Downbeat’s Rising Stars

Let’s not get too hung up on labels like "Rising Stars."
At age 48, with 17 discs of wildly varying merit to his credit (I’m one of the
precious few who loved his ’80s meld of jazz and hip hop), saxophonist Greg Osby
is less a rising star that an established albeit iconoclastic member of the jazz
firmament. Ditto trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, who joined Wynton Marsalis’s band
back in 1989, and 51-year old guitarist Dave Stryker.

Instead if trying to pigeonhole the ages and career
stations of the nine musicians tabbed to participate in this highly enticing
concert, let’s just stipulate that all of them are top-notch technicians
interested in both pushing the envelope and enhancing the tradition of jazz
through their compositions and arrangements. And as opposed to the Young Lions
marketing hype of the 1980s, even the twentysomethings in the group have
impressive pedigrees. Trumpeter (and the curator for this project) Sean Jones
and pianist Dan Nimmer both have been reared in Marsalis’s Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra; saxophonist Marcus Strickland was first caught locally blowing away
Artists Quarter patrons on the bandstand with drummer Roy Haynes. And 32-year
old trumpeter Jeremy Pelt got his start with the Mingus Big Band.

Everyone I just mentioned in an agile, probing stylist,
and thoroughly grounded in jazz scholarship. In a repertory set-up somewhat similar to the SF Jazz
Collective, each member of the group has written new arrangements to jazz
standards and will perform them with various permutations of the ensemble. This
is musically specifically commissioned for this concert, bringing together some
musicians who rarely if ever have played together. It’s a great way to honor and
further enrich jazz, the music famously dubbed "the sound of
surprise."