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Spring
2006 Review: Aardvark Jazz Orchestra's 33rd Season
APRIL
29
AARDVARK PRESENTS "SATIRE & SALUTATIONS"
Kresge Auditorium, MIT, Cambridge, MA 8 PM,
free admission
On Saturday
evening, April 29, Aardvark presented new works for jazz orchestra
including Mark Harvey's Booboisie Suite, a musical
satire on current politics and culture, inspired by the writings
of H.L. Mencken. Movements of the suite include March of
the Booboisie, I Hear America Calling, Flat Earth Boogie,
and De-Evolution Blues. April 29 is also Duke Ellington's
birthday, and the band observed this occasion with salutations
by the Grand Duke of Ellington himself, his son, Mercer, his
composing and arranging companion, Billy Strayhorn, and other
collaborators.
APRIL
2
AARDVARK WEAVES JAZZ TAPESTRY
IN CELEBRATION OF DUKE ELLINGTON AND JAZZ AT EMMANUEL
Emmanuel
Church, 15 Newbury St., Boston, MA 7:30 PM $15
The Aardvark
Jazz Orchestra completed its three-concert series celebrating
40 years of the Ellington Sacred Concerts and 40 years
of Jazz at Emmanuel with a concert titled Jazz Tapestry
on Sunday evening, April 2. Music by Ellington and musicians
associated with him, who also performed at Emmanuel Church,
was featured. Compositions by Jaki Byard, Abudullah Ibrahim
[Dollar Brand], and Mary Lou Williams were performed as well
as Mark Harvey's extended work No Walls, a sonic tapestry
of styles, moods, and rhythms inspired by Duke Ellington's
belief in moving beyond category, in music and life. The concert
also saluted the opening of the Faith Quilts Project,
an inter-religious festival taking place at the Boston Center
for the Arts and throughout the metro Boston area. Concert
proceeds benefit the American Friends Service Committee.
In conjunction
with the Jazz Tapestry concert, Mark Harvey and Arni
Cheatham presented a lecture on Thursday, March 30, 7:30 PM,
free of charge, at Emmanuel Church. They shared recollections
of their work with the Jazz Coalition, based at the church,
and the JazzEd Project's involvement with the desegregation
of the Boston Public Schools.
MARCH
4
FILMPROV WITH THE AARDETT
FILMPROV Films by Kate Matson & Music by the Aardett
Sangha, 7014 Westmoreland Ave., Takoma Park,
MD, 8 PM, $10 admission
 On
Saturday, March 4, 8 PM, filmmaker Kate Matson and the Aardett
presented FiLmprov, animated film and improvisational music,
at Sangha, one of the hippest performance spaces in the D.C.
metro area, located in the arts-friendly city of Takoma Park.
Attendees enjoyed an exhilarating evening of creative film
and free-wheeling sonic exploration. www.filmprov.tripod.com.
MARCH
5
THE
AARDETT, DADA & SILENT FILM
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 6:30 PM, free
admission
On Sunday
evening, March 5, 6:30 PM, The Aardett [six members of the
Aardvark Jazz Orchestra] improvised music for silent films
as part of a concert celebrating the National Gallery's show
on DADA. This first major museum exhibition of DADA ever mounted
in the United States will feature painting, sculpture, photography,
film, collage, and readymades from six cities: Zurich, Berlin,
Hannover, Cologne, New York, and Paris. Silent film authority
Martin Marks and Charles Shadle, both of MIT, were featured
as pianists. For information visit www.nga.gov/press/exh/202/related.shtm.
The Aardett--Mark
Harvey, Peter Bloom, Phil Scarff, Tim Ray, John Funkhouser,
and Harry Wellott-- has recorded soundtracks for the historic
More Treasures from American Film Archives DVD collection
and collaborates as part of Kate Matson's FiLmprov presentations.
Boston
Big Band Celebrates Completion (?) of Big Dig
Regattabar,
Charles Hotel,
Cambridge
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 7:30 PM
The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra returned
to the Regattabar on February 8 with the premiere of director
Mark Harvey's Dig, Dug, Done, saluting Boston's
massive central artery project, which, according to recent
news reports, will mark substantial completion on January
31, 2006, after 14 years and more than $14 billion. Celebrating
the Big Dig has become an Aardvark tradition. In 2004, the
band played Harvey's first Central Artery composition, Dig
the Dig (complete with hard hats, shovels, and cell phones),
and Harvey is keeping open the possibility of further musical
tributes through 2010, just in case.
Also on tap for the February 8 show: a high-energy blend of
swing, boogie, ballads, and funk, including Mark Harvey originals
like Flat Earth Boogie and De-Evolution Blues,
plus Ellington's Solitude and Come Sunday.
Buy
tickets today: $14, By telephone charge
at 617-395-7757.
Information and online tickets at www.regattabarjazz.com
Aardvark
33d Annual Christmas Concert
featured Duke Ellington's Sacred Music
Sunday, Dec. 18, 7:30 PM
On
Sunday, December 18, at 7:30 PM, Aardvark held its 33d Annual
Christmas Concert at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston
(tickets $15). The concert featured full orchestra plus vocalists
Jerry Edwards, Grace Hughes, and Pamela Wood performing Duke
Ellington's sacred music and the Aardvark premiere of an award-winning
composition by Grace Hughes "Pennies on the Ground."
[See related story below.] In celebration of the 40th
Anniversary of Duke Ellington's First Sacred Concert, the
band performed "Come Sunday" along with other selections
from that historic event, as well as pieces from the Second
Sacred Concert, and rarities such as "A Song for Christmas"
and "Three Black Kings" (first movement). The Christmas
concert is the second in the Jazz at Emmanuel Series, with
proceeds to benefit the American
Friends Service Committee.
