PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL
Presented by Citizens®
SEPTEMBER 14-17, 2023
featuring
Gregory Porter • Ledisi • Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis •
Kurt Elling/Charlie Hunter • Somi • José James • Orrin Evans • Spanish Harlem Orchestra •
Keyon Harrold • Emmet Cohen/Houston Person •
PJ Morton • Nicholas Payton • Samara Pinderhughes• Madison McFerrin • Chelsea Baratz •
And Much More
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Pianist Orrin Evans will perform at Highmark Stadium, and is also the host of the inaugural Jazz Train, which picks up fans at Amtrak stations in New York, Newark, and Philadelphia before arriving in Pittsburgh on September 14. The package, available until July 5, will include round-trip train tickets from each city, live jazz music during the trip, and more. Passengers are responsible for securing the hotel and festival events of their choice. Learn more here.
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Named for the Swahili word that translates to “freedom,” the Uhuru Jazz Series pays homage to jazz as the embodiment of freedom, improvisation, discovery, liberation, and promise. Supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, kicking off the start of the 13th Annual Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival the Uhuru Jazz Session features Samora Pinderhughes and Madison McFerrin on Sept 14.
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PIJF is pleased to present Ledisi in concert in the intimate theatre setting at the AWAACC at 8PM on Friday. Admission for Ledisi includes A Taste of Jazz which starts at 9PM and includes dancing, food and beverage tastings, with music featuring Jonathan Barber and DJ Selecta.
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Saturday, Sept 16 at Highmark Stadium – Gates open at 1:00PM:
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Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and Friends
Five-time Grammy Award winners Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis are world renowned songwriters, record producers, musicians, entrepreneurs, and the most influential and successful songwriting & production duo in modern music history. For over 40 years Jam & Lewis’ accomplishments have elevated them to iconic status within the music industry.
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PJ Morton
I’m being more honest, more authentic, more open than I’ve been in the past,” says PJ Morton. “Sometimes even some discomfort. As much as people know about me, I’m pretty private about specifics, but these were some real things going on in my life. So it manifested with lyrics that pushed myself—not just going with the first thing or the thing that felt good, but making sure that I challenged myself to go deeper.”
With his new album, Watch The Sun, the singer/songwriter/producer continues a spectacular run of genre-blurring releases, and extends his considerable ambitions even further. In addition to earning four consecutive years of Grammy wins—Best Traditional R&B Performance in 2019, Best R&B Song in 2020, Best Gospel Album in 2021 and Album Of The Year in 2022 (for his contributions to Jon Batiste’s We Are) —Morton has topped charts and received nods for numerous BET, Soul Train, and NAACP Image Awards honoring the six albums he has put out since his breakthrough, Gumbo, in 2017. And all of this comes in addition to touring with Maroon 5 and running his own label.
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Orrin Evans
For more than two decades, Yamaha pianist Orrin Evans has made an art form of the unexpected. With more than 25 albums to his credit without ever relying on the support of a major label, Evans has become the model of a fiercely independent artist who’s made a habit of rattling the jazz world’s confining cages.
As a daring pianist, Evans combines raw-edged vigor and left-field nuance into a sound wholly his own. As an adventurous composer he traverses stylistic boundaries with abandon, drawing on full-throttle swing, deep rooted blues, expressive soul or bracing excursions into the avant-garde. As an audacious bandleader, he delights in daring fellow musicians to take bold risks, whether in mutable small group settings or his raucous Captain Black Big Band. As an inventive collaborator, his projects range from the nerve-rattling collective trio Tarbaby, to the guitar/piano duo project Eubanks-Evans-Experience, and Brazilian project Terreno Comum.
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Spanish Harlem Orchestra
Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the three-time Grammy® winning Salsa and Latin Jazz band, sets the gold standard for excellence in authentic, New York style, hard core salsa. Whether in a concert hall or at an outdoor jazz festival, there is no easing you in, they come at you full force, from start to finish. Their energy on stage and their rich sound and musical precision leave audiences mesmerized until the last note is played. With an unwavering respect for the music’s storied history, the ensemble’s thirteen world-class musicians and vocalists come together to create an unparalleled musical experience.
