The beautiful, restored Victorian Flushing Town Hall (near the hubbub of Main Street Flushing, not far from Citifield (the replacement for Shea Stadium), is now a cultural hub and the home of jazz. You can follow the Queens Jazz Trail here.

If you are a lover of jazz and coming to New York City, order the maps and info from the link above and take the walking tours.

The borough of Queens is the home to many of the performers in the newly formed Jazz Orchestra. It is home to Jimmy Heath, and was the home to the late Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Fats Waller, Buck Clayton, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Clark Terry, Canonball Adderly, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, and so on.

Catch a concert with the jazz masters and you’ll find Jimmy Heath still blowing his sax. When he isn’t, he’s got a perpetual grin from pure joy. Here are some photos and short videos form the May 29, 2009 concert.
The evening of May 29, Wycleff Gordon, formerly with the Wynton Maralis Septet, appeared. He is the one in the striped suit.
For my jazz-lover friends, (Instrumental Pavillion) I am including the press release.

Contact: Tara Rogers
631.207.6840
tara@headlineinc.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Queens Jazz Orchestra Performs at Flushing Town Hall
Friday, May 29, 2009 at 8 PM

Wycliffe Gordon to Debut “CyberSwing” – Jazz in the Digital Age

Flushing, NY – Last May, jazz history was made when the 17-piece Queens Jazz Orchestra (QJO), a program of Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, performed their inaugural concert at Flushing Town Hall. On May 29, 2009 at 8 pm, QJO, under the direction of jazz icon Jimmy Heath, will once again perform at Flushing Town Hall. The Queens Jazz Orchestra’s mission is to rejuvenate and revitalize the musical legacy that has existed in Queens for decades by performing music from the legends that lived throughout the borough and exposing new generations to their compositions. The borough of Queens is the natural heir to an illustrious legacy of jazz. That legacy continues with the Queens Jazz Orchestra.

The May 29th QJO concert will feature music by legendary musicians and composers who resided in Queens like Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Clark Terry, and Frank Wess. Conductor Jimmy Heath will also be adding in some big band arrangements for this concert. Because an important aspect of The Queens Jazz Orchestra is to nurture the next generation of musicians and composers in jazz, Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon will debut “CyberSwing”- Jazz in the Digital Age, which is a musical suite that begins with the Orchestra playing early jazz styles, transitioning into swing and Be-Bop, which then transmogrifies into the orchestra using contemporary
digital synthesizers and drum machines, a somewhat contemporary vision of jazz through
the eyes of technology. “CyberSwing” is a Flushing Council commission.

Jimmy Heath, Music Director, Queens Jazz Orchestra, is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award, the highest honor given by the United States in Jazz. He is a magnificent instrumentalist, composer, and arranger, and the middle brother of the legendary Heath Brothers. He has performed with nearly all the jazz greats of the last 50 years, from Howard McGhee, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis.

Heath has performed on more than 100 records and has written over 125 compositions, many of which have become jazz standards, and have been recorded by other artists including Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Jimmy also has composed seven suites and two string quartets, and was Professor of Music for eleven years at Queens College. Heath continues to perform and conduct workshops and clinics in the United States, Europe, and Canada. He also has taught jazz studies at Jazzmobile, Housatonic College, City College of New York, and The New School For Social Research.

Wycliffe Gordon enjoys an extraordinary career as a performer, conductor, composer, arranger, and educator, receiving high praise from audiences and critics alike. Gordon tours the world performing hard-swinging, straight-ahead jazz for audiences ranging from heads of state to elementary school students. Gordon received the Jazz Journalists Association 2008, 2007, 2006, 2002 and 2001 Award for Trombonist of the Year, and the Jazz Journalists Association 2000 Critics’ Choice Award for Best Trombone. In addition to a thriving solo career, he tours regularly leading the Wycliffe Gordon Quartet, headlining at legendary jazz venues throughout the world. Gordon is a former veteran member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and has been a featured guest artist on Billy Taylor’s “Jazz at the Kennedy Center” Series.

