All Bassists Covered:
Bass Legends Ron Carter, Buster Williams and Stanley Clarke
Perform at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival
September 16-18,August Wilson African American Cultural Center and Highmark Stadium
If you’ve listened to any jazz or pop music recorded since 1959, chances are you’ve heard the Grammy Award-winning, NEA Jazz Master Ron Carter, the most recorded jazz bassist in history, with over 2,500 credits as a leader, and sideman. He was the foundation of Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet from 1963 to 1968, which featured Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams, and he performed and recorded with a myriad of jazz greats, from the avant-garde and mainstream icons Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, and Bill Evans, to A Tribe Called Quest on their hip-hop masterpiece recording, The Low End Theory. Carter’s recordings as a leader include, Uptown Conversation, Etudes and his latest, Foursight: Stockholm 2, featuring his quartet: pianist Renee Rosnes, percussionist Payton Crossley and saxophonist Jimmy Greene. Carter and company will deliver a masterclass in swing, driven by the leader’s glow-in-the-dark basslines.
The Camden, NJ-born, Grammy award-winning, NEA Jazz Master bassist/bandleader Buster Williams has been the standard-bearer of his instrument for seven decades. Williams is one of the many great bassists from the Philadelphia region, including Jymie Merritt, Charles Fambrough, Percy Heath, Christian McBride and Stanley Clarke. His formidable basslines made him an esteemed sideman with Art Blakey, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, Jimmy Heath, Wynton Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, The Jazz Crusaders, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard, among others. Williams was a member of Mwandishi, Herbie Hancock’s pioneering, Afrofuturistic, jazz-fusion 70s ensemble, and was a founding member of Sphere, the 80s Thelonious Monk repertory group. With 15 recordings as a leader, including Pinnacle, and Buster Williams Live, Vol. 1.,Williams comes to town with the latest version of his band Something More, featuring saxophonist Steve Wilson, pianist Brandon McCune and Miles Davis/Return to Forever drummer, Lenny White, all delivering something more, with the promise of inspiring and impeccable jazz.
Bassist/film scorer Grammy Award winner and NEA Jazz Master Stanley Clarke, who heard Buster Williams growing up in Philadelphia, was also a bandmate of Lenny White in Chick Corea’s ensemble, Return to Forever. His 1976 hit, “School Days,” was a jazz-rock-fusion classic, and his collaboration with keyboardist George Duke – the Clarke/Duke Project – was a Quiet Storm radio favorite. With over 40 recordings as a leader that encompass jazz, rock, R&B, and funk, Clarke comes to Pittsburgh with his latest group, N 4Ever: a cadre of young Turks featuring saxophonist Emilio Modeste, keyboardist Jahari Stampley, drummer Jeremiah Collier and guitarist Collin Cook. It doesn’t matter if he’s playing the acoustic or electric bass, Stanley Clarke will make his instrument fluent in all of the myriad inventions and dimensions of jazz.
Tickets for Ron Carter Foursight at the AWAACC on Friday, September 16 start at $55, and are available for purchase here. Tickets for A Taste of Jazz, starting at $47.25, are available for purchase here.
One-day Jazz Fest passes for Saturday or Sunday are available starting at $45, and two-day Jazz Fest passes are available starting at $85 for performances taking place at Highmark Stadium. For more details, and to purchase tickets, please follow this link.
Student one-day passes for $30 and two-day passes for $55 will be available for purchase in-person at the venue, as well as $12 tickets for children (ages 4-12) and free Lap Passes for children under 3. These tickets must be purchased in person at the Highmark Stadium box office.
The Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival would like to thank its sponsors, including Citizens, Crawford Grill (Presenting Sponsor – Taste of Jazz), Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, UPMC, UPMC Health Plan, UPMC Center for Engagement and Inclusion, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Advanced Auto Parts, P&W Motors, Pittsburgh Custom Wraps, Xfinity, Allegheny County Airport Authority, AARP, River’s Casino, The Wilson Group and the Libation sponsor, Bacardi. Partners include JazzCorner, Downbeat Magazine, JazzTimes Magazine, Flyspace Productions, Adda Coffee, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey and others. A special thank you to the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival and Highmark Blues & Heritage Festival special media sponsor, The Comcast Corporation.
ABOUT CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest financial institutions, with $226.7 billion in assets as of June 30, 2022. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions. Citizens helps its customers reach their potential by listening to them and by understanding their needs in order to offer tailored advice, ideas and solutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens provides an integrated experience that includes mobile and online banking, a full-service customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 3,300 ATMs and more than 1,200 branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia. Consumer Banking products and services include a full range of banking, lending, savings, wealth management and small business offerings. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers a broad complement of financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as loan syndication, corporate finance, merger and acquisition, and debt and equity capital markets capabilities. More information is available at www.citizensbank.com or visit us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
ABOUT AUGUST WILSON AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER
The August Wilson African American Cultural Center is a non-profit cultural organization located in Pittsburgh’s cultural district that generates artistic, educational, and community initiatives that advance the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson. One of the largest cultural centers in the country focused exclusively on the African American experience and the celebration of Black culture and the African diaspora, the non-profit organization welcomes more than 119,000 visitors locally and nationally. Through year-round programming across multiple genres, such as the annual Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, Black Bottom Film Festival, AWCommunity Days, TRUTHSayers speaker series, and rotating art exhibits in its galleries, the Center provides a platform for established and emerging artists of color whose work reflects the universal issues of identity that Wilson tackled, and which still resonate today.
Don’t miss the Highmark Blues & Heritage Festival, also produced by AWAACC September 14-15 at Highmark Stadium. For more information, including the daily schedules, go to http://blues.awaacc.org.
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(212) 721-3341 | Info@CarolynMcClairPR.com
Cydney Nunn | AWAACC | (412) 906-8520 | cnunn@awaacc.org