Now celebrating 20 years of excellence, SHO, as they are known to fans, is dedicated to the sounds of the barrio (Spanish Harlem, NYC). Their music is characterized by the raw, organic and vintage sound defined by the genre. They are on a mission to keep the musical legacy of salsa dura (hard salsa) alive and expand its audience to those who love great music, not just Latin music. Grounded in the past, while focused on the future, they strive to keep the music relevant, creating a unique and fresh approach.
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Emmet Cohen and Houston Person
Multifaceted American jazz pianist and composer Emmet Cohen is one of his generation’s pivotal figures in music and the related arts. Leader of the Emmet Cohen Trio and creator of the Masters Legacy Series, he is an internationally acclaimed jazz artist, a dedicated educator, the winner of the 2019 American Pianists Awards, and a finalist in the 2011 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition. Cohen’s entrepreneurial energies led to his developing “Live From Emmet’s Place,” a live-streamed “Harlem rent party” that unites a worldwide audience via tens of millions of internet views.
Joining Emmet, will the great tenor saxophonist Houston Person, who has built his reputation as a leader with a series of soulful recordings for Prestige in the 60s. However, for a large part of his career he was best-known for his legendary partnership with the great vocalist, Etta Jones, which lasted over 30 years until her death in 2001. Recently he has performed with vocalist Barbara Morrison, the great Ernie Andrews and in the past has worked with Ernestine Anderson, Della Griffin and Dakota Staton.
Houston’s appearances as sideman are legion, and include recordings with Etta Jones, Lena Horne, Lou Rawls, Dakota Staton, Horace Silver, Charles Earland, Joey DeFrancesco, and many others. As a record producer, he has worked with many artists, including Etta Jones, Freddy Cole, Charles Brown, David ‘Fathead’ Newman, Dakota Staton, and Ernie Andrews. In 1990, his recording with Ron Carter, “Something in Common” (Muse), won the Independent Jazz Record of the Year Award, and he received an Indie Award for his recording, “Why Not?” (Muse). Other awards have included the prestigious Eubie Blake Jazz Award (1982) and the Fred Hampton Scholarship Fund Image Award (1993).
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Sunday, Sept 17 at Highmark Stadium – Gates open at 1PM:
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Gregory Porter
We’d tell you Gregory Porter is back, but you probably already knew. You probably felt the earth rumbling, announcing the man’s bone-deep baritone, or you felt the air change as the warmth of his sound filled the atmosphere like a hug from above. That’s because All Rise, his sixth studio album, marks a return to Porter’s beloved original songwriting — heart-on-sleeve lyrics imbued with everyday philosophy and real-life detail, set to a stirring mix of jazz, soul, blues, and gospel. Produced by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sandé), the set also represents the evolution of Porter’s art to something even more emphatic, emotive, intimate, and universal too. After 2017’s Nat King Cole & Me, Porter knew two things: one, he’d bring in an orchestra for his next LP (check), and, two, music is medicine. In the spirit of that latter revelation, All Rise brims with songs about irrepressible love, plus a little protest, because the road to healing is bumpy.
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Kurt Elling/Charlie Hunter
Renowned for his singular combination of robust swing and poetic insight, two-time GRAMMY winner Kurt Elling has secured his place among the world’s foremost jazz vocalists. The New York Times proclaimed Elling, “the standout male vocalist of our time”. Over a twenty-five year career of touring and recording, Elling has won three Prix du Jazz Vocal (France), two German Echo Awards, two Dutch Edison Awards, and has been nominated for a GRAMMY award fifteen times. He has had a 14-year run atop the DownBeat Critics and Readers polls, and has won twelve Jazz Journalists Awards for “Male Vocalist of the Year.”
A native of Rhode Island, Charlie Hunter was around guitars at an early age because his mother repaired them for a living. He and his mother and sister lived for several years on a commune in Mendocino County, California, then settled in Berkeley. Hunter attended Berkeley High School and took lessons from rock guitarist Joe Satriani. At eighteen he moved to Paris. He has stated that busking in Paris gave him on the job training. Returning to San Francisco, he played seven-string guitar and organ in Michael Franti’s political rap group, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. In 1992, they were one of the opening acts for U2’s Zoo TV Tour.
