MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL PARTNERS WITH MSN MUSIC AND BLUE NOTE RECORDS TO RELEASE EIGHT EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOADS FROM 2004 FESTIVAL
Terence Blanchard, Don Byron & Bill Charlap Live Performances from The 47th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival Now Available
December 1, 2004; Monterey, California; The Monterey Jazz Festival, MSN Music and Blue Note Records have teamed up for the online release of eight exclusive downloads from live performances recorded at this year’s 47th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival presented by MCI. The eight tracks, from Blue Note artists Terence Blanchard, Don Byron and Bill Charlap, are now available for individual track and full album purchase through MSN Music. A dedicated page can be found at http://music.msn.com/music/mjf2004.
“This is a very exciting development for the Monterey Jazz Festival,” commented MJF General Manager Tim Jackson. “We’re looking forward to sharing some of the wonderful music recorded at Monterey with jazz fans around the world via this new avenue.”
Jeff Zakim, Director of New Media for Blue Note Records added, “This is a great way to further extend the Blue Note brand in the digital environment. This is outstanding live material from top artists performed at the top festival, and we wanted to make it available to as wide an audience as possible. The launch of the MSN Music service provides us with that opportunity.”
Acclaimed trumpeter, composer, bandleader Terence Blanchard joined the Blue Note family in 2003 with the release of Bounce, which JazzTimes magazine said showed Blanchard “at the top of his game†as he led a young and dynamic band. Featured here with a sextet, Blanchard stretches out on the pulsating “Transform†(from Bounce) and the previously unrecorded “Simply Over There.â€
Clarinetist Don Byron’s adventurous spirit was on display at Monterey, as he and his trio, consisting of young piano firebrand Jason Moran and drum paragon Jack DeJohnette, moved through a program of tunes from Byron’s new Blue Note recording Ivey-Divey, a session inspired by tenor sax legend Lester Young’s post-war bass-less trio with pianist Nat King Cole and drummer Buddy Rich. Featured here are the standard “I Covered The Waterfront†and Miles Davis’s “Freddy Freeloader.â€
Bill Charlap has been leading one of the tightest-knit piano trios (with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington) in the jazz business for several years now. His recordings of American songbook composers, from Hoagy Carmichael (Stardust) to Leonard Bernstein (Somewhere) prompted The New Yorker magazine to declare him “an exceptional stylist poised to replace Bill Evans and Tommy Flanagan in the public imagination.” Here the trio swings through a set that includes “God Child†(best known from it’s incarnation on Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool), Irving Berlin’s “The Best Thing For You,†Vernon Duke’s “Round About,†and Gerry Mulligan’s “Curtains.â€
The Monterey Jazz Festival, the world’s longest running jazz festival, takes place on the same Monterey Fairgrounds site on which it first showcased top name jazz artists in 1958. Founded as a nonprofit educational corporation, the Festival invests some $500,000 annually in its renowned jazz education programs. The 48th annual Monterey Jazz Festival presented by MCI will take place on September 16 – 18, 2005.
Available tracks include “Transform” (3:30) and “Simply Over There” (7:58)by Terence Blanchard Sextet; “I Cover The Water Front” (10:31) and “Freddy The Freeloader” (9:07) by Don Byron Trio; “God Child” (5:19), “The Best Thing For You” (4:54), “Round About” (6:33), and “Curtains” (8:27) by Bill Charlap Trio.