Five-man band lets music do the talking -
"The Flintstones Theme" has
probably never before been played at the University YMCA's Know Your
Universities series, whose topics rarely lend themselves to cartoons.
New York jazzman Cecil Bridgewater changed all that Tuesday
with a beboppy rendition of the animation theme, as well as "Take the A Train,"
in which his five-man band rivaled Duke Ellington's.
There was more music than talk by the Champaign native, who
traded solos with his brother Ron on saxophone and other musicians.
When he did talk, he talked about how the high jump had led
him to the trumpet.
The Bridgewater clan was long interested in music' his
grandfather played in a Ringling Brothers Circus band in the early 1900s, and
his father was in the U.S. Navy Band in World War ll. His uncle Pete had a big
band, his brother Ron is a University of Illinois music professor, and his
ex-wife Dee Dee recently won a Grammy for her scat-singing.
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C-U soaks up the Bridgewaters' talent -
Signs welcoming drivers into
Champaign and Urbana proclaim our cities "Home of Miss America 2003." I
respectfully submit we add signs that say "Home of the Bridgewaters."
Even though Cecil and his former wife, Dee Dee, now live
elsewhere, their musical hearts and souls remain here as evidenced in an unusual
performance Saturday evening in the Tryon Festival Theatre of the Krannert
Center for the Performing Arts. Local resident Ron Bridgewater joined his
brother for several selections, and the Bridgewater extended family was in the
audience.
The University of Illinois Concert Jazz Band led by Chip
McNeill -- augmented by an orchestra with Dorothy Martirano as concertmaster--
accompanied the Bridgewaters.
Considering the Bridgewaters rehearsed with the band only
twice and the orchestra once, the overall sound was amazingly cohesive. Allowing
for the various missteps by Cecil and Dee Dee and that Cecil conducted while
playing the trumpet, the band gave a better than great presentation.
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Jazz singer returns to C-U -
Since leaving Champaign-Urbana in
1970, jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater has enjoyed an amazing career.
She's won critical acclaim for her albums. She's won
tow Grammy awards and a Tony for best featured actress in a musical -- in 1975,
in "The Wiz," the first musical in which she ever appeared.
She's racked up a number of other awards and nominations,
among them a Laurence Olivier Award nomination in 1987 for hest actress in a
musical, for essentially channeling the late great Billie Holiday in a London
production of "Lady Day."...
Now Bridgewater is back in town, ready to appear onstage
Saturday night at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts with her first
husband, the jazz trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, in a concert that is part of the
center's Jazz Threads initiative.
"It's going to be really exciting, " Dee Dee Bridgewater said
after arriving in Champaign on Thursday. "I just told Cecil, 'Do what you
want. Just make sure I know the song and I'll sing it.' He's taken songs from my
latest CD ('This is New') and turned them into orchestral and big-band
arrangements.
"It'll be nice for us to be on the stage again because ,
really, I kind of started out here. This is where my career started."
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Jazz Comes Home -
Urbana -- Once, during his program "Jazz from the Kennedy
Center," the jazz pianist, historian and educator Billy Taylor asked trumpeter
Cecil Bridgewater about his career. Bridgewater replied that he had accomplished
more than he ever thought he would.
"I got a chance to meet a lot of people and to perform with
them," he told Taylor. "I've really been blessed from the at standpoint. People
who I thought would never know my name -- I got a chance to meet and perform
with them.
"That's been a thrill."
Those players include jazz greats Horace Silver, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Jimmy
Smith, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Art Blakey. Now Bridgewater, who
developed his chops in Champaign-Urbana, returns to his hometown for a weeklong
residency at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the first of three for him
over the academic year.
As part of the Jazz Threads initiative, Bridgewater will
engage in a variety of master classes and other events over three weeks. He will
be here next week and again in December and March. His first week will culminate
with a concert at 7:30p.m. Sept. 27 at the Krannert Center.
There, Bridgewater will perform with a band that he put
together for the show: Mulgrew Miller on piano, Kenny Davis on bass, Carl Allen
on drums, and his younger brother, Ron Bridgewater, on saxophone. The
first three are jazz musicians based in New York. Ron Bridgewater is a UI
professor of saxophone who once played with his older brother in the Thad Jones,
Mel Lewis Orchestra. A "Talk back" with the artists will follow the concert.
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Cool sounds for a cold night -
February 24, 2000
LaGuardia Community College's Little theatre, during this
past Friday's stormy, icy and brutally cold evening, became one of the very
coziest and intimately comfortable jazz performance venues in Queens. In
the hippest of circles, it's been said "that the cats will always hang when
it's time to hang," and this first gathering of a promising schedule of
future performances to follow, as part of "The Second Annual Jazz Jam
Series," certainly proved the axiom to be the truest of truisms.
...Internationally renowned jazz flugelhorn-trumpet player,
educator, producer, compose and arranger Cecil Bridgewater was introduced as the
featured artist by Eric Lemon, an acoustic double bass player from Jamaica
(Queens) and the musical director of the series.
Bridgewater's mastery of the trumpet, with his clean, cool
and soulful homage to these deceased trumpet icons (Clifford Brown), was
beautifully accented and augmented by Justin Robinson's alto sax reminiscences
of Parker and Brownie, as they traded rhythmic sequences and riffs with the rest
of the ensemble.
