arts&life
Jazz Fest 2018 I
music
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Clarinetist/saxophonist Eddie Daniels joins Chick Corea, Alvin Waddles
details
and more at the Detroit Jazz Festival — plus other Labor Day fun.
The Detroit Jazz Festival runs
Aug. 31-Sept. 3 in Downtown
Detroit. The Eddie Daniels seg-
ment is scheduled 5:15-6:30 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 2, at the Carhartt
Amphitheatre Stage along Hart
Plaza. The Bernstein tribute will be
performed 4:45-5:45 p.m. Mon-
day, Sept. 3, on the Wayne State
University Pyramid Stage in Hart
Plaza. A complete schedule and
event information are available
at detjazzfest.org. While festival
attendance is free, listening to
it through streaming opportuni-
ties costs $10 and can be set up
through live.Detroitjazzfest.com.
n the heart of Detroit, jazz
fans will get a sense of the
heart of Brazil.
That’s the musical mood
intended when clarinetist-
saxophonist Eddie Daniels
appears with a group of
instrumentalists at this year’s
Detroit Jazz Festival, where
they will perform selections
from their just-released
album, Heart of Brazil: A
Tribute to Egberto Gismonti, i for
Resonance Records.
“The music is fabulous,”
Daniels says. “It will make the
audience happy.”
Daniels and his quartet —
featuring pianist Josh Nelson,
bassist Kevin Axt and drum-
mer Mauricio Zottarelli — will
be joined by the Grammy-
winning Harlem Quartet on
strings. The performance pays
tribute to Gismonti’s 1970s
work as composer and multi-
instrumentalist.
“I’ve been to the festival
several times and know
that a lot of great jazz musi-
cians come out of Michigan,”
Daniels says. “It’s been a
mega-center for
the growth of young, great
jazz musicians for years and
years and years.”
In its 39th year, the upcom-
ing event, running Aug.
31-Sept. 3 on multiple stages
in Downtown Motown, con-
tinues as the largest free jazz
festival in the world and
includes those with home-
town roots.
“I like the fact that you
have people right in front
of you at outdoor festi-
vals,” Daniels says. “The
programming in Detroit
is wonderful because
you can go from one
venue to another and
listen to different
bands and different
music.”
Eddie Daniels
42
August 30 • 2018
jn
In an earlier Detroit per-
formance, Daniels had to
contend with rain, but it
enhanced his outlook toward
Detroit jazz fans.
“The stage had a covering
and people sat there with
their umbrellas,” he recalls.
“People are so into it that they
will sit there no matter what.”
Daniels is a longtime
friend of Christopher Collins,
president of the Detroit Jazz
Festival Foundation and
artistic director of the event.
Collins, an internationally
performing saxophonist, has
been recognized for his work
as director of Jazz Studies at
Wayne State, where Daniels
has been a guest artist.
Pianist Chick Corea —
also composer, bandleader
and multi-Grammy winner
— will be the 2018 artist-in-
residence. He will appear
with the Detroit Jazz Festival
Symphony Orchestra, con-
ducted by Steven Mercurio,
whose wide range of musical
bookings includes work with
the Michigan Opera Theatre,
where he was
conductor of The
Passenger,
r a pro-
duction about
the Holocaust.
Both Mercurio and
Daniels have personal
connections to Leonard
Bernstein, whose monu-
mental career as composer,
conductor, pianist and
teacher will be highlighted
in a program being staged
by Alvin Waddles, a pianist,
singer, composer and direc-
tor. Waddles, with a long
career that began in Detroit,
became a Bernstein fan as an
Interlochen student appearing
in the Bernstein-composed
musical West Side Story.
y
The Waddles concert,
marking the 100th anni-
versary of Bernstein’s birth,
features vocals by Shahida
Nurullah, also accompanied
by famed instrumentalists
Marion Hayden, Dave Taylor
and Gene Parker.
While Mercurio knew
Bernstein as a teacher
and role model “very gen-
erous with his musical
spirit,” Daniels connected
by means of a friend, who