Arts Entertainment
Pure Jazz
Expanded Detroit jazz festival gets back to basics.
BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News
I
t has a long way to go to reach
the suburbs, but the annual
Detroit International Jazz
Festival has begun creeping north on
Woodward Avenue — and has added
a massive food court and art exhibits
in an effort to compete head on with
its biggest Labor Day Weekend com-
petitor: Chrysler's Arts, Beats & Eats
in Pontiac.
The two big, free, end-of-summer
festivals run the same days, Friday-
Monday, Sept. 2-5.
The Detroit jazz fest — which had
600,000 attendees last year — will
extend from its traditional core at
Hart Plaza along the Woodward corri-
dor to the Spirit of Detroit statue to
Campus Martius Park. There will be
six stages, 100 bands, 50 restaurants
represented and 40 artisans with jazz-
related art on display and for sale.
With.new sponsors, the festival will
return to its pure jazz roots, featuring
blues, R&B, gospel and funk per-
formed by such jazz luminaries as
pianist Dave Brubeck, McCoy Tyner,
Randy Weston, harmonica virtuoso
Toots Thielemans, Les McCann, Joey
DeFrancesco, Motown's own Funk
Brothers, the Blind Boys of Alabama,
Dr. John, David (Fathead) Newman
and his tribute to Ray Charles, T.S.
Monk, French songstress Ilona
Knopfler, who has Jewish heritage, and
Jewish trumpeter Randy Brecker with
the Bill Evans Soulbop band.
Brecker Brothers
Brecker, 63, who plays at 3:15 p.m.
Monday on the Hart Plaza
Amphitheatre Stage, often performs
with his brother, Michael, an 11-time
Grammy Award winner who is one of
jazz's most influential tenor saxophon-
ists.
But Michael, 56, has been forced to
stop performing by a blood and bone
Randy Brecker performs 3:15 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 5, on the Hart Plaza
Amphitheatre Stage.
A Detroit-area bone marrow drive for
jazz great Michael Brecker, the cancer-
stricken brother of Randy Brecker, is
being planned for later this month.
marrow disease. He has myelodysplas-
tic syndrome, a form of cancer in
which bone marrow stops producing
sufficient healthy blood cells, and
needs a blood stem cell transplant.
He is being treated at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in
New York, where he has been under-
going chemotherapy.
"Randy visits Michael whenever he
can," said Darryl Pitt of New York,
who is Michael's manager. "Unfortu-
nately, he and other family members
have been unable to provide a specific
genetic match for a transplant, and
we're still searching," Michael is mar-
ried and has two children.
"He really needs a donor of
European Jewish extraction," said Pitt,
"and that's a fraction of the total
donor base. It's a sad situation;
Michael's saxophone innovations have
made him probably the foremost
Jewish jazz musician in the world."
Pitt, 50, and a manager of several
musicians, has a strong musical her-
itage of his own. A Southfield native,
he's the son of Mack Pitt, the noted
Detroit area bandleader who died
three years ago. Pitt studied piano and
fondly recalls being his father's "band
boy," setting up the instruments for
his gigs. Darryl met the Brecker broth-
ers while he was attending the
University of Michigan and they were
performing in Ann Arbor.
The Breckers grew up in
Philadelphia, influenced by a pianist
father. They began playing R&B and
funk in local bar bands as teenagers
and formed the Brecker Brothers Band
in 1975, splitting up and teaming up
PURE JAZZ ON
page 45
Drumming Up Some Meats'
David Raminick of West Bloomfield wields his sticks in Pontiac.
BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News
S
'TN
9/ 1
2005
42
ome little boys grow up want-
ing to be successful business-
men, and some grow up want-
ing to be rock musicians. Five local
men grew up to be both — including
Jewish drummer David Raminick of
West Bloomfield.
With families and high-profile
careers, the five still have found time
to make music a high priority, form-
ing the Phil Treais Group. It will be
one of 160 bands to play on five
stages at the annual Chrysler Arts,
Beats & Eats Festival Sept. 2-5 in
downtown Pontiac. The Phil Treais
Group will take the Dodge Stage 5
p.m. Friday, Sept. 2.
Besides Raminick, who is an area
sales and marketing manager for
Waterford; bassist Rick Beardsley of
Highland, a sales executive; lead gui-
tarist Tony Lazarecki of Waterford, a
safety specialist; and
rhythm guitarist Johnny
Sweet, an industrial
account executive, also
of Waterford.
"We're really excited to
have been selected to
play at this year's festi-
val," said Raminick.
"We're all seasoned rock-
ers, and we have a unique
sound that can be
described as folk-rock
with Phil's own
cgroovetron' twist."
Raminick, 35, began
The Phil Treais Group performs at Arts,
playing "drums" at the
Beats & Eats in Pontiac 5 p.m. Friday,
age of 12, "actually
Sept. 2. Drummer David Raminick is
banging on pots and
ont and center.
Volkswagen of America, the group
consists of Treais, a singer-songwriter-
guitarist, who owns Salon 59 in
pans until I got my first real set of
drums as a bar mitzvah gift," he
recalls. At 16, he was accomplished
enough to play in a wedding band
and at jazz clubs around town. He
performed in the Southfield-Lathrup
High School marching and jazz bands,
often being featured as a soloist.
Torn between his love for music and
furthering his education, Raminick
received a bachelor's degree in finance
from Michigan State University, fol-
lowed by an MBA.
"While in college, I played at local
bars and with a rock cover band called
Doctor Bombay, and later for a
Grateful Dead cover band," he said.
"Along the way, I was fortunate
enough to work my way up the cor-
porate ladder at Volkswagen."
DRUMMING UP 'BEATS"
page 45