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Jacksonville Beach Summer Jazz SeriesAugust’s cool sounds are HOT!
On Sunday, August 17, the Sea Walk Pavilion swells with the cool sounds of jazz at the final installment concert of the 2008 Jacksonville Beach Summer Jazz Series. Music begins at 5 PM and ends around 9 PM. Headlining are contemporary jazz saxophonist Marion Meadows at 7:30 PM and the dynamic bassist, Gerald Veasley performs at 6:00 PM. The Jazz/R&B group, the Robert Harris Group will open the concert at 5:00 PM. Admission is free and open to the public. Bring your blanket or lawn chair and cool-down from the summer heat with the cool sounds of these hot performers. Food and beverages are available for purchase. For up to date info call the Special Events Hotline at (904) 247-6100 x3. AUGUST 17, 2008
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Fortunately for the smooth jazz fans who have embraced his sweet and funky soprano sound over the last decade, Meadows decided to take a few very important trips to Europe during his junior and senior years in high school. He had dreamed of being either a veterinarian or zoologist, and assumed he would enroll in college as a pre-med major. Playing the sax was just a hobby until he saw the way audiences reacted to him and his student cohorts in Holland, Italy and Austria. "It was exciting seeing positive newspaper articles about my playing in Italy, receiving all sorts of accolades and feeling the excitement of interaction with the crowd. It was a tremendous rush, and lit the fire."
After studying jazz with Anthony Truglia, Meadows attended Berklee College of Music, where he majored in arranging and composition. He later went to the SUNY Purchase School for the Arts, where he studied under Ron Herder. "I got a lot of sideman jobs in college, and I have always said I got a graduate degree playing clubs," adds Meadows, who perfected his craft studying with Joe Henderson, Dave Liebman and Eddie Daniels. "Not long after I finished school, (well-known jazz drummer) Norman Connors recorded my song ‘Invitation’ and then asked me to join his band. I later produced his Passion album with him. Things just fell into place."
Meadows first hit the airwaves in 1991 with For Lovers Only, but his career really began one day in the late ‘80s at New York’s Grand Central Station. He had been a sideman with Connors for three years with only vague notions of eventually going solo. Then one day, as the oft-told story goes, while waiting for a train, he pulled out his horn and began playing under the huge dome. His sweet sound caught the attention of fellow traveler, TV composer Jay Chattaway, who was so impressed that he hooked Meadows up with legendary keyboardist Bob James. James signed Meadows to a deal with his TappanZee label, and though Meadows’ first recording went unreleased, the experience put him on the road to his eventual success.
Meadows hooked up with numerous artists and musicians and became a well known sideman in his own right, recording or performing over the years with Brook Benton, Eartha Kitt, Phyllis Hyman, Jean Carne, The Temptations, Michael Bolton, Angela Bofill, Will Downing and Native American flute player Douglas Spotted Eagle, among many others. In the late ‘80s, Meadows stretched his usual pop/jazz boundaries as a member of a New York avant-garde band called the Aboriginal Music Society. He was performing in Japan when he got the call that RCA Records was interested in signing him to a solo deal, based on his first album which he had recorded and financed himself. Meadows became a staple of the smooth jazz format with his subsequent recordings, which include Keep It Right Here (1993), Forbidden Fruit (1994) and Body Rhythm (1996).
After moving from his home in Connecticut to Phoenix, Arizona, Meadows signed with Heads Up International and released Another Side of Midnight (1999). A contemporary tribute to city life, his label debut was considered by critics to be his strongest work to date. His subsequent Heads Up discography has been equally successful on an artistic as well as commercial level: Next To You (2000), featured a mix of R&B-influenced jazz coupled with sensual Latin rhythms; In Deep (2002), a neo-soul blend of jazz, R&B and hip-hop, brimmed with sophisticated arrangements and impressive tenor/soprano playing; Players Club (2004) paid tribute to Meadows’ fellow musicians with a seamless mix of contemporary jazz and soulful R&B. All four Heads Up recordings have been well received by his ever-growing, always loyal fans.
6:00 p.m. Headliner: GERALD VEASLEY
Born in Philadelphia, GERALD VEASLEY is an excellent bassist with a varied and impressive resume. He has recorded eight CDs since 1996 with the latest released in 2008. Veasley cites Jaco Pastorius, Anthony Jackson, and Stanley Clarke as his main influences on electric bass. He names Oscar Pettiford and Paul Chambers as his favorites on acoustic bass.
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Veasley has recorded with Joe Zawinul of Weather Report, his longtime friend and mentor, the late Grover Washington Jr., McCoy Tyner, The Dixie Hummingbirds, Odean Pope, Special EFX, Joe McBride, Teddy Pendergrass, Phil Perry, Chieli Minucci, Dianne Reeves, George Howard, Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire, Kenny Blake, Pamela Williams, Eric Marienthal, Onaje Alan Gumbs, Omar Hakim, and many more.
