2024 ARTISTS PERFORMING ON THE JAZZ88 MAIN STAGE

STEFON HARRIS & BLACKOUT – FRIDAY JUNE 21st 8:30PM – MEARS PARK

Educator, Vibraphonist and Composer, Stefon Harris has been heralded as “one of the most important young artists in jazz” by The Los Angeles Times. A four-time GRAMMYTM nominee, he is a seven-time Best Mallet player by the Jazz Journalist Association, the recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, Downbeat’s Critics Poll Winner for Vibraphone (2015, 2013) and 2014 Expanded Critic’s Poll for Vibes from Jazz Times. He won a 2014 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album for Wonder: The Songs of Stevie Wonder as a member of the SF Jazz Collective. Harris earned a BM in Classical Percussion and a MM in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music. He tours worldwide with his bands Sonic Creed, Blackout and Ninety Miles. Harris teaches at New York University and is Artistic Director of Jazz Education at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). He has been Artist in Residence at Fontana Chamber Arts, Kalamazoo, The Lied Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, and San Francisco Performances. Harris currently teaches at the Brubeck Institute through their Distance Learning program and at the Institute’s Summer Jazz Colony. Stefon’s landmark TED Talk, “There are No Mistakes On The Bandstand” was the most watched in its 2011 release and has over 500,000 views. He has emerged as a leading informance presenter in Corporate Leadership workshops with Fortune 100 companies around the world. In 2014 Stefon co-founded The Melodic Progression Institute with business partner Clif Swiggett. Their first app, Harmony CloudTM was released on iTunes in January 2016.

REGINA CARTER QUARTET – SATURDAY JUNE 22nd 8:30PM- MEARS PARK

Violinist/educator Regina Carter is a recipient of the MacArthur ‘genius’ award and a Doris Duke Artist Award, has been named an NEA Jazz Master, and is a three-time Pulitzer Prize jurist. In 2018, Regina Carter was named artistic director of the Geri Allen Jazz Camp, formerly named, New Jersey Performing Arts All-Female Jazz Residency.

Regina tours with her own group and has appeared with such performers as Wynton Marsalis and JALC, Kenny Barron, Ray Brown, Mary J. Blige, Chucho Valdés, Joe Jackson, Billy Joel, Dolly Parton and Omara Portuondo. She has also been a guest soloist with several major symphony orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.

She is currently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and New Jersey City University and is artist in residence at the Oakland University School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. She has been resident artist for San Francisco Performances, and resident artistic director for SFJAZZ.

KARRIN ALLYSON – FRIDAY JUNE 21st 6:00PM – MEARS PARK

Throughout her fifteen albums, Karrin Allyson, five-time Grammy nominee in the Best Jazz Vocalist category, has demonstrated an uncanny ability to ‘get inside’ a lyric — to take over a song and reshape it into something magical.

“Ever since her impressive debut (I Didn’t Know About You, Concord, 1992) Karrin Allyson has successfully pulled material from both the pop and jazz world and it all works well with her voluptuous huskiness and rhythmic sensibility.” – Roger Crane, The International Review of Music
Stephen Holden, in a NY TIMES concert review, praised Allyson as “one of the most grounded singers working today,” with an “exceptionally keen eye for the smart, semi-obscure pop or jazz number that speaks directly to the moment.” In his WALL STREET JOURNAL preview, writer Will Friedwald buzzed, “she sings with amazing subtlety.” And in his lead JAZZTIMES MAGAZINE CD review, VOX critic Christopher Loudon said Allyson’s songs “shimmer with tender vibrancy.”

JOE LOVANO QUARTET FEATURING KENNY WERNER, JOHN LOCKWOOD & FRANCISCO MELA – SATURDAY JUNE 22nd 6:00PM- MEARS PARK

Grammy-winning saxophonist, composer and producer Joe Lovano is fearless in finding new modes of artistic expression. With a Grammy Win for his 52nd Street Themes and 14 other nominations, he has won Down Beat Magazine’s Critics and Readers Polls countless times as Tenor Saxophonist, Musician of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year and Triple Crowns from Down Beat. He has also received numerous awards from Jazz Times and the Jazz Journalists Association for Tenor Saxophone, Album of the Year and Musician of the Year.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 29, 1952 he attended the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston where years later he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate. Since 2001 he has held the Gary Burton Chair in Jazz Performance and is a founding faculty member since 2009 of the Global Jazz Institute at Berklee directed by Danilo Pérez. He is a guest lecturer at New York University’s Jazz Program, Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music as well as Clinician at Universities around the globe.

From 1991 through 2016, Lovano released an unprecedented 25 records as a leader for the historic Blue Note Records. Joe Lovano Quartet: Classic! Live at Newport featuring Hank Jones was recorded in 2005 and released in 2016 to critical acclaim. In 2019, Lovano released his debut album as a bandleader on ECM Records, Trio Tapestry, with Marilyn Crispell and Carmen Castaldi. Over the next few years, Lovano saw the release of three additional ECM Records albums: ROMA, a collaboration with Enrico Rava; Arctic Riff, a special guest appearance with the Marcin Wasilewski Trio; and the sophomore release from Lovano’s Trio Tapestry, Garden Of Expression. In 2021, Lovano released Other Worlds, his third album with Sound Prints, a quintet he co-leads with trumpeter Dave Douglas. The next year brought a collaboration with guitarist Jakob Bro, Once Around the Room: A Tribute to Paul Motian. Most recently, Lovano released his third Trio Tapestry recording entitled, Our Daily Bread.

Joe has performed and recorded with a long list of jazz greats including Woody Herman, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Mel Lewis, Bob Brookmeyer, Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, Tony Bennett, Abbey Lincoln, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Gunther Schuller, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Ed Blackwell, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Hank Jones, Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker, Dave Douglas, Judi Silvano, Ravi Coltrane, Chucho Valdés, Ornette Coleman, Diana Krall, and many others. Joe has created an extensive body of work for his own ensembles including strings, woodwinds, his horn-rich Nonet, the Classic Quartet, Trio Tapestry, and more. Joe Lovano continues to explore new horizons within the world of music as a soloist, bandleader and composer.