Photo by Andrea Cante

This is the first in a series of profiles of the artists who will perform at the 2005 Twin Cities Hot Summer Jazz Festival.

The annual Twin Cities Hot Summer Jazz Festival is only a month away! The area’s biggest (and mostly free) gathering of national and local jazz artists runs from June 17-26 at multiple venues throughout the Twin Cities Metro area, with concentrated activities in downtown St. Paul on opening weekend (Saturday, June 17 at Mears Park) and in downtown Minneapolis, June 23-26 (Peavy Plaza and several nearby sites along Nicollet Mall). Central to the urban venues will be three of the hottest and boppin-est saxophonists working today—Charles McPherson (June 17-18 at the Artists Quarter, June 18 at Mears Park); Benny Golson (June 25 at Peavy Plaza); and Jerry Weldon (June 23 at the Dakota; June 24 at Peavy Plaza, June 25 clinic in the McPhail tent).

At 65, altoist Charles McPherson has been the keeper of the bop flame for nearly half a century. A native of Joplin, MO, McPherson moved with his family to Detroit at age 9, starting trumpet at age 12 when the school band ran out of saxophones. About a year later, he switched to alto, and was hooked on bop when he first heard Charlie Parker’s “Tico Tico.” Detroit’s famed Bluebird Club gave young McPherson the opportunity to hear many of the great bop artists of the 50s, including Barry Harris, Paul Chambers, Thad Jones, and Pepper Adams. He soon formed a bop band at his high school and sat in at the Bluebird where Harris became his mentor. McPherson launched his professional career at age 19, and moved from Detroit to New York in 1959. He was part of Charles Mingus’ bands from 1960-72, and collaborated frequently with Harris, Lonnie Hillyer (trumpet), and George Coleman (tenor sax). Although heavily influenced by Charlie Parker, McPherson was encouraged by Mingus to find his own voice.

McPherson recorded with Mingus and Harris, later issuing a series of recordings with his own groups, including an acclaimed series for Prestige with Cedar Walton. Despite the attention surrounding the avant garde movement of the 1960s, McPherson did not follow the direction of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, remaining true to his bop roots throughout his career. Noted McPherson in a recent Jazz Times interview, "I wonder what the world would be like if artists did what they really wanted, with no regard for money. I have, and you pay a price for that."

In the 1980s, he was known for his planned approach to collective improvisation, demonstrated particularly on his recording, The Prophet (1983). McPherson performed and/or recorded with Eric Dolphy, Eddie Jefferson, Art Farmer, Kenny Drew, Toshiko Akiyoshi, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis; in the Clint Eastwood Film tribute to Charlie Parker (Bird), he played the role of his idol. Noted Stanley Crouch (New York Times), “He is a singular voice who has never sacrificed the fluidity of his melody making, and is held in high esteem by musicians both long seasoned and young."

Today, McPherson lives in San Diego and is blowing as strongly as ever, combining passion with intricate improvisations. He doesn’t just carry the torch for bop, he takes the idiom beyond its origins. Notes George Varga (Jazz Times), “Appropriately, McPherson's music is a felicitous blend of urbane sophistication and youthful passion that combines fire and finesse in equal measure.” Charles McPherson will perform on the Mears Park Stage in Lowertown St. Paul on June 18^th from 6:00-7:15 pm (free); he will also play at the Artists Quarter a few blocks away on both Friday and Saturday, June 17-18, at 9 pm.

Known worldwide, not only as a virtuoso tenor player, Benny Golson has impeccable credentials as a composer, arranger, lyricist, producer, and educator as well. A native of Philadelphia, Golson studied piano, organ, clarinet, and tenor sax as a child. In an All About Jazz interview, Golson recalled, “I started out wanting to be a pianist and as I got into it I fancied that I wanted to be a concert pianist. That got a few chuckles in the ghetto, you know. But at 14, I heard the saxophone and my first influence was Arnett Cobb. I went to the theatre one day and I heard him play “Flying Home” and that changed my life. Then after that, of course, it was Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, and then John Coltrane and I went through the ranks together.” With fellow Philly native Coltrane, Golson played weekends with a local band (“Jimmy Johnson and His Ambassadors”) while still in high school, earning eight dollars per performance.

After attending Howard University in the late 1940s, Golson worked in Bull Moose Jackson's band. He then played with Tadd Dameron, an affiliation that would have considerable impact on Golson’s approach to composition (“I was amazed at what he could do with a small number of instruments...”). After working with Lionel Hampton (1953) and Earl Bostic (1954-56), Golson joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band, building his reputation with his compositions "Stablemates," "Whisper Not," and "I Remember Clifford,” the first of many that became jazz standards. With Gillespie, Golson also developed a solo style inspired by Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins.

