Joe Lovano © Andrea Canter

One of the premiere saxophonists of our time, Joe Lovano is known as much for his inventive compositions and eclectic ensembles as for his power and lyricism on the horn. A back-to-back winner in the Down Beat Critics Poll (Top Tenor, 2003 and 2004), his new big band release, Streams of Expression, features an expanded version of his Grammy-winning nonet. A smaller ensemble featuring virtuoso trumpeter/composer Tom Harrell, master bassist/educator Cameron Brown, and legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb will join Lovano when he returns to Birdland, August 9-12.

Joe Lovano

Joe Lovano has become one of the most celebrated jazz artists of his generation. Growing up in Cleveland, the son of tenor saxophonist Tony “Big T” Lovano studied with his father and absorbed the influences of Sonny Stitt, James Moody, Gene Ammons, Rashaan Roland Kirk, and Dizzy Gillespie, and later the experimental work of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Jimmy Giuffre. After attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Lovano made his recording debut with organ master Lonnie Smith and worked with Jack McDuff before joining Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd. He went on to perform with top big bands and touring artists, winning critics’ polls for performance and releasing a series of acclaimed recordings that garnered many Grammy nominations. He held the first Gary Burton Chair for Jazz Performance at Berklee and currently heads the Caramoor Jazz Festival in upstate New York.

Joe Lovano’s recorded output over the past decade is nothing short of phenomenal, particularly given the wide range of ensemble formats as well as outstanding musicianship. The Joe Lovano Quartets at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1996) was named "Jazz Album of the Year" in the 1996 Down Beat Readers Poll and earned two Grammy nominations. With string quartet, woodwind quintet, voice and rhythm section in arrangements by Manny Albam, Lovano’s Celebrating Sinatra (Blue Note, 1997) followed with another Grammy nomination, and was described by Peter Watrous (New York Times) as “a perfectly balanced piece of work, quiet chamber jazz at its best, with Mr. Lovano's odd phrasing, with its halts and velocity, taking the music somewhere new." Flying Colors (Blue Note, 1998), a duo with virtuoso Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, was awarded four stars by the Los Angeles Times, which noted that “piece reveals yet another perspective on the talent of two extraordinary players, clearly inspired by the setting and each other, creating some of the finest jazz in recent memory."

Next came Trio Fascination: Edition One (Blue Note, 1999) featuring Joe with the incredible rhythm section of drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Dave Holland, prompting the Times of London to comment that "in Joe Lovano…the trio format has found one of its most natural exponents since Sonny Rollins or Joe Henderson...this is state-of-the-art trio jazz." With the follow-up Trio Fascination, Edition Two (Blue Note, 2000), Lovano received his third “Jazz Artist of the Year” honors in both the 2001 Down Beat Critics’ & Reader’s polls.

In 2004, Joe Lovano went in yet another direction with I’m All for You, his first of two recordingswith his long-time collaborators George Mraz and Paul Motian, and featuring keyboard legend Hank Jones. While I’m All for You was an all-ballads recording, the sequel, Joyous Encounter (Blue Note, 2005) was a more diverse program that featured Monk, Coltrane, and Thad Jones’ charts. In a sense this recording is a Jones Family tribute, as Lovano was mentored early in his career in Thad’s bands and collaborated with both Hank, who again is on piano, and the late Elvin Jones, who recorded two tracks on the current playlist, Coltrane’s “Crescent” and Oliver Nelson’s “Six and Four.”

Tom Harrell

Tom Harrel © Howard A. Gitelson

Named top trumpeter three times by the Down Beat Critics Poll, Tom Harrell is one of the most remarkable musicians playing today. He began trumpet studies at age eight, and by thirteen was jamming professionally in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early in his career he toured with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, and Horace Silver, and later worked with Sam Jones, Lee Konitz, George Russell, Mel Lewis and Charlie Haden. In the 1980s he became a standing member of the Phil Woods Quintet, and since the early 90s has largely worked with his own quintets and big bands. His 1999 recording Time’s Mirror won a Grammy nomination. Diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia in his 20s, Harrell’s music has been his longstanding mode of personal expression and his anchor to reality. Noted the Los Angeles Times, Harrell is “a lyricist who illuminates phrases with subtle internal rhymes, Harrell’s soloing captivates both the hearts and the minds of his listeners.”

Cameron Brown

Bassist Cameron Brown first hit the jazz scene with George Russell some 40 years ago, and was also affiliated with Art Blakey, Shelia Jordan, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, and the George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet. In recent years he has frequently appeared with Joe Lovano and heads his own ensemble, Hear and Now. With the latter, Brown finally released his first recording as leader in 2003, Here and How (Omnitone) with special guest and long-standing cohort, Dewey Redman.

Jimmy Cobb

Now in his late 70s, Washington, DC native Jimmy Cobb is the elder statesman of the great Miles Davis bands of the late 50s/early 60s. Also a compatriot of John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, Cobb was a largely self-taught drummer who accompanied the great vocalists, Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, and toured extensively with Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie before joining Miles Davis. He left Davis to work with Wynton Kelly and later Sarah Vaughn. In the past 30 years he worked with a who’s-who of modern jazz, from Sonny Stitt to Ron Carter, George Coleman and Dave Holland among others. He still tours with his own band, Cobb’s Mob.

Birdland is located at 315 W. 44^th Street (between 8^th and 9^th Avenues) in Manhattan; reservations at www.birdlandjazz.com. Joe Lovano will be at the Village Vanguard with Paul Motion and Bill Frisell, September 5-17 (see www.villagevanguard.com)

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