Media Release

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For immediate release
May 12, 2006

Jazz returns to The Banff Centre in May with Dave Douglas, Hugh Fraser, Chucho Valdés

This summer, The Banff Centre’s popular jazz concert series gets a Latin accent when Cuban pianist and bandleader Chucho Valdés will lead the Centre’s jazz orchestra on May 20. With a focus on large-scale orchestrations and a stage filled with emerging professional musicians, Valdés will join Jazz Orchestra director and renowned trombonist Hugh Fraser for one of the season’s hottest concerts.

Jazz is on the bill at The Banff Centre from May 11 to June 21, with impromptu gigs in the Centre’s intimate cabaret space, The Club, and formal concerts large and small, featuring up-and-coming musicians alongside jazz greats like acclaimed trumpeter Dave Douglas, percussionist Clarence Penn, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, bassist James Genus, and guitarist Rez Abbasi.

Music will spill out onto the patio outside the Centre’s Music and Sound building for noon-hour concerts May 24 and 31, and June 7. And the scene will go underground to The Club most weekday evenings between May 11 and June 9 for informal, licensed jams. Then it all comes together for mainstage concerts, led by Hugh Fraser May 13 and 15, and by Dave Douglas May 27, June 3, and June 10.

Created in 1974 by Oscar Peterson and Phil Nimmons, The Banff Centre’s program and concert series is one of the gems of the Canadian jazz scene, a hothouse of modern improvisational and orchestral composition and performance In less than three decades, the program has grown into a mature, internationally acclaimed program at the leading edge of developments in jazz, attracting musicians and composers including Dave Holland, Muhal Richard Abrams, Kenny Werner, Django Bates, Kevin Eubanks, Anthony Braxton, Kenny Wheeler, Bill Frisell, and many others.  

Chucho Valdés
The son of legendary Cuban bandleader Bebo Valdés and founder of the Afro-Cuban jazz band Irakere, Valdés’s music synthesizes deep elements of classical music, Afro-Cuban folklore, popular music and jazz. Known for his improvisatory skill, his live recordings are especially impressive, and he has taken Cuba’s music to the rest of the world while remaining a mentor to young musicians back home.

Hugh Fraser
In 1980, Fraser formed the Vancouver Ensemble of Jazz Improvisation (VEJI), and in 1986 created the Hugh Fraser Quintet. He has recorded over 60 of his own compositions on 13 albums, and has won two Juno Awards. Currently director of The Banff Centre’s Jazz Orchestra program, Fraser has performed or recorded with musicians including Jaki Byard, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, and Sheila Jordan.

Dave Douglas
Acclaimed New York-based trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas continues to land his recordings and performances on critics’ “best of” lists. He is committed to developing music which extends the traditional language of jazz, and persistently questions the boundaries of genre and reexamines assumptions about music with each new project. Currently director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, Douglas has recorded more than 20 CDs featuring his working ensembles. His ensembles have toured widely since 1994, performing at major jazz and new music festivals across the world.

For more information on Jazz at The Banff Centre:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bsaf/jazz/

For print-ready, downloadable photos from the Centre’s Jazz series:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/images/2006/bsaf/#jazz