Jazz Vocalist Heidi Martin with
Larry Willis piano
James King, bass
Samir Moulay guitar
Tickets:
8:00 pm show: $15/$10 students
9:30 pm show: All tickets $10
"Heidi Martin's voice has a heavy Rickie Lee Jones bottom with a suggestion of Joni Mitchell and Betty Carter and just a hint of Janis Joplin in the finish." - All About Jazz
"...appealing." - JazzTimes
"...saucy vocalist." -DownBeat"
"...spirited and self assured." - The Washington Times
"...strong." - The New York Times
A passionate and raw songstress, Vocalist/Composer Heidi Martin makes each song her own. Her socially conscious compositions challenge the listener to hear with an introspective ear. A Washington D.C. Native who studied music at the University of the District of Columbia with Professor Calvin Jones and continued privately with drummer/vocalist Grady Tate, Martin credits the legend with helping her find her "voice" as an artist. A sought after collaborator, Martin has performed and recorded with Nicholas Payton, Reuben Brown, Steve Williams, Russell Gunn, Orrin Evans, Eric Revis, Gregoire Maret and the late Keter Betts, since making her 1999 debut on the New York jazz scene at Birdland.
Martin honed her craft in New York City at the legendary Blue Note, the Knitting Factory, The Zinc Bar (w/Ron Affif), Cachaca, Metronome and continues to perform nationwide at Zanzibar Blue, Blues Alley, Bohemian Caverns and Twins Lounge. Internationally she has performed at the Pori Jazz Festival, Finland and at Chelsea's splendid Cadogan Hall in London, England. Martin is a featured vocalist on trumpeter Russell Gunn's 2008 release, Love Stories and most recently, she performed the Cole Porter Songbook to a sold-out crowd at the 2011 DC Jazz Festival.
Each independently released project; Alone Together (1998) and HIDE (2005), have been met with critical acclaim and have lead Martin to domestic and international touring since her professional career began in New York City in 1999. Four of her compositions (Memphis, Rice, I Wanna Comfort You, Why Do I?) were chosen as a soundtrack to REVOLUTION '67 - a documentary about the 1967 Newark rebellion by Emmy-nominated filmmakers Jerome and Marylou Bongiorno. The film was screened at the 27th Annual IFP Market in New York and debuted on PBS July 10th, 2007. In 2006 Martin was hand-picked to compete in the London International Jazz Vocal Competition (LIJC), where she placed as a top finalist among some 107 competitors from over 25 nations.
Martin is a sensitive vocalist that delivers lyrics in an intimate mood on ballads and can be at once; open and intense yet deliberate on medium swing. In the words of Vanessa Rubin, "soaring soulful riffs, bending notes, and high notes that are so focused so right, they ring! It's a wonderful experience for the listener!"
Larry Willis
Pianist Larry Willis has had an important and distinguished 40-year career in jazz. Since making his recording debut on Jackie McLean's landmark 1965 album "Right Now!," the New York-born Willis has played everything from free jazz to fusion to rock while performing as a valued sideman with such jazz titans as Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey and Woody Shaw.
Larry was born in 1942 in Manhattan's Harlem. Surprisingly, he entered music not as a pianist but as a voice major, first at New York's High School of Music and Art for gifted students, then at the Manhattan School of Music. His senior year in high school, at 17, he had his first recording date, a classical gig with the Music and Arts Choral Ensemble singing a Copland opera conducted by no less then Leonard Bernstein. But something even more important than that happened to Larry at the beginning of that senior year. He started playing the piano no lessons, no teacher, just figuring it out by himself. By the end of the winter, he was playing his first professional gigs in a jazz trio with two of his classmates, Al Foster on drums and Eddie Gomez on bass. No one knew it then, but that little trio was probably the most distinguished high school jazz group in the country.
Soon after entering the Manhattan School of Music, Larry switched from voice to music theory. For one, he was running head-on into the all-too-evident barriers facing black musicians in the classical world. On the positive side, Larry's interest in jazz was turning into passion. A fellow student, Hugh Masakela, heard him jamming with Al Foster. Hugh was so impressed that he hooked Larry up with John Mehegan, the legendary New York jazz piano teacher. Those were Larry's first-ever lessons. By the end of that year at the Manhattan School, at age 19, Larry was playing regularly with Jackie McLean, the great alto saxophone innovator.
This is a remarkable entry into jazz: a kid of 17 decides to play the piano for the first time; four months later, he's playing gigs with a soon-to-be world class trio. A year and a half after that, he's making jazz history with the next giant of the alto after Bird. A year after Larry's graduation in 1965, Jackie gave him his first recording date "Right Now," on Blue Note and on that first date recorded the first two pieces in a continuing stream of Willis compositions. Since then, Larry has played on more than 300 records. He's played or recorded with almost every great jazz musician of the modern era, stars like Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw, Hugh Masakela, Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, Art Taylor, Clifford Jordan, Carmen McRae, and Shirley Horn. Recent CDs include a Larry Willis Quintet and four Larry Willis Trio recordings plus two solo sessions (labels are Audioquest, Steeplechase, Evidence and Mapleshade).
Larry's extraordinary versatility as a pianist ranges from rock and pop. He spent 7 years as keyboardist for Blood, Sweat and Tears to African, Brazilian and Afro- Cuban music. He's one of the only non-Hispanic players who ever impressed Mario Bauza as a Latin pianist. Another facet of Larry's genius is his composing and arranging for orchestras and big bands. He's always had a very special gift for arranging strings, strings that form a gorgeous, open framework for jazz improvisation. His first major string works were symphonic arrangements for a Brooklyn Symphony concert with the Fort Apache Band in 1994. Since then he's done gem-like string quartet and quintet arrangements for three Mapleshade jazz CDs: John Hicks "Trio Plus Strings," Sunny Sumter's "Sunny," and Monica Worth's "Never Let Me Go." Recently, he wrote larger scale arrangements for albums by Roy Hargrove, Vanessa Rubin and Joe Ford, among others. Larry composed an orchestral suite in four movements for the Florida Southern College Symphony Orchestra and then performed it in concert. He was also featured soloist with an Italian chamber orchestra, performing his own compositions.
Larry Willis is a three-time Grammy nominee with Fort Apache as well as pianist on two of their New York Jazz Critics Award-winning CDs. He's was also on Roy Hargrove's Grammy-winning "Crisol Band" CD and toured for three years with Roy. Currently, he is touring actively with his own Trio and Quintet as well as with Fort Apache from time to time.
Larry Willis released in 2007 his tribute to his mentor Jackie Mclean "Blue Fable," on the HighNote label. With his high school buddy Eddie Gomez on bass, his quintet plays a set of post-bop standards and some original compositions, including an exuberant version of Thelonious Monk's "Rhythm-A-Ning," an introspective performance of Miles Davis's "Nardis," Jackie McLeans's "Blue Fable," (title cut) and his own "Prayer for New Orleans."