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José James
You’d be forgiven for previously assuming that José James was a man with something to prove. There was that decade he spent reshaping jazz with the genre-blurring verve of a crate-digging beat guru. And that time he declared his jazz career was over, ditched the bands, and became a solo R&B star. And then there were the last couple years he spent living in Bill Withers’ shoes — recording and touring that legendary songbook for the Lean On Me project, a feat as brazen as they come. Now, well, it’s not that James is out of mountains to climb, but sometimes you gotta stop to consider the one you’ve already got under your feet. Thus, the satin-voiced songwriter’s latest is No Beginning No End 2, a sequel to his 2013 album that resurrects the bold eclecticism we first fell in love with, while taking us on a journey through both celebration and introspection.
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Keyon Harrold and Friends
Award-winning trumpeter, vocalist, songwriter, and producer Keyon Harrold will be touring in support of a new recording on the Concord label, scheduled for release in the Spring of 2023. This is an outstanding cross over album with vocal contributions from British R&B singer Laura Mvula, and GRAMMY winning musician, producer, and singer-songwriter PJ Morton.
Keyon Harrold first came into the International spotlight for his work as the trumpet voice behind the Grammy winning Don Cheadle film “Miles Ahead”, and his critically acclaimed album, “The Musician”, (Sony Legacy / Mass Appeal). As a bandleader, he has created a compelling new statement with a riveting mix of jazz, Afrobeat, soul, spoken word, hip-hop, blues, rock and even American folk. As a soloist, his distinctly warm trumpet sound simmers in the middle register; creating drama without aggrandizing, and mesmerizing live audiences with an emotionally charged concert presentation. Wynton Marsalis has stated “Keyon Harrold is the future of the trumpet.”
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Nicholas Payton
As a leading voice in American popular music, the Grammy Award-winning Nicholas Payton is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, essayist, and social activist who defies musical and artistic categories. All the while, he honors the tradition of what he terms “postmodern New Orleans music,” as well as the spirit of Black American Music, of which he states, “There are no fields, per se. There are lineages.”
The New Orleans-born Payton has followed his calling since growing up under the tutelage of his parents — acclaimed bassist Walter Payton and Maria Payton, a pianist and vocalist. Already a prodigy before entering the first grade, he began playing trumpet at age four and started performing professionally at age 10. Before the age of 20, he was already in demand by everyone from Danny Barker and Clark Terry to Elvin Jones and Marcus Roberts. Payton released his first album, From this Moment, in 1995 on the famed Verve label. He received his first Grammy nomination in 1997 for the album Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton, and for the category of Best Instrumental Solo, which found him winning the award that year.
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Somi
Vocalist, composer, and playwright Somi Kakoma was raised between Illinois and Zambia, and is the daughter of immigrants from Uganda and Rwanda. Known in the jazz world simply as ‘Somi’, The New York Times recently described her as “a virtuosic performer in full command of her instrument and powers.” In March 2022, Somi released her 5th studio album Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba, all-star tribute album honoring the great South African artist and activist in commemoration of what would have been the late singer’s 90th birthday. The album won an inaugural Jazz Music Award for Best Vocal Performance. As a companion project to the album, Somi also wrote and stars in the critically-acclaimed original musical about Makeba called “Dreaming Zenzile” that toured nationally and Off-Broadway last season. Prior to the Zenzile album, Somi released an unplanned live album called ‘Holy Room’ featuring the Frankfurt Radio Big Band at the height of the 2020 global lockdown. The album ultimately earned her a 2021 Grammy® nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, making her the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammy® jazz categories. The album also won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Vocal Album. Her previous studio album Petite Afrique, which also won an NAACP Image Award, tells the story of the vibrant African immigrant community in midst of a rapidly gentrifying Harlem in New York City and was the highly anticipated follow-up to Somi’s major label debut, The Lagos Music Salon.
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Chelsea Baratz
Described by Urban Music Scene as “consummate, thoughtful and prodigious”, saxophonist Chelsea Baratz wields formidable genre-defying sensibilities and songwriting chops that cut at the knees of convention. The music chose the Pittsburgh born-and- raised saxophonist at an early age; out of that Steel City creative fire came an amalgam of influences that molded her signature versatility and musical sensitivities. Chelsea was educated by the elites of modern Pittsburgh jazz royalty, which included Roger Humphries, Dwayne Dolphin, and Sean Jones.
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