brass Band are testament to the vitality of this music.

Music is an integral part of any Christmas celebration and over the years, jazz musicians and popular songwriters have contributed their art to celebrate the season. The repertoire includes traditional carols done up in jazz style as well as Great American Songbook tunes written especially for the season of light. At St. Michael’s by-the-Sea on December 14th, our Jazz Family Christmas event includes a special performance of the Jazz Evensong Quintet with the string orchestra of the Renaissance Institute of Music.

Pianist McCoy Tyner ( born December 11, 1938) is perhaps best remembered for his association as the youngest member of the John Coltrane Quartet, but his long career as a band leader in his own right eclipses even that of his association with the legendary saxophonist. He was an NEA Jazz Master and five-time Grammy winner and recorded over eight albums as a leader, and many more as a sideman. He was one of the most influential jazz pianists of all time, and his many compositions have been recorded by numerous other artists.

Pianist Dave Brubeck (born December 6, 1920) and saxophonist Paul Desmond (born November 25, 1924), along with bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello, formed one of the most popular jazz quartets ever assembled. They were responsible for over 60 albums, and Desmond’s composition “Take Five” became the biggest selling jazz single of all time and an unlikely hit on pop charts as well. The group became well known for its innovative, complex compositions and use of unusual time signatures.

While often overshadowed by his association with his longtime employer and collaborator Duke Ellington, composer/arranger and pianist Billy Strayhorn (born November 29, 1915) was no less a genius in his own right. In a life cut short by cancer at the age of 51, he produced a huge catalog of original music, all of it bearing his unique harmonic and melodic stamp. In his autobiography and in a spoken word passage in his Second Sacred Concert, Ellington listed what he considered Strayhorn's "four major moral freedoms": freedom from hate, unconditionally, freedom from self-pity (even through all the pain and bad news), freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might possibly help another more than it might himself, and freedom from the kind of pride that might make a man think that he was better than his brother or his neighbor.

Jazz pianist Fred Hersch wrote of Strayhorn: "He was a quadruple threat: a great composer of jazz tunes, a first-rate jazz pianist, a remarkable songwriter (music and lyrics), and one of the all-time great arrangers for jazz orchestra."