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“There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.”
-Duke Ellington |
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 Saturday, 20 March 2010 |
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New Orleans Trumpeter Christian Scott Tours the West |
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Written by Ronaldo Oregano
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Monday, 24 November 2008 |
 Christian Scott © Don Berryman
One of the brightest jazz stars to emerge in the last few years, trumpeter Christian Scott will appear with McCoy Tyner on November 25th-26th he plays Anthology in San Diego, before continuing his own tour. On December 2nd-3rd he's at Yoshi’s in Oakland, on the 4th he's at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, on December 5th he's at the Harlan Adams Theater in Chico, and on December 6th he plays the Someday Lounge in Portland, on December 10th he's back in California at Winstons Ocean Beach, and on December 11-13th at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood, then he returns home to New Orleans to play Snug Harbor on December 27th and 28th. He is on tour in support of Live at Newport, a new Concord CD/DVD capturing Christian live at the JVC Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 9th of this year.
Christian Scott is a natural. Still in his early twenties, the trumpeter has both the tone and the conviction of the great players of his instrument. He eschews cliche and gimmickry in favor of an expressive sensibility and a willingness to break rules when it makes musical sense to him. A New Orleans native, Scott represents the next generation of Crescent City horn blowers whose lineage started with the legendary King Oliver and Louis Armstrong and has continued with such marquee trumpeters as Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard and Nicholas Payton.
 Christian Scott
"I set out to find my own style to convey how I feel in my heart. I'm not thinking about how many bebop licks I can play," says Scott, who not only won over crowds in performances back home, but has also made a name for himself on the road playing with his uncle, renowned alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, Jr. That gig started when he was 16. "Donald taught me how important it is to be identifiable. He also warned me not to listen to many of the trumpet players who are playing today so I wouldn't sound like them."
Instead, Scott has developed his own distinctive and compelling trumpet voice: a breathy tone that has more in common with the way Ben Webster played the tenor saxophone than the piercing, clarion call the trumpet usually delivers. "It took me two years of concentration to come up with that tone," says Scott, who got technique pointers from veteran horn player Clark Terry. "Apparently Clifford Brown figured out a way to play the trumpet to get that sound, even though there are no recordings of him doing it. Instead of blowing cold air into the instrument, Clifford squeezed out warm air from his diaphragm that created a more breathy tone. I like it because it makes the trumpet sound like the human voice."
While Scott lists all the great jazz trumpeters’Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, as influences, he singles out Miles Davis as his "main guy." "Miles started out a bopper, but one day he decided to take a different direction and not be so flashy in his playing," Scott says. "He decided to edit himself, to feel what he was thinking. What he doesn't play is just as great as what he does play. I saw a video recently of him playing, and you could see in his face that he was editing each note he played."
When Mos Def and Jill Scott need someone to take their performances to the next level, they call him. When X-Clan wanted to add some heft to their Return From Mecca album, he was the one they reached out to. The man in question is Christian Scott, the acclaimed trumpeter whose textured playing appeals to both respected members of the hip-hop community and to jazz purists.
Tour Dates:
- Nov 25, 8:00P with McCoy Tyner Anthology San Diego, California
- Nov 26, 8:00P with McCoy Tyner Anthology San Diego, California
- Dec 2, 8:00P Yoshi’s Oakland, California
- Dec 3, 8:00P Yoshi’s Oakland, California
- Dec 4, 8:00P Kuumbwa Jazz Center Santa Cruz, California
- Dec 5, 8:00P Harlan Adams Theater Chico, California
- Dec 6, 9:00P Someday Lounge Portland, Oregon
- Dec 10, 8:00P Winstons Ocean Beach Ocean Beach, California
- Dec 11, 8:00P Catalina Bar & Grill Hollywood, California
- Dec 12, 8:00P Catalina Bar & Grill Hollywood, California
- Dec 13, 8:00P Catalina Bar & Grill Hollywood, California
- Dec 27, 8:00P Snugg Harbor New Orleans, Louisiana
- Dec 28, 8:00P Snugg Harbor New Orleans, Louisiana
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