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Herb Pomeroy Memorial Concert: Celebrating MIT's Father of Jazz

Cambridge, MA...The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will celebrate the life of Herb Pomeroy with a concert on Saturday, May 10, at 8 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium. Admission is $5 at the door.

Performers will include the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, Frederick Harris, Jr. Music Director; MIT Alumni Jazz Ensembles, and special guests Jamshied Sharifi, Greg Hopkins, Magali Souriau, Everett Longstreth, Ran Blake, Jeff Galindo and Mark Harvey. The concert will feature a world premiere by Sharifi for jazz orchestra and other works especially composed for Herb Pomeroy by Souriau, Hopkins and others.

A pre-concert talk, "Remembering Herb Pomeroy," moderated by MIT Lecturer Mark Harvey in which MIT alumni and community members share their memories of Herb Pomeroy will take place at 7 p.m.

Herb Pomeroy (1930-2007) Described by Duke Ellington as "One of America's Jazz Treasures," Herb Pomeroy was among the most influential jazz performers and educators of the last 50 years. Pomeroy was a celebrated trumpeter and big band leader from the 1950s through the early 1990s and is perhaps most remembered as a "musician's musician" who was a consummate music educator. He taught at the Berklee College of Music for 40 years and he founded and led the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble for 22 years (1963-1985). From 2000 to 2005, Pomeroy was a regular guest artist at MIT, where he conducted, performed and recorded.

By the age of 22, audiences already had identified Pomeroy as an exceptional trumpet player. He left Harvard University after one year to join the legendary Charlie Parker Quintet. Herb also received praise as composer, arranger, soloist, and section player with the bands of Lionel Hampton and Stan Kenton and then established one of the most formidable bands in the world--the Herb Pomeroy Big Band.

In the following years, Herb performed with his band at Carnegie Hall, the Kool Jazz Festival, the Boston Globe Jazz Festival, and behind such singers as Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Sarah Vaughn, and Nancy Wilson. In addition to such noted vocalists, he performed with countless instrumentalists including Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson and Gerry Mulligan.

In the spring of 1995 Herb retired from the Berklee College of Music and was presented an Honorary Doctor of Music degree. His last concert with the Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra was attended by musicians from around the world. In 1996, Pomeroy was inducted to the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) Hall of Fame and in 1997 into the Down Beat Jazz Education Hall of Fame. After his retirement from Berklee, Pomeroy returned to performing and recording and was in constant demand as a sideman. His solo, trio and quartet performances received high critical and popular acclaim until his death in August of 2007.

The Herb Pomeroy Jazz Development Fund was created in the spring of 2000 to honor Herb Pomeroy's vast contributions to music at MIT and specifically to jazz. The fund is used to expand the jazz program and to continue the tradition of commissioning new works for the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble. Proceeds from this concert will benefit the Herb Pomeroy Jazz Development Fund.

Performer bios:

Everett Longstreth's extensive musical background began by playing with his father's orchestra, touring throughout the Ohio area. Longstreth entered the Armed Services and was assigned to the 1 st Armored Division Band at Fort Hood, Texas. Upon discharge, he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music where he studied trumpet. Shortly after graduation, he joined the Woody Herman Orchestra. He then returned to Boston and accepted a position as faculty member at the Berklee College of Music as he continued to play professionally and write for famous clubs, bands and even Broadway. He was also a member of the Herb Pomeroy Orchestra that traveled to New York City to play the famous jazz club, "Birdland." In 1963, Mr. Longstreth went on tour with the Sam Donahue-Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, performing with such stars as Frank Sinatra Jr. and appearing on the Johnny Carson Show, Ed Sullivan Show, and many other radio and TV shows. In 1966, Mr. Longstreth returned to Boston and joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory of Music. In addition, he was director of the MIT Concert Jazz Band for 32 years.

French pianist, composer, arranger, educator, and 1986 honor graduate (Diploma de Jazz) from the Conservatoire National de Marseilles, Magali Souriau, was awarded the Conservatoire's Medaille d'or Jazz in 1988. Pianist Tommy Flanagan attended the competition, and recommended Souriau, "without reservation," to Berklee College of Music. She received a scholarship the following year, won the College's 1990 Woody Herman Jazz Master Award and the 1993 International Association of Jazz Educators' Gil Evans Fellowship in big band composition, and graduated in 1994. Since then, she has recorded and performed with her trio and jazz orchestra in New York's most prestigious jazz venues.

