International Jazz Greats Larry Coryell and Benny Golson Join Nathan Davis for Annual Pitt Jazz Ensemble Spring Concert April 18

April 9, 2002

Davis Fresh from Conducting Kennedy Center Residency

PITTSBURGH Legendary jazz composers and performers Larry Coryell and Benny Golson will share the stage with the Pitt Jazz Ensemble conducted by Pitt Jazz Studies Director Nathan Davis at the Ensemble's spring concert, 8 p.m. April 18 in the Assembly Room of the William Pitt Union (WPU), 3959 Fifth Ave., in Oakland.

Tickets are $10 for the general public and $5 for senior citizens and Pitt students with a valid I.D. Because only a limited number of tickets are available, concertgoers are advised to purchase their tickets in advance at the WPU box office, 412/648-7814. Remaining tickets, if any, will be sold at the door.

Guitarist and composer Larry Coryell is renowned as the prime innovator of jazz-fusion, first with his band "Foreplay" and later with "The Eleventh House." His musical expression ranges from avant-garde jazz to his jazz adaptations of three Stravinsky ballets.

Benny Golson's major contributions include the jazz standards "Killer Joe," "I Remember Clifford," and "Along Came Betty." His musical career, which has spanned five decades, includes compositions and arrangements for Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and many other jazz greats.

Also scheduled to perform are Cecil Washington, percussion; James Johnson, piano; Mike Taylor, bass; and Greg Humphries, drums. The Pitt Jazz Ensemble, made up of students in the Jazz Studies Program, was formed 31 years ago by Nathan Davis. For more information, call 412/624-4187.

Davis performs at the Pitt Concert after having just returned from Washington, D.C., where he served as director of programming for the 2002 Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead, The Kennedy Center's national jazz residency program for emerging jazz artists. Davis, in his third year of developing the Kennedy Center jazz residency curriculum, helped recruit students from all over the world for the program's one week (March 29 April 5) of intense training in performance, composition, and arranging, followed by a performance in Wilmington, Del. Davis' curriculum is modeled in part after his successful and long-running Pitt Jazz Seminar, which will mark its 32nd anniversary this fall.

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