Jazz infuses summer at Skidmore

The Skidmore Jazz Institute has announced its schedule of public concerts for Summer 2015. Performances are as follows:

-Tuesday, June 30, 8 p.m.--Gary Bartz Quartet, featuring Bartz, a Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, James King on bass, and Greg Bandy, drums.

-Thursday, July 2, 8 p.m.--Skidmore Jazz Institute Faculty Septet, featuring Mike Rodriguez (trumpet), Antonio Hart (alto saxophone), Michael Dease (trombone), Bill Cunliffe (piano), Vic Juris (guitar), David Wong (bass) and Dennis Mackrel (drums).

-Friday, July 3, 1 p.m.--Skidmore Jazz Institute participants

-Tuesday, July 7, 8 p.m.--Ben Williams Quintet. Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition Award-winner Williams leads a quintet that includes Victor Gould (piano), John Davis (drums), Marcus Strickland (saxophone) and Matt Stevens (guitar)

-Thursday, July 9, 8 p.m.--Skidmore Jazz Institute Faculty Septet, with Sean Jones (trumpet), Jimmy Greene (tenor saxophone), James Burton III (trombone), Bill Cunliffe (piano), Paul Bollenback (guitar), Doug Weiss (bass), and Dennis Mackrel (drums)

-Friday, July 10, 1 p.m.--Skidmore Jazz Institute participants

All concerts take place in the Arthur Zankel Music Center’s Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall. Tickets are available at www.skidmore.edu/zankel Admission is $8 adults, $5 seniors/Skidmore community, and free for students and children. Jazz Institute Participant concerts are free and open to the public.

Saxophonist Gary Bartz has earned acclaim and played with some of the premier artists in the jazz world during a career that spans nearly 60 years, 40 solo recordings and more than 200 recordings as a guest artist. He is the recipient of a Grammy Award for his work in 2005 on Illuminations with McCoy Tyner.

Baltimore native Bartz traveled to New York City in 1958 at the age of 17 to attend Juilliard. By the 1960s he was performing throughout the city with the Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln group as an alto saxophonist and earning favorable comparisons to Cannonball Adderley. He soon joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and later played with the Charles Mingus Workshop, McCoy Tyner and Miles Davis.

He also formed his own group – the NTU Troop ensemble. Bartz’s many recordings include Live at the Jazz Standard, Vol. 1 1999, OYO Recordings; Live at the Jazz Standard Vol. 2, 2005, OYO Recordings; Soprano Stories, 2005, OYO Recordings; Soulfinger, with Art Blakey; Expansions and Extensions, with McCoy Tyner; Another Earth; West 42nd Street; The Red and Orange Poems. His latest CD is Coltrane Rules (Tao of a Music Warrior), released in 2012 on OYO.

Although performing is a key focus of his long career, Bartz also teaches at Oberlin University, where he is a professor of jazz saxophone.

Ben Williams’s musical expertise is especially broad, given his youth. The 30-year-old is an acclaimed bassist, bandleader, educator and composer who has performed with such jazz greats as Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Terence Blanchard, and Stefon Harris, among others.

The Washington, D.C., native is a graduate of Duke Ellington School of Music who earned a B.A. in jazz studies at Michigan State University and a master of music degree in jazz studies from the Juilliard School. He won the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition and was named the DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll Rising Star for Bass in 2013. His debut solo recording, State of Art, was released in 2011 on the Concord Records label. His sophomore recording on the same label has just been released. Titled Coming of Age, the album features ’70s fusion and R&B influences and guest appearances from trumpeter Christian Scott and vocalist Goapele.

Skidmore’s Jazz Institute, celebrating its 28th anniversary this summer, is under the direction of Todd Coolman, who leads a faculty of gifted educators and world-class performers from around the country.

This year 65 students are enrolled in the two-week institute, scheduled June 27 to July 11. Students work closely with faculty in daily combo rehearsals, private lessons and improvisational and special classes. The institute’s Faculty Septet performs in the popular concert series along with invited guest artists. The student combos perform on Friday afternoons, and on the weekend the students attend the Freihofer's Jazz Festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Two institute alumni will soon have a national evening audience. Jonathan Batiste, who attended in 2004 and returned as a guest artist four years later, has been named bandleader for the Colbert Late Show, to debut this fall. Joe Saylor, the drummer in Batiste’s band, is also institute alum. These are just the latest institute alumni to have successfully pursued jazz-related careers in the areas of performance, teaching, and business. Others include Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Richie Barshay, Jonathan Batiste, Ryan Cohan, Brandon Lee, Christian Scott, Kendrick Scott, Walter Smith and Myron Walden. (Click here for Colbert show details: http://www.colbertlateshow.com/video/B35E8490-70A8-7A2D-BC25-BF7D09C8FA96/introducing-a-new-friend )

Todd Coolman is director of Skidmore’s Jazz Institute. The program is supported by Blue Note Label Group, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Howard Bayne Fund, the Fairfield County Community Foundation, the Arthur Zimtbaum Foundation, and Northshire Bookstore.