|
“Wallace Roney may be the only trumpeter around making improvised music sound current in modern times. ” Antonio Aday – Jazz Improv Magazine  Wallace Roney © Andrea Canter The Wallace Roney Quintet will appear at the Iridium in New York on Thursday, July 30th through Sunday, August 2nd. In addition to Roney on Trumpet, the quintet includes Antoine Roney on Tenor, Soprano Saxophones & Bass Clarinet; Rashaan Carter on Bass, Aruan Ortiz on Keyboards; and Kush Abadey on Drums. Wallace Roney, who much like his mentor Miles Davis, is a highly skilled, expressive performer and an active force in the evolution of jazz. While being one of the most accomplished and acclaimed trumpeters in jazz today, Roney remains one of today's most misunderstood jazz masters. .
Roney rose to national prominence in the 1980's as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, earning favorable notice as a young lion with impressive technique in the Clifford Brown-Lee Morgan-Freddie Hubbard tradition. By the middle of the decade Roney was holding down a difficult dual membership with both the Messengers and Tony Williams' Quintet. Soon he began to display a more thoughtful and spacious approach to sound and improvisation -- one that nodded in the direction of Miles Davis, who by that time had befriended the young trumpeter
“I feel that my music is always a tribute to Miles because my music definitely has Miles’ stamp. He was like my father and I never ran from his influence.” -- Wallace Roney In 1991, at Davis' request, Roney played side-by-side with his mentor at the Montreux Jazz Festival, performing Gil Evans' classic arrangements from Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess with the Quincy Jones-George Gruntz Orchestras. Wallace's immersion into the Davis canon and ten years of study with Miles had an understandably profound effect on his approach to music one that perfectly suited his own forward-looking artistic vision. On his Warner Brothers debut cd Misteriosos, the eerie resemblance of the sound of Roney's trumpet to that of Davis caused much of the jazz press, who were superficially focused on the trumpeter's tone while overlooking his very personal choice of notes, to misguidedly label him a Davis clone. Born in Philadelphia, May 25, 1960, the young trumpeter's special musical gift was first recognized at the age of six by Sigmund Hering, the first trumpet chair of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra with whom Wallace would later study. When police brutality and gang violence threatened his Philly neighborhood, Roney was sent him to live in Washington, DC, where he attended the prestigious Duke Ellington School for the Arts, while playing professionally with his own group. He went on to study further at Howard University, where he met his future wife, pianist Geri Allen, and Berklee College of Music in Boston, a prime incubator of the burgeoning neobop movement. Moving on to New York, he paid heavy dues before eventually joining Blakey and then Williams.
Wallace would go on to share bandstands and recording studios with many of the giants of jazz, including Kenny Barron, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Randy Weston and Chick Corea, in addition to Miles. Since the beginning of nineties it has been as the leader of his own bands that the trumpeter made his most consistently rewarding music. His excellent early efforts on Muse introduced the world to Roney's skill as composer and bandleader, while also ntroducing such important young talents as Christian McBride and Jack Terrason.
- The Iridium in New York on Thursday, March 26th trhough Sunday, March 29th. The Iridium is located at 1650 Broadway (at 51st Street); Visit www.iridiumjazzclub.com for ticket information.
|
New York 
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Home | New and Notable | Photo Galleries | CD/DVD/Book Reviews | Interviews | SF Bay Area | Chicago | Los Angeles | New York | Twin Cities, MN | More Cities | Festivals | News | Contact | Follow Jazz Police on Twitter | 