Gordon’s musical prowess has been captured on numerous recordings, including thirteen solo CDs and seven co-leader CDs. His latest recordings, “Boss Bones” and “You and I” were released in June 2008. Gordon is featured on numerous recordings with the Wynton Marsalis Septet, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and many others as evidenced in his extensive discography. Wycliffe Gordon is also a gifted composer and arranger. His compositions have been performed by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Wynton Marsalis Septet, the Wycliffe Gordon Quartet, the Brass Band of Battle Creek and numerous other ensembles, and performed in programs throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Gordon’s television appearances have included the Grammy Awards, the PBS special documentary “Swingin’ with the Duke,” and two Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra – “Uptown Blues, Ellington at 100” (a collaboration with the New York Philharmonic) and “Big Train.” Gordon also appeared in Ken Burns’ documentary “Jazz.”

Gordon is rapidly becoming one of America’s most persuasive and committed music educators. His work with young musicians and audiences from elementary schools to universities all over the world is extensive, and includes master classes, clinics, workshops, children’s concerts and lectures — powerful evidence of his unique ability to relate musically to people of all ages. Gordon is the youngest member of the U.S. Statesmen of Jazz, and in many tour performances has served and continues to serve as a musical ambassador for the U.S. State Department.

For further information, or to purchase tickets for the Queens Jazz Orchestra Concert at

Flushing Town Hall, go to www.flushingtownhall.org or call the box office at 718-463-7700, ext. 222. Tickets are $40, $32 for members.

The QJO concert is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts (FCCA) is a revitalizing force for its community, and a creative catalyst for developing and promoting the arts throughout the Borough of Queens in New York City. Each year, FCCA presents an array of high-quality visual and performing arts programs and educational activities at Flushing Town Hall (which it operates on behalf of the City of New York), as well as providing vital services to local artists, arts organizations and community residents. FCCA is a member of New York City’s Cultural Institution Group and an Affiliate Member of the Smithsonian Institution. FCCA is located at 137-35 Northern Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11354. For information, visit: www.flushingtownhall.org, or call the box office: (718) 463-7700, ext. 222.

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Previous jazz blogs can be found here:
Jazz Masters
Tribute to the late Earl May
Jimmy Heath
Concert featuring Denise Thimes

The female jazz vocalist featured at this concert is
Antoinette Montague:
Born and raised in Newark, Antoinette Montague may have just released her CD, Pretty Blues but she has had many invaluable musical experiences. She worked in gospel and r&b ensembles after college, serves as the vice president of the International Women in Jazz, and considers Carrie Smith, Etta Jones, Della Griffin and Myrna Lake to be her mentors. Antoinette has worked extensively in the New York area during the past decade with such musicians as Bill Easley, Norman Simmons, Winard Harper, Wycliffe Gordon, Frank Wess, the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Mike Longo’s New York State of the Arts Orchestra and Lou Donaldson has introduced her to many of his audiences.

She has appeared on the cover of Jazz Improv’s Jazz Guide, and has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, and many Jazz Societies.

You haven’t witnessed pure joy and elation until you’ve seen Jimmy Heath smile and heard a crowd yelling, “yeah!”

Jazz Fan Looks Back
by Jayne Cortez

I crisscrossed with Monk
Wailed with Bud
Counted every star with Stitt
Sang “Don’t Blame Me” with Sarah
Wore a flower like Billie
Screamed in the range of Dinah
& scatted “How High the Moon” with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
Jazz at the Philharmonic

I cut my hair into a permanent tam
Made my feet rebellious metronomes
Embedded record needles in paint on paper
Talked bopology talk
Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases
Became keeper of every Bird riff
every Lester lick
as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues
& Blakey drummed militant messages in
soul of my applauding teeth
& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones
I moved in triple time with Max
Grooved high with Diz
Perdidoed with Pettiford
Flew home with Hamp
Shuffled in Dexter’s Deck
Squatty-rooed with Peterson
Dreamed a “52nd Street Theme” with Fats
& scatted “Lady Be Good” with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
Jazz at the Philharmonic

Videos of Jimmy Heath, Wycleffe Gordon, and Antoinette Montague, singing “All of Me”

All photos and vids ©the author, all rights reserved.

Jimmy Heath