In 1996 a small gem of a music celebration popped up in a nature preserve in Litchfield County Connecticut. That debut was to become one of the longer standing jazz festivals in the United Stess. After running a classical concert series for 15 years and exploring jazz in small venue settings, the non-profit Litchfield Performing Arts decided to embrace the draw of summer in the hills and launch what would become an internationally recognized jazz festival that would still be around a quarter century later. And it began with a bang.
In addition to making safe bets on the first lineup with icons like trombonist JJ Johnson, pianist Ahmad Jamal, and bassist Rufus Reid, its founder and artistic director Vita Muir (who is still at the helm today) featured a handful of newcomers. These little-known players who would become jazz royalty in the years to come included a pretty Canadian singer/pianist making her American festival debut called Diana Krall, bassist Christian McBride, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, pianist Renee Rosnes, organist Larry Goldings, and many others. (We couldn’t afford a B3 organ. Larry would bring his own his agent insisted. His album cover had a snap of him balancing an organ on his shoulders. That would have been a bridge too far: we all carried it!). Renee, mini-skirted, tiny and young, almost delayed a curtain when an overzealous security guard detained her briefly thinking she could not possibly belong up there with the “big boys.” From that year out, fest organizers hung ID badges around every artist’s neck. And the volunteer stage manager slept under the Steinway. Perfect. No night watchman to pay.
In the intervening years, some things changed others didn’t. The fest stage was graced by legends like Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Ray Charles, Eartha Kitt, Tito Puente and scores more. We weathered storms, both virtual and financial, venue changes and a pandemic. But Litchfield Jazz Festival is still here, still presenting the finest of seasoned artists and newcomers, including some who have been schooled at its teaching arm, Litchfield Jazz Camp.
Set to live stream on July 31st from the Telefunken Soundstage in South Windsor, CT, the 26th Litchfield Jazz Festival will present a lineup that reads like a metaphor of its mission. It includes stars young and old, players with legendary careers, some in their youthful prime and a few who found their love of jazz as teenagers at Litchfield’s revered summer camp. The festival has been offered for free since the pandemic , from noon to six, thanks to generous donor support and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The lineup begins with a moving and romantic set titled Swinging Ballads by the Albert Rivera/ Andrew Hadro Quartet fronted by two stellar sax men, and it features bassist/vocalist Nicki Parrott and pianist Carmen Staff. Rivera performs in New York and the Northeast regularly and has built a reputation as a composer and educator who develops and runs large projects in Florida, Pennsylvania and Bermuda. He is the Operations Director of Litchfield Jazz Camp. Baritone saxophonist Andrew Hadro is a performer, composer and band leader in Brooklyn and one of the only professional bass saxophone players in New York. He is also a product specialist for Vandoren advising fellow musicians on equipment, reeds and mouthpieces. Parrott, an Aussie by birth, spent 10 years performing every Monday night at New York’s Iridium with the great inventor, songwriter and guitarist Les Paul until his death at age 94. Since then, she has performed worldwide. Carmen Staaf, the youngest piano player ever hired by Berklee College of Music, is currently pianist and Musical Director for NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater. Prior to this, she was a member of a select quintet at the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance. The Albert Rivera/Andrew Hadro quartet all have busy performing and recording schedules. Still they set aside time each summer to teach at Litchfield Jazz Camp.
Next up in the Festival lineup is legendary bassist Rufus Reid and his Trio. With a career that spans six decades, Reid appeared on the very first Litchfield Jazz Festival in 1996 and other Litchfield programs over the years. At the keyboard is Sullivan Fortner, 2015 Cole Porter Fellow in Jazz of the American Pianist Association and winner of the 2016 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists. Jonathan Blake is on drums. Now, with years of membership in the bands of Tom Harrell and Kenny Barron and 50 albums to his credit, Blake was born under a lucky star. His dad, John Blake, Jr. played in the bands of both Grover Washington and McCoy Tyner.
The Matt Wilson Quartet follows. Wilson has a unique honor at Litchfield. He has appeared in more Litchfield festivals (all but one) and more times in a single festival than any other performer (three). A madly busy first call drummer and leader of several bands of his own including his long-standing Quartet, Wilson is an active educator who teaches at Litchfield most summers as does bandmate saxophonist/clarinetist Jeff Lederer. Lederer’s other education credits include work with Jazz at Lincoln Center. With his longstanding ensemble “Shaker n’ Bakers,” he performs modern jazz interpretations of the Vision songs of the Shaker religious sect.