He has shared stages and tours with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Gerald was named "Best Electric Bassist" in Jazziz magazine's annual readers' poll and Philadelphia Magazine named him Best Jazz Band. Veasley was voted President of the Philadelphia charter of NARAS "The Grammy People" and credited by author Allan Slutsky as a key contributor to his classis book/CD set, "Standing In The Shadows Of Mo-Town - The Life and Music Of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson".
Veasley started playing the bass at age twelve and learned from in-home jam sessions with friends of his musically inclined parents. He was inspired by his parents’ hard work and sacrifices as they gave him a good stable home life and appreciation of education. As an outstanding academic high school graduate, he earned a complete four year full academic scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. During his third year, Veasley lost his father. To deal with the loss, he focused on music, listening to records featuring Charles Mingus, Wes Montgomery, Grand Green and Ron Carter. These all-night affairs would also include Veasley teaching himself how to improvise, transcribe solos and studying chord progressions. Veasley took up studying classical guitar to expand his range as a musician.
The mostly high-profile sideman gigs came in rapid succession for Gerald starting in the early 1980s. Depending on who he was hooked up with, he displayed a starting affinity for all sorts of styles. He played avant-garde music with saxophonist Odean Pope, did orchestra dates with the flutist Leslie Burrs, and joined violinist John Blake's group for a U.S. tour and three albums on Gramavision.
In 1988, Gerald showed his fusion side as part of the Zawinul Syndicate, and through the years he has been affiliated with a wide array of distinctive players - Larry Coryell, Khan Jamal, Eric Kloss, Pat Martino, Charlie Rouse, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, McCoy Tyner, label mate Joe McBride, Special EFX and pieces of A Dream.
Gerald's resume also boasts numerous other accolades. He taught the history and fundamentals of the electric bass to musicians and educators, both privately and at the university level. He has been artist in residence at the Artist-Teachers institute of Stockton State College; guest lecturer at Dartmouth; instructor at Philadelphia's University of the Arts; and video instructor on "Solo Bass Techniques" released by CCP Baldwin.
Gerald has also worked with such important jazz artists as Pat Martino, Special EFX, Pieces of a Dream and the Jaco Pasorius Big Band. His appreciation of all-star collaborations led him to create concert events featuring leading contemporary jazz artists such as Kirk Whalum, Najee, Chuck Loeb, Kim Waters, Maysa, and Bobby Lyle. Though he's known as a contemporary jazz musician, the versatile bassist has never been content working in one genre. He has also worked with R&B legend, Gerald Levert, jazz diva, Nnenna Freelon, the soulful Teddy Pendergrass, gospel icons Dixie Hummingbirds, straight ahead piano giant McCoy Tyner and many other diverse artists.
The combination of challenges, opportunities and win-win is at the heart of Your Move, Veasley’s new Heads Up International CD set released worldwide in 2008. The album is the latest – and perhaps most innovative and audacious – maneuver in the game that Veasley has been playing since his early days as an up-and-coming musician in his native Philadelphia.
5:00 p.m. Starting Act: THE ROBERT HARRIS GROUP
The Robert Harris Group is one of the premier Jazz / R&B groups in central Florida. In addition to their regular club dates, they have performed at the New Smryna Jazz Festival, the Winter
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This year Robert opened for Mindi Abair at the Art and Music Festival at Lake Eola in Orlando, and Richard Elliot at the Winter Park Art Festival. Robert has played with Kirk Whalum and Warren Hill’s Band on Warren Hills’ smooth jazz cruise.
They are currently scheduled for several national festivals next year: Seabreeze Jazz Festival, Rehoboth Beach Jazz Festival, Berks Jazz Fest, Atlanta Jazz Festival, and more. The Robert Harris group has been asked back to perform at several concert events hosted by Orlando’s premiere smooth jazz station WLOQ 103.1, and Tampa Bays WSJT, and WGRV The Groove -Florida’s east coast station.
Robert’s debut CD "Cool Breeze" was featured on smoothjazz.com for several months and as a result was picked up by several radio stations around the world. Robert recently released his 2nd smooth jazz CD "City Light" which has been well received by his fans, and selling well at live events. One of his songs "Monaco" was released nationally on the radio in April 2008 and was at 22 on the National R&R Indicator and Indie Charts by the first week in June.
Robert Harris grew up in Detroit, Michigan. It was there his musical aspirations started at the early age of 12 when he played trumpet through junior high and high school. At 16, he began playing guitar, and within a year was playing throughout the Detroit area. Robert made his way to the Seattle area where he began touring. He spent several years touring the West Coast before heading south to Los Angeles. Within a year of being in L.A., Robert was signed with West Management/Record Company. Richard West, founder of the company, became his manager. West Production produced Harris’ first CD project. Robert spent the next 10 years in L.A. working as a studio musician, as well as arranging and producing projects. He had a natural talent for the engineering side of the recording business, and as the years passed, became the head engineer at the control panels. However, he missed performing and moved to Central Florida, where his band, the Robert Harris group, is now one performing.
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