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Marty Ashby’s Holiday Jazz Celebration 2021 Featuring Ann Hampton Callaway and the music from her album “The Hope of Christmas”
A musical review of traditional favorites and new songs for the Holidays; performed by the Marty Ashby Quartet including Lewis Nash with special guest Ann Hampton Callaway. Celebrate the Holiday season with songs that feel familiar yet fresh.
Marty Ashby is a jazz guitarist, GRAMMY® Award-winning producer, programming consultant, motivational speaker and lifelong advocate of jazz music and its unique place in American culture. Ashby has performed and recorded with Slide Hampton, Claudio Roditi, Nancy Wilson, Paquito D’Rivera, Herbie Mann, Phil Woods, The Dizzy Gillespie™ All-Star Big Band and others. In addition to his musicianship, Ashby has curated and managed national tours for Jazz Across the Americas, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra’s Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and SJMO’s 2019 world tour Jazz Beyond Borders: From the Golden Gate to the Great Wall. Ashby is Executive Producer of MCG Jazz, which he started in 1987.
An artist who has made indelible marks on jazz, cabaret, and on Broadway as a writer and performer, Ann Hampton Callaway has composed over 250 songs for stage, screen, and television, and her music has been recorded and performed by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Michael Feinstein, and Carole King. Callaway has shared the stage with great artists from many genres including George Shearing, Dizzy Gillespie, Stevie Wonder, Dr. John, Liza Minnelli, Betty Buckley, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Audra McDonald, Harvey Fierstein, Ramsey Lewis, and Kurt Elling. Callaway has released 15 albums since 1992 including her 2015 MCG Jazz album “The Hope of Christmas.”
Q ON STAGE says, “The album is jazzy, hopeful, modern, and infused with the dark golden honey of one of the finest voices in jazz today. The pure heart and the hope that Christmas feelings will last all year.”
Please note, the MIM is requiring that audience members either be vaccinated or have a negative COVID test within 72 hours prior to the performance. We also strongly encourage guests to wear masks.
Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result will be required for entry and may include the following options: a vaccination card (or photo), a digital record within an app, an official immunization record, or documentation of a negative test result. All MIM Music Theater team members are vaccinated and will wear masks.
Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra Holiday Concert co-produced with MCG Jazz
The Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra (PJO) is one of the finest ensembles in the country and is comprised of top jazz musicians from the Pittsburgh region. The orchestra’s holiday celebration concert has become a tradition for families all over the Greater Pittsburgh region as a way to take a break from the busy prep of the season. The critically acclaimed PJO recording, “Joyful Jazz,” was one of the top holiday albums of 2015 and continues to receive widespread airplay each holiday season. The concert will feature music from the album as well as some special new surprises.
Brubeck Brothers Quartet
BRUBECK BROTHERS
“PLAY BRUBECK: CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF DAVE BRUBECK”
January 22, 2022, 6:00 pm & 8:30 pm
To celebrate the life and legacy of Dave Brubeck his son’s Chris and Dan Brubeck, who performed and recorded with their father since the 1970s, curate a multimedia show with their own Brubeck Brothers Quartet. Through stories told by his sons and music performed by the Quartet, the show invites audiences to travel along the timeline of Dave’s extraordinary life and career.
Find out more »David Sanborn
DAVID SANBORN
FEBRUARY 26, 2022, 6:00 p m & 8:30 pm
Universally known as one of the most iconic saxophonists of the current age, David Sanborn is a jazz musician at heart, but has transcended genres and musical boundaries throughout his entire career. Rolling Stone says, ‘Among the great saxophonists of the past four decades, David Sanborn has earned an identity all his own. He’s jazz, he’s funk, he’s soul, he’s pop, he’s blues, he’s rock. Most remarkably, he excels in each of these genres with a voice that is forceful and tender, sensuous and subtle. Sanborn has released 24 albums, won six GRAMMY Awards, and has had eight gold albums and one platinum. He continues to be one of the most active musicians of his genre and an inspiration to countless other musicians. Sanborn is excited to bring his acoustic program to audiences soon.
Find out more »Dee Dee Bridgewater with Bill Charlap
DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER WITH BILL CHARLAP
MARCH 12, 2022, 6:00 p m & 8:30 p m
Over the course of a multifaceted career spanning four decades, GRAMMY and Tony Award-winning jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has ascended to the upper echelon of vocalists, putting her unique spin on standards, as well as taking intrepid leaps of faith in re-envisioning jazz classics. Ever the fearless voyager, explorer, pioneer and keeper of tradition, the three-time GRAMMY winner recently won the GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959): To Billie With Love From Dee Dee. One of the world’s premier jazz pianists, Bill Charlap has performed and recorded with many leading artists of our time, ranging from jazz masters Phil Woods and Wynton Marsalis to singers Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand.
