Returning to Rochester soon after the great performance of his Debussy/Ravel project in Kilbourn Hall during the 2012 Rochester Jazz Festival, Exodus to Jazz is briging Tom Harrell to town this week on Thursday night at Hochstein Performance Hall. Harrell will be appearing with his group TRIP, including Mark Turner on tenor sax, Adam Cruz on drums and Ugonna Okegwo, his bassist of 13 years, before moving on to the Festival of New Trumpet Music at the Jazz Standard in NYC.
Playing trumpet and flugelhorn, Tom Harrell is recognized as one of the most creative and uncompromising jazz instrumentalists and composers around with a discography that spans over 260 recordings and more than four decades. A quote on Harrell's site from music and arts critic Howard Reich in the Chicago Tribune sums up my experience of Harrell's approach to jazz:
Neither aggressively avant-garde nor focused on the past, neither steeped in the language of bebop nor entirely free from it. Harrell's music simply celebrates sonic beauty for its own sake.
His music is always fresh, innovative, and often quite beautiful. I have never been disappointed. Neither have others. Tom Harrell is a frequent winner in Down Beat and Jazz Times magazines' Critics and Readers Polls and a Grammy nominee. Harrell also has been nominated for Trumpeter of the Year two years in a row for the 2010 and 2011 Jazz Journalists Association Awards. Harrell's appearance here at the Rochester jazz festival in 2006 and again this year with his Debussy/Ravel project were highlights of each year. I encourage you to come out for this performance, which will likely soar in the great sonic space that is Hochstein Performance Hall.
The skinny on Thursday night:
- Venue: Hochstein School of Music, 50 N. Plymouth Ave., Rochester
- Concert Time: 8:00 PM, doors at 7:00 PM. Two one-hour sets with 20-minute intermission
- Ticket Prices: Advanced Sales: Patron - $40; Premium - $30; General Admission - $25 At the Door: Patron - $42; Premium - $32; General Admission - $27
- Buy tickets: Advances Sales: Onsite at all Wegmans stores (Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse); Online at Brownpapertickets.com; At the Door: At each venue beginning 7:00pm, night of concert.
The 
Tomorrow I'm going to check out 
I like to try and provide you with as many different avenues for you to access Jazz@Rochester and what I hope is useful information about live jazz in and around Rochester. You can get the content of this blog in a number of ways, including:
As the full house that attended can attest, the Pat Metheny Unity Band at German House on Saturday was outstanding! No more than catching my breath after that and Labor Day my week is thick with music I want to hear: No Fast Food at Lovin Cup tomorrow; Dave Rivello Ensemble with Bending & Breaking and Quintopus on Friday; and Exodus to Jazz on Saturday with the Wallace Roney Septet at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation. Hope to see some of you along the road...
Wallace Roney established himself in the mid-1980s, succeeding Terence Blanchard in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1986. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was an integral part of Tony Williams's quintet. In 1991, Roney played with Miles Davis at the Montreux Jazz Festival and after Davis's death that year, toured in memorial tour with former Miles collaborators Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Williams and recorded with them the Grammy-winning Tribute to Miles record. Roney has worked with Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Walter Davis Jr., Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Jay McShann, David Murray and McCoy Tyner, as well as appearing as a featured soloist with Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Curtis Fuller, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Dizzy Gillespie. He won the 1990 Downbeat Critic's Poll as Best Rising New Trumpeter. 
(affliate link).