Mark Harvey gave a related lecture on the Ellington Sacred
Concerts at Emmanuel Church on Thursday, December 15, at 7:30
PM.
For
more information, call 617-776-8778 or 617-452-3205.
Emmanuel
Church website for directions, etc.
Aardvark
Vocalist Grace Hughes Wins National Competition
 Aardvark
is delighted to announce that its singing sensation GRACE
HUGHES has recently won top prize in a national competition
for her original song "Pennies on the Ground." This
song, co-written by Bob Yen, was named the Gold Award winner
in the William Robert Abate Song Competition sponsored by
the AlphaMusicGroup in conjunction with the Oberlin College
Conservatory. The competition seeks songs that address themes
of peace, love, community and/or speak out against violence,
war or hate.
Grace's lyrics for "Pennies on the Ground" offer
a thoughtful and poignant reflection on applying the golden
rule to our lives and treating everyone the way we want to
be treated.
She will give the Aardvark premiere of this song on the December
18th Christmas Concert.
Grace
performs gospel, R & B, as well as her original songs,
in addition to being a featured vocalist with Aardvark. In
2003, she won the NextNewEngland singing competition and won
the opportunity to sing the National Anthem at Fenway Park.
Aardvark audiences can look forward to hearing much more from
and about Grace Hughes in the future!
Learn
more about the competition here.
See Grace Hughes among the featured artists.
Hear
the song "Pennies on the Ground".
Read
the lyrics.
Season
in Review
Aardvark
launched its 33d Season in September with the first in its
Jazz at Emmanuel Series, celebrating 40 years of jazz at that
church and 40 years of the Duke Ellington Sacred Concerts
and benefiting the work of the American Friends Service Committee
in their work for peace and justice around the world. For
40 years, Emmanuel Church has been a major jazz center, presenting
hundreds of artists including Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams,
Sam Rivers, George Russell, Sheila Jordan, Herb Pomeroy, and
Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand), among others. Mark Harvey
and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra were in residence at Emmanuel
from 1974 to 1992.
The September program, Jazz as Celebration and Challenge,
included works originally performed at Emmanuel by Aardvark,
the premiere of a new piece inspired by Walt Whitman, and
several selections of Ellington's sacred music.
In October, the band presented a concert at MIT's Killian
Hall entitled Aardmania, and featured three world premieres--the
"Flat Earth Boogie," "De-Evolution Blues,"
and "Tales of the Mighty Squid," as well as selections
from its latest CD release "Trumpet Madness."
For more information, call 617-776-8778 or 617-452-3205.
MIT
(Directions),
Killian
Hall.
New
CD Released:
Trumpet Madness CD Released to
Critical Acclaim
 Aardvark's
latest CD recording Trumpet Madness was released internationally
in spring 2005 with a CD release concert celebration at MIT
on April 30, 2005. Released on the prestigious London-based
LEO Records label (long recognized for its commitment to challenging
postmodern music), this
is the band's eighth CD.
Three of these have been released on the Leo Lab Records label.
 Trumpet
Madness features several wonderful trumpeters, as well
as the entire Aardvark Orchestra in both solo and collective
improvisational roles. Among the trumpeters are music director
Mark Harvey, soloing on Taylor Ho Bynum's Concerto for
Orchestra and Improviser, Berlin-based trumpeter Rajesh
Mehta, featured on Harvey's Spirals which was written
especially for Mehta and his percussion collaborator Paul
Lovens, and trumpeters Harvey, Ho Bynum, Mehta, Greg Kelley,
and Jeanne Snodgrass on the title tune Trumpet Madness,
an improvisational tour de force. K.C. Dunbar, Jimmy Leach,
and Eric Dahlman round out our trumpetistic panorama as they
are heard to advantage on several other tracks on the recording.
All
selections were recorded in live performance, six of the seven
cuts are world premieres, and throughout, they showcase the
band's unique approach to blending spontaneous creation within
complex structures. While there is a trumpet concept at work
here, listeners will soon discover that Trumpet Madness
leads inevitably and delightfully to total Aardvark madcap
music-making of the highest order. To paraphrase American
painter Stuart Davis, who was speaking of the influence of
Guillaume Dufay's music on his abstractionist style, "trumpets
used like voices/ real crazy syncopation."
Click here for CD Ordering
Information
About
Aardvark Jazz Orchestra
Founded
in 1973, The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra is a large jazz ensemble
that specializes in original exploratory works by trumpeter-composer
Mark Harvey, together with wide-ranging repertory including
Ellingtonia and American music by such composers as Ives,
Gottschalk, and Billings. Winner of the 2000 Independent Music
Awards, the band has premiered more than 75 works for jazz
orchestra and has released 8 CDs to international critical
acclaim. In 2005, Aardvark released its 8th CD, Trumpet
Madness (Leo Records), which was praised by the United
Kingdom's Jazz Review: "exuberance, imagination
and sheer brio in evidence throughout this rich, absorbing
album." The band has a long tradition of performing sacred
and secular music of Duke Ellington. ("Aardvark and Ellington
are an ideal couple" allaboutjazz.com).
Mark Harvey, founder and music director, has recorded with
George Russell (Blue Note) and Baird Hersey (Arista/Novus)
and performed with Gil Evans, Claudio Roditi, Howard McGhee,
Sam Rivers, and many others. He is a composer with over 100
works in his catalogue, teaches at MIT, is an ordained minister,
and lectures nationally on jazz and religion and on the Ellington
Sacred Concerts, including presentations for the 17th International
Duke Ellington Society Conference and the Smithsonian Institution's
Touring Exhibition Beyond Category: The Life and Genius
of Duke Ellington.
Read
about the Fall 2004/Spring 2005 Spring Concerts in Review
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Finding
the divine in earthy rhythms
under
the desired format.
