Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

YUSEF LATEEF with BELMONDO BROTHERS
American jazz legend meets French boppers
+Jon Bentley Quintet

This is a fantastic transatlantic collaboration and another example of the Festival’s commitment to the ever-growing globalization movement in jazz. The Paris-based Belmondo Brothers—trumpeter Stephane Belmondo and saxophonist Lionel Belmondo—lead one of the most respected mainstream (hard bop) bands in Europe. Between the two, they’ve worked with a who’s who of European and North American artists like Michel Legrand, Tom Harrell, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Horace Silver, DJ Frédéric Galliano, Francois Théberge, Jean-Michel Pilc, Johnny Griffin, and Lew Tabackin. Shortly after they formed their quintet in 1993, the brothers were co-awarded the Django Reinhardt Prize for French Musician of the Year. Since then, the band has released five acclaimed recordings including their latest, Influence (B-Flat), with the legendary Detroit-born multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef. Grammy Award-winning composer/performer/educator Yusef Lateef has been a major force on the international music scene for more than six decades. The 85-year-old master musician is acknowledged as one of the great innovators in the African American tradition of what he calls autophysiopsychic music—that which comes from one’s spiritual, physical, and emotional self. Never just a bop or hard bop soloist, Lateef released a string of Prestige and Impulse recordings in the ’50s and ’60s that blend ‘eastern’ music with jazz. As a virtuoso on a broad spectrum of instruments—tenor saxophone, flute, oboe, shanai (a type of oboe), argol (a kind of double clarinet) and koto—he has introduced delightful new sounds and blends of tone colours to audiences all over the world. Yusef’s résumé is long and varied and includes work with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Adam Rudolph, Ricky Ford, Archie Shepp, and most recently the Belmondo Brothers. With Laurent Fickelson piano, Paul Imm bass, Laurent Robin drums. Thanks to the AFAA.