Kirk Knuffke, who performs with Wilson regularly and also in Boom Tic Boom with drummer Allison Miller and Sifter with Mary Halvorsen, is on cornet. The bassist is Chris Lightcap. Lightcap, who won two Chamber Music America “New Jazz Works” grants has composed for and played with violinists Regina Carter and Joshua Bell, Tom Harrell and Dianne Reeves to name just a few.
Bringing home the 26th annual Litchfield Jazz Festival is the outstanding pianist Emmet Cohen in a program featuring works from his award-winning album Future Stride. Cohen, at 30, is one of the few musicians undaunted by the blunt force the pandemic has had on so many of his peers. Instead of folding his tent, he invited just about everyone under it. He has built a program now in its second year with over 50 concerts produced and presented it from his Harlem livingroom. He calls it Live From Emmet’s Place. Offered free to the public every Monday night his trio, with Russell Hall on bass and Kyle Poole on drums, provides the rhythm section backing artists of every stripe, from long-established musicians like clarinetist Ken Peplowski and singer Catherine Russell to successful newcomers like Veronica Swift. Drawing many hundreds of viewers from around the world, he is also drawing funding to support the work of the many artists he presents from his viewers and an increasing number of sponsors. So successful has his marketing been, he’s been invited to teach his approach in colleges around the country.
Cohen, who like Fortner won the prestigious Cole Porter Fellowship, is performing this Litchfield Fest finale in a reprise of his record release party (at home of course) this winter with his trio and guests Tivon Pennicott on tenor saxophone, and Benny Benack III on trumpet and voice. Cohen, who was a prodigy who began playing piano at age three, graduated from Frost School of Music in Miami and received his Masters from Manhattan School of Music. He found his footing in jazz, he says, while attending Litchfield Jazz Camp beginning at 15. There he set his sites on a career as a professional musician and never looked back.
Among his most striking accomplishments is a series of self-produced recordings he calls the Jazz Legacy Series featuring mentors in the field whose collaboration he secured for all time for the benefit of future audiences. For some of these and for some of us, it was just in time. Since their albums were released, both Jimmy Heath and Jimmy Cobb have died. More recently, another volume in the series has been released, this one featuring bassist Ron Carter with Cohen. In addition to the Trio, Emmet appears regularly with vocalist Veronica Swift and in Christian Mc Bride’s Tip City band and with Ron Carter and others.
Russell Hall, the Trio’s bassist and native of Jamaica, was one of Wynton Marsalis’ enfants terribles. Marsalis invited the teenaged Hall to join the jazz program at Juilliard School of Music and study with Ron Carter and Ben Wolfe. Now a graduate and a member of Cohen’s trio for more than seven years, he is in demand at Lincoln Center and with Barry Harris, Roy Haynes and Jon Batiste’s Stay Human band. Kyle Poole, a Los Angeles native, is a long-time member of Emmet’s Trio and tours with him internationally. Of late, he has been a member of the Cecile McLoren Salvant Trio.
Joshua Redman called Tivon Pennicott “a careful craftsman, a fearless improvisor, one of the most fluent and engaging saxophonists on the scene today.” A key contributor to three Grammy winning recordings, one by Esperanza Spalding and two by Gregory Porter, he has collaborated with the late Roy Hargrove, drummer Ari Honig, and Jon Batiste and Stay Human on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Trumpeter Benny Benack III, the third in a line of Pittsburgh jazz notables, was a finalist in the 2014 Thelonious Monk Competition and winner of the 2011 Carmine Caruso International Trumpet Competition. He plays for Postmodern Jukebox, the vintage music collective, and in the bands of Christian
McBride and Josh Groban. He also leads workshops for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz For Young People programs.
Litchfield Jazz Festival will be live streamed on July 31, beginning at noon from Telefunken Soundstage. It is available without charge on YouTube and Facebook. Sponsors for the event include The National Endowment for The Arts, DownBeat Magazine, and Telefunken Soundstage.