PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT: Janice Szabo , 970-925-3254, x 124, jszabo@aspenmusic.org
Andrea Beard, 970-920-4996, x 15, abeard@jazzaspen.org
WYNTON MARSALIS BRINGS HIS MASTERWORK CONGO SQUARE, A TRIBUTE TO NEW ORLEANS , TO THE BENEDICT MUSIC TENT ON JUNE 26
New Orleans native Marsalis will lead the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and be joined by Ghanaian drummers Odadaa! in the triumphant Congo Square
This event marks a major collaboration between two local arts presenters: Aspen Music Festival and School and Jazz Aspen Snowmass.
ASPEN, Colo. ― Wynton Marsalis’ Congo Square was inspired by the public square in New Orleans where, from the mid-1700s to the late-1800s, slaves gathered on Sunday afternoons to perform African rhythms, songs and dances. On Tuesday, June 26 the Aspen Music Festival and School and Jazz Aspen Snowmass will present Marsalis conducting this monumental blending of cultures and voices at the Benedict Music Tent at 8 pm. He will lead his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and be joined by a nine-piece ensemble of Ghanaian drummers, Odadaa!
Due largely to the fact that New Orleans was originally a French colony, Congo Square was at that time the only place in America where slaves could openly and freely perform African music and dance. Elsewhere, in the British colonies, African drumming was banned and punishable by death. Historians say that the gatherings contributed to the city becoming the birthplace of jazz at the turn of the 20th century.
“Congo Square is a truly significant work,” says AMFS president and CEO Alan Fletcher. “Combining the quintessentially American sound of jazz and the masterful drumwork of West Africa , it is a profound blend of cultures and traditions; it show how different art forms can complement and enrich each other. Wynton’s uniquely powerful composition shows how jazz, classical and world music can seamlessly combine in a contemporary creation that points to the future. We are honored to partner with Jazz Aspen Snowmass in presenting this rich and inspiring work.Says JAS founder and president/CEO, “It’s a fantastic full circle experience for JAS to return the Benedict Music Tent where our festival debut happened in June of 1991, with the Modern Jazz Quartet, who created such elegant and classically inspired jazz. We are pleased to come back as a mature organization and full partner with the AMFS, and it’s exciting to contemplate the synergies our two organizations can create going forward. After three previous performances in the JAS Tent in previous seasons, it’s a particular pleasure to have our great friend Wynton Marsalis return to Aspen in a new program whose cross-cultural nature suggests the kind of collaborative spirit which animates this new partnership between JAS and AMFS. We are grateful to Alan Fletcher and the board of AMFS for starting a new chapter that can only lead to exciting projects in the future.”
Congo Square premiered in April 2006 in New Orleans during a week-long residency that was aimed at helping the healing process in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged city. In a recent interview, Marsalis said of the work, “It’s about the integration of cultures and it’s about the innovation of coming up with new ways to relate and communicate to people, and also tradition, things that have existed and trying to maintain the best of them.” And though the music played in the historical Congo Square was not recorded or written down, Marsalis points out “there were many cultures and people coming together playing a lot of different styles of music [and] what you can do is see how that music was assimilated into our culture, how the different forms of African and Caribbean music, and European music, came together to become American music….The music came together because the people came together.”
Nate Chinen of The New York Times wrote of Congo Square co-writers Marsalis and Ghanaian drum master Yacub Addy, “Their equal partnership was clear at choice mom ents: on a mambo-like section called “Sunday Market,” during a churning “Place Congo” and in “Logo Talk,” which featured a steady cowbell pattern but an otherwise mercurial arrangement.”
Tickets for the event are $80 and $40. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact the AMFS Box Office at 970-925-9042 or visit www.aspenmusicfestival.com.
One of the most acclaimed and respected figures in music today, Marsalis, 45, was born and raised in New Orleans before attending The Juilliard School in New York City at age 17. He soon became a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, formed his own quintet (brother Branford was a member) and recorded his first album as a leader. In 1984 he became the first musician to win a Grammy in both the jazz and classical categories. He has won a total of nine Grammy Awards. In 1987 Marsalis co-founded the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, the world’s largest not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. He serves as its artistic director as well as music director of the The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. His oratorio on slavery, Blood on the Fields, written in 1994, won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for music, the first time the prize was awarded to a jazz composer. In 2006, he was commissioned to write an opera for the Metropolitan Opera in New York with a libretto by John Guare. He serves as Chair of the National Advisory Board for Culture, Recreation and Tourism dedicated to rebuilding Louisiana ’s tourism and cultural economics. He is also part of the Bring Back New Orleans Commission, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s initiative to help rebuild the city culturally, socially, economically and uniquely for every citizen. More at http://www.wmedev.com/flash/wynton4.html