Portland Jazz Festival 2011 Announced

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African American, Don Byron, Esperanza Spalding, Joshua Redman, Portland Jazz Festival 2011 Announced, Randy Weston, Regina Carter

Portland Jazz Festival 2011

SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE, REGINA CARTER, DON BYRON,
THE 3 COHENS, RANDY WESTON, JOSHUA REDMAN,
AND ESPERANZA SPALDING
TO HEADLINE THE 2011 PORTLAND JAZZ FESTIVAL

BRIDGES AND BOUNDARIES:
JEWISH & AFRICAN AMERICANS PLAYING JAZZ TOGETHER

The 2011 Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Portland Jazz Festival presented by US Bank will be held Friday, February 18 through Sunday, February 27 at venues throughout Portland. The week-long festival will include jazz education and outreach along with a series of concerts all supporting the 2011 theme, Bridges and Boundaries: Jewish & African Americans Playing Jazz Together.

Among this year’s headliners are the SFJAZZ Collective, in the world premiere of new repertoire paying homage to African American pop icon Stevie Wonder; NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston, performing solo piano in support of his new release, The Storyteller, and autobiography, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston; celebrated clarinetist Don Byron and his new project dedicated to the great Jewish entertainer, Mickey Katz – a reunion of the groundbreaking and virtuosic klezmer ensemble that recorded Byron’s eponymous Nonesuch album and spearheaded the klezmer revival in the 1990s; a special performance by The 3 Cohens, featuring siblings, trumpeter Avishai Cohen, saxophonist/clarinetist Anat Cohen, and pianist Yuval Cohen; famed African American violinist Regina Carter will return to Portland, presenting her newest project, Reverse Thread, which traces the musical history of African cultures, including tribes of Ugandan Jews; saxophonist Joshua Redman – son of African American saxophonist Dewey Redman and Jewish American dancer Renee Shedroff – leading his new project, James Farm, that includes both African American and Jewish American musicians; and the Portland Jazz Festival’s new Artistic & Community Ambassador, bassist Esperanza Spalding (who will lead her new Chamber Music Society in an exclusive Portland area engagement).