Roseanna Vitro
February 25, 2009 |
 Kenny Werner, piano |
“the american songbook, yesterday & today”ROSEANNA VITRO, returning to Bucknell after being the inaugural performer for the Janet Weis Cabaret Jazz Series two years ago, is a storyteller, a jazz singer with a penchant for touching audiences. She can be heard on a host of recordings, including her breakout recording on Telarc, Passion Dance, which featured Elvin Jones, Christian McBride, and longtime musical partner, Kenny Werner; as well as compelling tributes to Ray Charles on Catchin’ Some Rays; Bill Evans on Conviction; and Brazil on Tropical Postcards. Her latest work can be heard on the 2008 release, The Delirium Blues Project: Serve or Suffer, a blues-based recording of jazz and pop repertory featuring KennyWerner’s arrangements and an all-star band of Werner, James Carter, Randy Brecker, Ray Anderson, Adam Rogers, John Patitucci, Rocky Bryant, Geoff Countryman. Her band mates, on stage and in the studio, have included Kenny Werner, Fred Hersch, George Coleman, ‘Fathead’ Newman, Eddie Gomez, Arnett Cobb, Elvin Jones, Kenny Barron, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, Eddie Daniels, Joey Baron, Al Foster, Rufus Reid, Buster Williams, Ben Riley, Allen Farnham, Dean Johnson, Tim Horner, Mark Soskin and many more.
Having served as an official Jazz Ambassador in 2004, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, she has presented concerts and workshops around the world. Her studies of Indian vocal technique are documented in an article, "From Bebop To Bombay", heralded by the International Association For Jazz Education. Since 1998, Ms. Vitro has served as chair of the Vocal Jazz Program at New Jersey City University. Since 2001, she has taught at the Wachovia Gifted Teens Program of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey. In 1998, Roseanna Vitro was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame.
KENNY WERNER was born in 1951 in Brooklyn, New York. An NEA grant recipient and Grammy nominee, he has performed with, written for, or conducted an extensive and impressive list of great artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz,Marian McPartland, Dave Douglas, Toots Thielemans, Dave Liebman, Dave Douglas, Gunther Schuller, Lou Rawls, Betty Buckley, and Bobby McFerrin, to name but a very few. His numerous recordings began with a two LPs in 1977, one of them with Charles Mingus. His first solo album of original compositions, Beyond the Forest of Mirkwood, was released in 1981. In the early 80s, he toured and recorded with Archie Shepp. His trio with bassist Ratzo Harris and dummer Tom Rainey performed and recorded extensively from 1981 through 1995. In the mid-90s, he joined the Mel Lewis Orchestra. In 2007, he recorded his first CD for Half Note Records, Lawn Chair Society, for which he also recorded The Delirium Blues Project: Serve or Suffer. He has performed at most of the major festivals around the world, including Tanglewood and the Newport Jazz Festival.
He is an esteemed educator, having taught or been artist-in-residence at numerous schools including the Berkeley School of Music, Banff Center Jazz Program, and New York University. He is also a much published composer and author, well known for his classic jazz book, “Effortless Mastery,” published in 1996.
DEAN JOHNSON was born inWashington and studied bass on theWest Coast at the Berklee College of Music. He played in and around Seattle and worked for over 20 years with vocalists Jackie Cain and Roy Kral. Johnson moved to New York City in 1980. He became a member of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1985 with which he toured extensively, as he did with the Haze Greenfield Trio, the group Passage, and guitarist Nguyen Le’s groups. He has performed with an incredibly long list of artists and has played on countless recordings including Roseanna Vitro’s Tropical Postcards which also features Joe Lovano and Kenny Werner.