Jamshied Sharifi was born in Topeka, Kansas where he was exposed to jazz and Middle Eastern music through his father, who played drums, and to European classical and church music through his mother, who was a piano teacher and church organist. Sharifi attended MIT and graduated with a degree from the Humanities Department. He also attended Berklee College of Music and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Jazz Composition and Arranging, with additional studies in Film Scoring. At MIT and Berklee, he studied with Herb Pomeroy, who asked him at graduation to lead the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble. Sharifi's foray into the world of film and television began as a keyboardist and orchestrator for Michael Gibbs. Together with percussionist Ben Wittman they scored three feature films and 15 one-hour television shows. He has gone on to compose the soundtracks to many major studio and independent films.

Performer, composer, and arranger Greg Hopkins first picked up the trumpet as a boy in Detroit, and to this day it would be hard to spot him without his horn. Hopkins plays even when caught in traffic on his commute to Berklee College of Music, where he has been teaching since 1974, the year the London Times called him "a real find" for the Buddy Rich Orchestra. That symbiosis of man and musical instrument is evident in Hopkins' solo performances by which he has served the orchestras of Louis Bellson, Billy Maxted, Rich, and Herb Pomeroy, as well as his own small ensembles and big bands. Hopkins began his professional career in 1965, freelancing in the Detroit area for such acts as the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Gladys Knight until 1969, when he graduated from Michigan State. Hopkins' busy teaching and performing schedule takes him all over the world doing concerts, festivals, jazz club dates, and clinics. Recently he has visited Italy, Iceland, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Alaska, Argentina, and many other countries. A Professor of Jazz Composition at Berklee College of Music, Hopkins has developed and teaches several courses in composition and also directs the Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra, one of the most prestigious performing ensembles the school.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Third Stream pianist Ran Blake has recorded more than 30 albums and performed in major jazz festivals, concert halls, jazz clubs, and universities throughout Europe and the Americas. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, in addition to fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. His premiere recording, The Newest Sound Around , won the 1963 RCA Album First Prize in Germany and the 1980 Prix Billie Holiday and is included in the Académie du Jazz. Blake was the founding chair of NEC's Contemporary Improvisation department (then called Third Stream), from 1974 through 2005, and continues to teach full-time. His innovative teaching approach, known as "the primacy of the ear," emphasizes the listening process and long-term memory rather than sheet music. Blake, who frequently incorporates melodies inspired by dreams and film noir into his compositions, continues to perform and record. Recent releases include Indian Winter (a 2005 album with guitarist/NEC alumnus David Fabris) and All That Is Tied (a 2006 album of solo piano that appeared on numerous jazz publications' year-end "Best of" lists, including the Village Voice and Down Beat magazine.) Blake is a graduate of Bard College, with studies at the Lenox School of Jazz and Columbia University. His composition and improvisation teachers include Gunther Schuller, Mal Waldron, Mary Lou Williams, Ray Cassarino and Oscar Peterson.

Born in San Francisco, California, Jeff Galindo attended Berklee College of Music. He also studied with Hal Crook, Jerry Bergonzi, and George Garzone with grants by the National Endowment of the Arts and began free-lancing in the Boston area. His experience includes tours of Europe with Phil Woods and Japan with Makoto Ozone, and tours with the Artie Shaw Orchestra. Jeff has performed with such notables as Chick Corea, Clark Terry, Joe Lovano, Buddy DeFranco, Slide Hampton, and Johnny Griffin. He has also performed with Gunther Schuller, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Bergonzi, Bobby Shew, The Boston Pops Orchestra, and Sam Butera among many others. In Boston, Jeff performs regularly with the Greg Hopkins Big Band and Nonet, The Galindo/Phaneuf Sextet (with which he has released a new cd "Locking Horns" in 1998 and won Boston Magazine's "Best of Boston" for a jazz group in 1999), plus his double quartet with George Garzone. As as assistant professor at Berklee College of music, he is currently one of the top free-lancing trombonists in the Boston area.