JAZZ FEST in the WOODS

Friday & Saturday, June 25-26, 8 pm
Sunday, June 27, 2 pm
Concert sponsor: Creative Arts Collective

By Larry Gabriel, www.gumbospot.com, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  
Photo by Barbara Barefield

Our own internationally known jazz guitarist A. Spencer Barefield joins with bassist Dave Young and drummer Djallo Djakate Keita to collaborate with three Detroit jazz greats.

• Friday will feature a Tribute to the Trumpet Masters with the dynamic Rayse Biggs. Read more
  
• Saturday’s star is saxophonist David McMurray. Read more
  
• Sunday’s Grand Finale features Jazz Master saxophonist-clarinetist Wendell Harrison. Read more

The core rhythm section for the weekend is a headline group all on its own. Detroiter-composer Barefield has been a lion in creating and breathing life into the Creative Arts Collective since the 1970s, garnering grants from the Lila Wallace Readers’ Digest fund, the National Endowment of the Arts, Michigan Council of the Arts, Arts Midwest and others. He’s toured and recorded extensively with musical explorers such as Roscoe Mitchell, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille and Richard Davis. His compositions and ensembles have molded soul, jazz, avant garde, classical and African traditions into a bold pastiche that refuses to be bound by expectations. A reviewer in JazzTimes magazine referred to Barefield’s style as melding “Segovia and Jimi Hendrix into a startling jazz lexicon.”

Dave Young, Toronto’s Juno Award-winning master bassist, has worked with a who’s who list of musicians, such as Oscar Peterson, Clark Terry, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Zoot Simms, Joe Williams, Oliver Jones, Rob McConnell, Kenny Burrell, Cedar Walton, Hank Jones, Nat Adderly, Peter Appleyard, Gary Burton, Barney Kessel, Ed Bickert, Ranee Lee, Marcus Belgrave, Don Thompson, Kenny Burrell, James Moody, and more. He’s also an esteemed classical musician having worked with the Edmonton and Winnipeg Symphonies, as well as with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.

Drummer Djallo Djakate Keita is a flexible rhythmist who is equally at home playing ragtime as he is performing the most adventurous modern avant garde. He’s has toured in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, appearing in concert and on television and radio. He toured Africa with reggae artist Kareem Baaqi, and has performed with acclaimed Detroiters such as Harold McKinney, Marcus Belgrave, Charlie Gabriel, Teddy Harris, Wendell Harrison, Ralphe Armstrong, Pamela Wise, Kenn Cox, Omawale African Dancers, Sun Drummers, Ras Kente, Taslimah Bey, Harvey Thompson, Faruq Z. Bey, TransMat, Jazzhead, Dub Culture and Ibn Pori Pitts.