In the late 1950s, Golson was a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and then the Art Farmer Jazztet, with both ensembles providing fertile ground for his compositions. From the late 1960s, he composed film and television scores, composed commissioned works for major studios, and continued his freelance performing and composing. Golson has written over 300 compositions and has recorded over 30 albums for a number of labels in the United States and Europe, under his own name and as sideman to numerous artists. He has arranged for a long list of well-known jazz performers, including Count Basie, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Shirley Horn, Oscar Peterson, Peggy Lee, Carmen McRae, and Mel Tormé; he has also arranged for popular artists including The Animals, Diana Ross, and Micky Rooney, and violin virtuoso, Itzak Perlman. His television scores include MASH, Mannix, and Mission Impossible, as well as numerous special broadcasts for American productions and the BBC. As an educator, Golson has lectured at the Lincoln Center through a special series by Wynton Marsalis as well as at numerous universities, and has conducted clinics and workshops for music students all over the world. He received the 1996 American Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2001, was honored at the Lincoln Center with a concert entitled, "The Magic of Benny Golson."

Now 75, Golson is hardly taking it easy, having completed a commissioned “Three Piano Composition” for Chicago’s 2004 Ravinia Festival and an orchestral work for the 100^th Anniversary of the Julliard School of Music. His most recent release, The Terminal (Concord, 2004), was noted to be as “expressive and buoyant as anything Golson was doing with Blakey’s Jazz Messengers’ lineup fifty years ago” (E.J. Iannelli, All About Jazz), and featured his current working quartet of Mike LaDonne (p), Carl Allen (d), and Buster Williams (b), as well as trumpeter and frequent collaborator, Eddie Henderson. Notes Bob McCullough of the Boston Globe, "Virtually every solo by Golson is a textbook tour de force.” Benny Golson closes out the night on the Mercedes Benz mainstage on Peavy Plaza on Saturday, June 25^th, 9:15-10:30 pm.

Photo by Andrea Canter

In addition to his own bands, Weldon has appeared regularly with the Harry Connick Big Band, organists Jimmy McGriff, Mel Rhyne, and Lonnie Smith, trombone great Al Grey, singer Mel Torme, guitarist George Benson, bassist Keter Betts, and the New York Hard Bop Quintet. As he amply demonstrated with the Heatin’ System, Weldon has a big soulful “tough tenor” sound, a wide bop vocabulary, and enough energy to ignite any ensemble. Weldon plays at the Dakota on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis on Thursday, June 23^rd (9 pm), and again on the Mercedez Benz main stage on Peavy Plaza on Friday, June 24, 7:15-8:30 pm (free). He’ll conduct an open clinic in the McPhail tent outside the Millennium Hotel on Nicollet Mall, 3-4 pm on Saturday, June 25^th.

More Sax?

If more sax is what you crave, the Hot Summer Jazz Festival has more: New York sax/composer/arranger Andy Farber will be on stage at the Dakota on June 20th (7 pm). Son of a professional drummer, Farber heard Art Blakey, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker growing up, and as a youngster studied clarinet, saxophone and oboe. Still in his teens, he played with Branford Marsalis, Randy Brecker and Steve Turre, and attended the Manhattan School of Music. In 1993, he became a part of the Jon Hendricks Explosion as Music Director, saxophonist and arranger. Farber went on to join Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra before moving into his freelance career as composer, arranger, and conductor for such artists as Shirley Horn, Bobby Short, Ann Hampton Calloway, Frankie Laine, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Vanessa Williams, and Roseanna Vitro. Last fall, he completed an arrangement of Body & Soul for saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra which premiered at the Jazz@Lincoln Center opening gala in October 2004.

Seventeen-year-old alto sensation Alex Han (Saturday, June 25th on Peavy Plaza, 7:30-8:45 pm) won the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition for Saxophone last month and will play with the 2005 Monterey Jazz Festival Next Generation Orchestra. He's already debuted at the Blue Note in New York. Local sax virtuoso Doug Little and his Seven Steps to Havana will be on stage at Peavy Plaza to close out Thursday night (June 23, 9:15 pm) with rich Cuban grooves; smooth saxman Dan Kusz performs at Peavy Plaza Friday afternoon (June 24, 4:00-5:00 pm); and the baritone sax is well represented as well, with Dave Karr and Mulligan Stew on the Dain Rauscher Stage at 10th and Nicollet Mall on Saturday (June 25, 1:45- 3:00 pm), and Kathy Jensen (bari and alto) on Peavy Plaza on Sunday afternoon (June 26, 2:00-3:15 pm).

The Twin Cities Hot Summer Jazz Festival is the biggest jazz event of the year. Venues are located across the two downtowns and in suburban locations. “Jazz Night Out” in support of the Habitat for Humanity and Project Pride in Living will again take place on Thursday, June 23^rd, with free shuttle service to more than a dozen Minneapolis venues. For full schedule and other information, visit the festival website at www.hotsummerjazz.com. Watch Jazz Police for additional Festival Profiles over the next few weeks!