Saxophonist Joe Lovano to Join Tribute Concert for Hank Jones
The eminent pianist Hank Jones will be honored by the Office for the Arts and Harvard Jazz Bands from April 7 to 10, 2005. The fete will culminate in a concert by Jones on Sunday, April 10 in Sanders Theatre at 7 pm. In homage to Jones, his long-time collaborator Joe Lovano will also appear. Jones and Lovano most recently recorded together on “I’m All For You” (Blue Note 2004), which The New York Times, Boston Globe, and New Yorker each cited as one of the best ten jazz albums of 2004.
The Hank Jones residency at Harvard is made possible with the support of the Richard J. Scheuer, Jr. Fund and the Office of the President, Harvard University.
Concert tickets are available at the Harvard Box Office by calling 617.496.2222 or on the web at www.fas.harvard.edu/ tickets.
In his first visit to Harvard, Jones will meet with members of the Harvard and Boston-area jazz communities, and participate in a Learning from Performers Program event on April 8.
Hank Jones is a giant in jazz. The Boston Globe recently quoted pianist Kenny Barron in describing Jones’ playing as “understated…a very elegant style. Very clear and logical and pristine.” Born in 1918 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Jones grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, in a legendary musical family that included brothers Thad Jones (cornetist/band leader/composer/arranger) and drummer Elvin Jones. Hank Jones’s earliest influences were pianists Fats Waller, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Art Tatum, and Teddy Wilson. By watching and listening to these artists, he acquired an early understanding of improvisation, a technique he would come
to master.
According to Jones, “When you listen to a pianist, each note should have an identity, each note should have a soul of its own.” For nearly six decades Jones has taken his own words to heart, playing every one of his notes with a unique and deeply personal style. “Hank never repeats himself, and the first melody sends him into a beautiful meditation on the song he’s playing,” says Joe Lovano. “He reharmonizes every chorus.”
A performer by the time he was 13, Hank Jones played in territory bands in Michigan and Ohio. He met Lucky Thompson, who got him a job in the Hot Lips Page Band in 1944. This prompted Jones to move to New York. Always open to new approaches to music, Jones was one of the first pianists to take on the language of bebop. He recorded with Charlie Parker, and fast became an influential presence on the emerging bebop scene. He took jobs with such bandleaders as John Kirby, Coleman Hawkins, Andy Kirk, Billy Eckstine, and Howard McGee. Touring with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic in 1947 led to Jones becoming Ella Fitzgerald’s pianist. He toured with her from 1948 to 1953.
Jones’ versatility enabled him to do freelance work with such artists as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Milt Jackson and Cannonball Adderly as well as becoming staff pianist with CBS from 1959 through 1975, including backing such guests as Frank Sinatra on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” His range and ability also landed him in Broadway pit bands, where he served as pianist and conductor for such shows as Ain’t Misbehavin’.
Jones was the first regular pianist in brother Thad’s orchestra (co-led with Mel Lewis) beginning in 1966. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, he was in demand for record dates and tours, including “The Great Jazz Trio,” a cooperative unit with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams (and later, among many legendary players, Elvin Jones).
“Jones has amassed one of the most formidable yet unheralded leader catalogues in jazz“ (Jazztimes). His dynamic and diverse recordings, many on the Savoy, Verve, and Pablo labels, reinterpret jazz in all of its varieties. He continues today to expand his musical palette, collaborating with a West African group, fusing American jazz with African traditional folk music, and bringing his stunning harmonic sensibility to an array of compositions that Joe Lovano chose for their timeless beauty and melodic fortitude on “I’m All for You” (2004). Jones’s discography includes “The Jazz Trio of Hank Jones” (Savoy, 1955), “The Oracle” (EmArcy, 1989), “Bop Redux” (Muse, 1977), “Lazy Afternoon” (Concord Jazz, 1989), “Upon Reflection” (Verve, 1993), and “Steal Away with Charlie Haden” (Verve, 1994).
In 1989, Hank Jones received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award, America’s highest honor in Jazz.
Joe Lovano, a 2000 Grammy Winner for Best Large Ensemble for “52nd Street Themes” and four-time Grammy nominee (1994-97) is a prodigious contributor to jazz. His fearless ability to challenge conceptual and thematic choices pushes him to new modes of artistic expression. In 2001 Lovano received “Jazz Artist of the Year ” honors for the third time in both Critic’s & Reader’s polls in Down Beat magazine.
His 2004 “I’m All For You: Ballad Songbook,” with long-time collaborators Hank Jones, bassist George Mraz and drummer Paul Motian, was his first “all ballads” recording and has received critical raves. In 2003, he released two Blue Note recordings: ”On This Day…At The Vanguard,” a dynamic live recording by his Grammy-winning Joe Lovano Nonet, and “Oh!” by ScoLoHoFo, a cooperative statement with John Scofield, Dave Holland and Al Foster.
In 2003 Lovano was named Artistic Director at the acclaimed Caramoor Jazz Festival in New York. His DVD/VHS instructional video “Jazz Standards: Solo Interpretations & Expressions” features an intimate recital with the master featured playing a variety of horns on classic tunes.
Lovano attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he met and began playing with such future collaborators as John Scofield, Bill Frisell, and Kenny Werner. At Berklee he discovered modal harmony: “My training was all bebop, and suddenly there were these open forms with deceptive resolutions.” His first job after Berklee was with organist Lonnie Smith, which brought him to New York for his recording debut, and was followed by a stint with Brother Jack McDuff. He toured with the Woody Herman Thundering Herd from 1976 to 1979. He joined the Mel Lewis Orchestra from 1980 to 1992 for its Monday nights at the Village Vanguard, and recorded six albums with Lewis.
Lovano joined the Paul Motian band in 1981 and has worked with John Scofield, Herbie Hancock, Elvin Jones, Hank Jones, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Bobby Hutcherson, Billy Higgins, Dave Holland, Ed Blackwell, Michel Petrucciani, Lee Konitz, Abbey Lincoln, Tom Harrell, McCoy Tyner, Jim Hall, Bob Brookmeyer and many more.
In 1994 Berklee gave Lovano the “Distinguished Alumni Award” and in 1998, an honorary doctorate. In 2001 Berklee installed Lovano as the first “Gary Burton Chair for Jazz Performance.” He continues as professor at the College today.
For more information about the Jazz Program, please contact Director of Bands Tom Everett (617.496.BAND or everett@fas.harvard.edu) or OFA Director of Programs Cathy McCormick (617.495.8676 or Cathleen_McCormick@harvard.edu).
