The University at Albany Department of Music is pleased to present a concert
program entitled The Music of Weather
Report on Sunday, April 6,
2008 at 3pm in the Recital Hall of the Performing Arts
Center on the uptown campus. UAlbany professor and pianist Bob Gluck is joined by a pair of top flight
musicians, saxophonist Keith Pray and percussionist Brian Melick, to perform the music of Weather
Report, one of the premiere bands in the jazz fusion movement. The trio will
reinterpret tunes by keyboardist Joe Zawinul, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and
bassists Miroslav Vitous and Jaco Pastorius.
“I have always loved the music of
Weather Report, one of the premiere jazz fusion bands of the 1970s and 80s,”
observes Gluck. “Their compositions combine a simplicity and beauty with a
solid beat. Their music is great material for re-interpretation. The way the
original band played their tunes changed over time, sometimes from night to
night and over the years. The music cries out for other creative, improvisatory
musicians to play. This show is an opportunity for us to offer our own approach
to it.”
The music on the program will
range from the lyrical --
including Zawinul’s “A Remark You Made”
and “In a Silent Way”, Vitous’s “Morning Lake,” Shorter’s “Tears” and Pastorius’s
“Three Views of a Secret” -- to Zawinul’s groove-based tunes like “Birdland” and “Black Market” and his dramatic “Unknown
Soldier.” The concert is in part in
homage to the life and music of pianist and composer Josef Zawinul who died in
September 2007.
Born in Vienna, Zawinul first made
his mark on the world jazz scene while playing with saxophonist Cannonball
Adderley in the 1960s. His music, including the tunes I”n
a Silent Way,” “Pharoah’s Dance” and “Directions,” became staples of Miles
Davis’s electric bands during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Around this time,
he co-founded Weather Report with Davis alumni Wayne Shorter
and Miroslav Vitous, a band that lasted for fifteen years becoming a driving
force of the jazz-fusion movement. A hallmark of Weather Report was its
spontaneity in performance and creative use of post-production on their
recordings. Everything done in the studio was recorded. A large
part of the compositional process was re-organizing and amplifying upon what
had taken place.
Bob Gluck is a multi-talented
pianist, composer, software interface designer and historical writer. His
repertoire spans jazz performance integrating electronics, free improvisation,
avant-garde concert music and music for electronic expansions of acoustical
instruments. Gluck has performed and his work has been shown throughout Europe, Canada and the United
States. He has performed as a pianist most recently at
Middlebury College, Johns Hopkins University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Keele University
(UK) and the University of California centers in San
Diego and Irvine. Among Bob Gluck’s multimedia
installation works is ‘Layered Histories’ (with Cynthia Beth Rubin) which just
completed an exhibition at the Joseph Slifka Center For Jewish Life at Yale University. Previous showings
have taken place at SIGGRAPH
(Los
Angeles), the International Computer Music Conference (Miami), ACM Multimedia (New York), Pixelerations (Providence), Fine
Family Gallery at the Marcus JCC (Atlanta), Emmersive Gallery
(Toronto) and the Jewish Museum in Prague (Czech Republic).
Saxophonist and
composer Keith Pray began his study of the saxophone in 1988 at age 15 and had
his first professional performance one year later. Since then, Keith has traveled from the West
Coast to Europe playing with hundreds of gifted musicians including
some of the giants of the business: Paul Anka, Benny Golson, The Temptations,
Ray Vega, Mark Vinci and Ralph Lalama. For eight years, he resided and
preformed in New York City and played with
artists from multiple disciplines including R&B, Jazz, Latin and Big Band.
Keith’s style can be attributed to the influences from the greats deep in the
Jazz tradition including Cannonball Adderley, Lockjaw Davis, Maceo Parker, Earl
Bostic, Johnny Hodges, Willis Jackson and Jackie Mclean.
Drummer, multi-hand
percussionist and educator Brian Melick has been a featured
artist on over 250 commercially recorded works and has been produced by major
as well as independent record companies. His recording credits include an
expansive list of performers and producers among them Minu Cinelu, Jamey
Haddad, Artie and Happy Traum, Warren Bernhardt, Bridget Ball, Chris Shaw,
Larry Coryell, Cindy Cashdollar, Garth Hudson, Nick Brignola, Livingston
Taylor, Jorma Kaukonen, Kim and Reggie Harris, Pete Seeger, Edward Villella &
The Miami City Ballet and Ringling Bros. & Barnum Bailey Circus. He has
most recently been a regular performer with Kevin McKrell and the Hard Road
Céilidh Band, Maria Zemantauski, The Bernstein Baird Ensemble, Sonny and
Perley, Martha Gallagher, TrioLOCO, Soul Session, Cathie Ryan and The New York
Players.
Tickets are $8 for the general public and $4 for students and
may be purchased through the Performing Arts Center Box Office. For further information, contact the Box Office
at (518) 442-3997 or visit the Performing Arts Center website at www.albany.edu/pac.
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