Find out more »Jobim with Strings
“JOBIM WITH STRINGS”
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
THE PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
MARCH 19, 20 22, 6:00 pm & 8:30 pm
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and MCG Jazz celebrate the music of Brazilian icon, Antonio Carols Jobim. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Pops Conductor, Byron Stripling, will conduct and play and will be joined by native Brazilian’s and Jobim collaborators: Maucha Adnet, vocalist, and Duduka da Fonseca, percussionist, and members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra strings and woodwinds sections.
Find out more »Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Friday, March 25, 2022 7:00 p.m. & Saturday March 26, 2022 6:00 p.m. + 8:30 p.m.
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (JLCO) comprises 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today. Led by Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Managing and Artistic Director, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs a vast repertoire ranging from original compositions and Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works to rare historic compositions and masterworks by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and many others. The JLCO has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988, performing and leading educational events in New York, across the United States, and around the globe. Guest conductors have included Benny Carter, John Lewis, Chico O’Farrill, Ray Santos, Paquito D’Rivera, Jon Faddis, Robert Sadin, David Berger, and Loren Schoenberg.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, Marsalis began his classical training on trumpet at age 12, entered The Juilliard School at age 17, and then joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He made his recording debut as a leader in 1982 and has since recorded more than 60 jazz and classical recordings, which have won him nine GRAMMY® Awards. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz GRAMMY® Awards in the same year and repeated this feat in 1984. Marsalis is also an internationally respected teacher and spokesman for music education, and has received honorary doctorates from dozens of U.S. universities and colleges. In 1997, Marsalis became the first jazz artist to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in music for his oratorio “Blood on the Fields.” In 2001, he was appointed Messenger of Peace by Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and he has also been designated cultural ambassador to the United States of America by the U.S. State Department through their CultureConnect program.
Find out more »SFJAZZ Collective
Saturday, April 2, 2022 6:00 p.m. & 8:30 p.m.
The SFJAZZ Collective is the All-Star Jazz Supergroup featuring Lizz Wright on vocals, Chris Potter on saxophones, David Sánchez on saxophones, Etienne Charles on trumpet, Warren Wolf on vibraphone, Edward Simon on keyboards, Aneesa Strings on bass, Kendrick A.D. Scott on drums. Founded in 2004 by SFJAZZ in San Francisco, the award-winning SFJAZZ Collective is a composer’s workshop that represents what is happening now in jazz. The group’s membership evolves with each member being one of the most influential instrumentalists and performers in modern music. This year’s lineup includes multiple GRAMMY winners and nominees, Critics and Readers Poll winners, and all are recipients of industry recognition and media accolades. For this performance, the SFJAZZ Collective will present a vital program of new compositions by the band inspired by and in response to the extraordinary social and global issues we have faced over the last year.
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Stefon Harris & Blackout with Victor Provost
STEFON HARRIS & BLACKOUT WITH VICTOR PROVOST
APRIL 30, 2022, 6:00 pm & 8:30 pm
Stefon Harris’ passionate artistry and astonishing virtuosity have propelled him to the forefront of the jazz scene. Heralded as “one of the most important artists in jazz” by the Los Angeles Times. Harris was named a recipient of the 2018 Doris Duke Artis Awards. Harris’ community work in arts education in Kalamazoo, MI is “The Art of Listening” series of documentaries and has won three Gold Camera awards and three Michigan EMMY nominations.
Victor Provost is one of a small group of musicians who have tirelessly sought to change popular misconceptions about the role of steelpans in jazz. In addition to being a pannist, he is a composer, educator, and recording artist. As a sideman with deep jazz and Caribbean music bona fides, he has toured and recorded with a long list of luminaries including Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Masekela, Ron Blake, Wycliffe Gordon.
Find out more »Poncho Sanchez
Poncho Sanchez
May 21, 2022, 6:00 pm & 8:30 pm
For more than three decades, conguero Poncho Sanchez has stirred up a fiery stew of straight-ahead jazz, gritty soul music, and infectious melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources. Throughout his career Sanchez has held aloft the torch lit by such innovators as Mongo Santamaría, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader, embraced by each of those icons and entrusted to carry forward the traditions of Latin Jazz.
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