The 7th Annual New Mexico Jazz Festival | July 13th – 29th, 2012

Jazz
music takes center stage in New Mexico during the last two weeks of
July 2012 in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. It’s time again for the New
Mexico Jazz Festival which kicks off a two week run of concerts at six
different venues, three in Santa Fe and three in Albuquerque, from July
13th to July 29th.

The performance dates with scheduled performers for the 2012 New Mexico Jazz Festival is as follows:

Stephane Wrembel – 8 p.m., Friday, July 13, 2012
The Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale Blvd. SE: 2 blocks south of Central
Albuquerque, New Mexico – Tickets $25/$20

French-born
guitarist and composer Stephane Wrembel, who learned his craft from the
Roma musicians at campsites in the French countryside, is a virtuoso
who has truly begun to make his mark as one of the most original guitar
voices in contemporary music. Now based in Brooklyn, Wremble built his
reputation as a stylist in the mode of Django Reinhardt, but now revels
in transcending and expanding his craft to include myriad influences,
touching on everything from blues to flamenco to rock.

Leni Stern & The Masters of African Percussion – 5 to 7 p.m., Saturday, July 14, 2012
Old Town Plaza – Old Town is located between Mountain Rd. and Central Ave, south of I-40 off of the Rio Grande Blvd exit
Albuquerque, New Mexico – This is a free concert.

Leni
Stern, has won five consecutive Gibson Female Jazz Guitarist of the
Year awards and has always defied expectations. An expert
instrumentalist, she is also a singer-songwriter who has much to share
from her travels throughout the world. She has released several CDs,
including her 2007 release, Alu Maye (Have you heard) which juxtaposes
her trademark inventive guitar and vocal explorations with the
indigenous sounds of accomplished African instrumentalists and singers.
She will be joined by her band which features Kofo, talking drum
(Nigeria); Baba Kebe, talking drum (Nigeria); Alioune Faye, jembe and
sabar (Senegal); Teymur Phell, upright bass (Azerbadjian); Leni Stern,
guitar, n’goni, percussion and vocals.

Paul Slaughter: Portraits of Jazz 1969-2012 – 2 p.m., Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale Blvd. SE: 2 blocks south of Central
Albuquerque, New Mexico – This is a free event

Inpost
Artspace Reception: Paul Slaughter: Portraits of Jazz 1969-2012. Santa
Fe based photographer, Paul Slaughter celebrates his recently published
jazz photo book with an exhibit at the Inpost Artspace. Slaughter has
been taking photographs of jazz greats for many years and has compiled a
treasure trove of photos. The exhibit runs from July 11-August 31.

Busy McCarrol & The Ambassadors of Pleasure and the Doug Lawrence Organ Trio – 6 to 9 p.m., Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Santa Fe Plaza
West San Franciso St. and Lincoln Avenue
Santa Fe, New Mexico – Free Concert

The
Doug Lawrence Organ Trio with Dan Trudell, which brought the house down
this spring at Outpost, returns to perform their funky grooves for the
7th Annual New Mexico Jazz Festival! Renowned for his role as featured
soloist and lead tenor saxophonist with the Legendary Count Basie
Orchestra, Doug Lawrence has appeared at virtually every major concert
hall, jazz club, and music festival on the planet and has played with a
virtual “who’s who” of musicians including Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan,
Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Benny Goodman, Stevie Wonder, Tony
Bennett, Nancy Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Cobb.

Regina Carter’s Reverse Thread – 7:30 p.m., Thursday, July 19, 2012
The Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center
211 West San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico – Tickets $45/$35/$25/$15

One
of the most popular contemporary violinists in modern music, Regina
Carter has, over the past seven years, brought audiences to their feet
with exhilarating performances worldwide. Her latest release, Reverse
Thread, features hypnotically beautiful African folk melodies captured
through a lens of contemporary interpretation that blends the exquisite
sonorities of her violin with the kora (West African harp) and
accordion, as well as guitar, bass and percussion.

Justin Ray Project – 8 p.m., Friday, July 20, 2012
The Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale Blvd. SE: 2 blocks south of Central
Albuquerque, New Mexico – Tickets $25/$20

Albuquerque
native, Justin Ray, graduated from Del Norte High School and received a
scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where
he graduated with a Degree in Music Education and performed with a
number of different ensembles. After recording his debut album, The
Thing, in 2003, Ray accepted an offer from young vocal sensation,
Michael Bublé to become a featured soloist in Buble’s ensemble. He has
been in that band ever since, traveling the world to perform in
well-known concert venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Hollywood
Bowl, Royal Albert Hall in London, and Town Hall in New York City. Ray
returns to Outpost with a new project of original compositions for jazz
quartet, string quartet and a combination of the two.

Doug Lawrence Organ Trio, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and more, more & more – 2-10:30 p.m., Saturday, July 21, 2012
Route 66 Nob Hill Summerfest
Central Ave. between Girard & Washington
Albuquerque, New Mexico – This is a free concert

The
Doug Lawrence Organ Trio with Dan Trudell, which brought the house down
this spring at Outpost, returns to perform their funky grooves for the
7th Annual New Mexico Jazz Festival! Renowned for his role as featured
soloist and lead tenor saxophonist with the Legendary Count Basie
Orchestra, Doug Lawrence has appeared at virtually every major concert
hall, jazz club, and music festival on the planet and has played with a
virtual “who’s who” of musicians including Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan,
Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Benny Goodman, Stevie Wonder, Tony
Bennett, Nancy Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Cobb.

The Dirty
Dozen Brass Band are celebrating their 35th Anniversary with their new
album Twenty Dozen due out on May 1, 2012. A New Orleans institution,
the Dirty Dozen are responsible for revolutionizing the brass band sound
by incorporating funk and bebop into the traditional style.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Allen Toussaint – 7:30 p.m., Sunday, July 22, 2012
The Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center
211 West San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico – Tickets $45/$35/$25/$15

One
of America’s greatest musical treasures, singer, pianist, songwriter,
arranger and producer, Allen Toussaint is a New Orleans native who has
been making hit records for over forty years. His massive influence on
American music reaches deep into the idioms of rhythm and blues, pop,
country, musical theater, blues and jazz and he played an essential role
in developing the sound of New Orleans–one that eventually brought
artists like Dr. John, the Band and the Rolling Stones to a world-wide
audience.

Ravi Coltrane Quartet – 8 p.m., Wednesday, July 25, 2012 and 8 p.m., Thursday, July 26, 2012
The Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale Blvd. SE: 2 blocks south of Central
Albuquerque, New Mexico – Tickets $35/$30

Saxophonist,
bandleader, composer, Ravi Coltrane, who played two sold out shows at
Outpost in Fall of 2010, returns for the 7th Annual New Mexico Jazz
Festival. Coltrane has fronted a variety of jazz lineups, recorded six
critically-hailed albums as a leader, produced recordings by other
artists, overseen important jazz reissues, and founded the prominent
independent record label, RKM.

Dianne Reeves and NEA Jazz Master – Sheila Jordan – 7:30 p.m., Friday, July 27, 2012
The Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center
211 West San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico – Tickets $60/45/35/25

One
of the preeminent female jazz vocalist in the world today, Dianne
Reeves’ virtuosity, improvisational prowess and unique jazz and R&B
stylings, earned her a Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for
three consecutive recordings––a Grammy first in any vocal category.

NEA
Jazz Master, Sheila Jordan is known for her superb scat singing and
ability to reach the emotional depths of a ballad. Whether singing
well-known standards or original material, Jordon makes it all sound
like no one else. Her unique musical trademarks, which include frequent
and unexpected sweeping changes of pitch, continue to confound
uninitiated audiences, but her uncompromising and entirely
non-derivative style has made her “one of only a tiny handful of ‘jazz
singers’ who fully deserve the appellation, and for whom no other term
will do.”

Meet the Artist – A.B. Spellman with NEA Jazz Masters Sheila Jordan and Jon Hendricks – 2 p.m., Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center
211 West San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico – This is a free event

Kurt Elling, NEA Jazz Master and Jon Hendricks – 7:30 p.m., Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Lensic, Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center
211 West San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico – Tickets $60/45/35/25

“Since
the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or
interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy
lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody
the creative spirit in jazz.” (The Washington Post). Considered the
preeminent young male jazz singer today, Elling boasts a rich baritone
voice that spans four octaves and displays an astonishing technical
facility and emotional depth.

Jon Hendricks is not only one of
the world’s favorite jazz vocalists, but is widely considered to be the
“Father of Vocalese” ––the art of setting lyrics to recorded jazz
instrumental standards, then arranging voices to sing the parts of the
instruments. Hendricks is the only person many of the jazz greats have
allowed to lyricize their music, as he writes the hippest, wittiest, and
most touching words, at the same time extracting the emotions from the
tune that were intended by the composer.

A.B. Spellman and Hakim Bellamy – 2 p.m., Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale Blvd. SE: 2 blocks south of Central
Albuquerque, New Mexico – This free event is a poetry reading.

2012
New Mexico Jazz Festival: Poetry Reading: A.B. Spellman & Hakim
Bellamy. Retired NEA Deputy Chairman, poet and jazz historian, A.B.
Spellman, who’s Meet the Artist sessions have become a New Mexico Jazz
Festival tradition since its inaugural year in 2006, brings his own work
to audiences in a special poetry reading shared with New Mexico’s most
recently named Poet Laureate, Hakim Bellamy.

Kurt Elling – 8 p.m., Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale Blvd. SE: 2 blocks south of Central
Albuquerque, New Mexico – Tickets $35/$30

“Since
the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or
interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy
lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody
the creative spirit in jazz.” (The Washington Post). Considered the
preeminent young male jazz singer today, Elling boasts a rich baritone
voice that spans four octaves and displays an astonishing technical
facility and emotional depth
Tickets for all New Mexico Jazz
Festival Concerts at the Lensic Performing Arts Center and Outpost
Performance Space are available at both the Lensic and Outpost Box
Offices or
online at www.TicketsSantaFe.org />

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