The Ellington/Strayhorn classic "Take The A Train"
followed a short reminiscence by Bridgewater as he casually engaged his
entranced audience with personal recollections of his formative years.
In particular, he spoke proudly of a childhood trip with his
father to see Louis Armstrong for the first time "that convinced him that
he wanted to become a trumpeter just like him." by Norm Harris
Recent Takes: Vibist Jay Hoggard
Offers Spirited Duke Ellington Salute for Hartford Jazz Society
The Greenmountain Jazz Messenger - July/August 1999
...Hoggards Duke Ellington salute ended with an unexpected
bonus. Trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater joined the ensemble onstage for
a supercharged rendition of "Cottontail," and more surprising, Cecil didn't have
his horn with him; instead, he dazzled the audience with an exuberant (if somewhat
unpolished) display of scatting. He dedicated his performance to vocal improvising
pioneer Leon Thomas, who had died several weeks earlier. by Chuck Obuchowski
JazzTimes - December 1998
Cecil Bridgewater: Mean What You Say
Titled after a Thad Jones tune heard on the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis
Orchestra's debut album more than 30 years ago, this album is a reminder of Bridgewater's
twisting, melodic, hard bop trumpet work. He and tenor saxophonist Ron Bridgewater, his
brother, are joined by a beautiful rhythm section: pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Kenny
Davis, and drummer Billy Hart. Vocalist Vanessa Rubin appears on two tracks.
The album recalls the '50s and early '60s in its melodic warmth, the
groove of the rhythm section, and the phrasing of the hornmen. The opener, Ron's "In
the Open," is a complex blues line that the composer solos on with smoothly, lithe
phrasing. "Cannon's Samba," by Cecil, follows, with the trumpeter fanning the
flames during his solo. On the title cut the hornmen improvise several airy choruses
together before the theme appears.
Cecil, most noted for his long tenure with Max Roach's quartet, has
also played in the Jones-Lewis Orchestra and with Horace Silver, among many others. This
album is long overdue. by Owen Cordie
VICTORY MUSIC REVIEW
- August 1998
CECIL BRIDGEWATER: MEAN WHAT YOU SAY
Cecil Bridgewater is such an old pro, it's a pleasure to hear
him play anything that captures his fancy. Bridgewater's long list of credits
includes playing, composing and recording with Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Horace Silver, Dizzy,
and Art Blakey. Here, Bridgewater stretches out on the
"bring-a-tear-to-your-eye-beautiful" "If My Heart Could Speak," the
up-tempo blues "In the Open," written and performed with his brother Ron, and a
handful of originals, including the engaging and clever "Louisiana Strut,"
played as a duet with brother Ron on sax. A future hall-of-famer at the top of his game.
(Todd De Groff)
Schools of Cool - January 22,
1998
Black Issues In Higher Education
Cecil Bridgewater, a veteran jazz trumpeter and faculty member
at the New School for Social Research, says that colleges and universities have been eager
to recruit experienced musicians who may not have graduate degrees into jazz faculty
positions. Jazz program administrators appreciate that many veteran musicians were active
in or close to the creation of jazz styles such as bebop in the 1940's, according to
Bridgewater.
Bridgewater says the goal of the program is to prepare students
"to function in the jazz community." He stresses that a good jazz program needs
to have experienced and working musicians involved with students as teachers. He contends
that weaker programs tend to rely upon faculty whose members may have solid academic
credentials, but lack professional working experience as musicians.
"You can teach skills such as improvisation in an academic
setting," says Bridgewater. "It can be done as long as students are getting the
right information. It doesn't matter where they get it; it matters whether they're getting
the right information."
Jazz Connections: West
Coast Concepts In Jazz - May/June
Cecil Bridgewater: I Love Your Smile
Trumpeter, Cecil Bridgewater a former member of Horace
Silver's Quartet and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra goes solo on this
mainstream/traditional jazz album. Bridgewater's compositions are bright and innovative.
An accomplished artist, Bridgewater reminds us what jazz is all about,
"improvisation." This eight cut album of excellent trumpet work showcases
Bridgewater's special talent for phrasing and his sensitivity for listening to the melody
("Sophisticated Lady"). I Love Your Smile features among others, Max
Roach (drums), Antonio Hart (alto sax), Steve Turre (trombone) and Roland Hanna (piano).
The album opens with a tribute to Magic Johnson, appropriately called,
"Magic." by Irene Wadkins
Jazz/A.A. - The Gavin Report/April 16, 1993
I Love Your Smile - Cecil Bridgewater
Some uncompromising, scathing Bebop from Max Roach Productions
in the form of some speedy, slippery trumpet pyrotechnics from Cecil Bridgewater. Pianist
Roland Hanna, drummers Roach and Michael Carvin, saxist Antonio Hart and others let their
fingers fly, but keep their eyes steady on the charts - that is, the ones with notes on
them. Bridgewater exhibits a dryer, flatter tone than most trumpet players. The notes
don't have much of a tail behind them either. "Magic" is as feverish as a fifty
yard dash. Hanna and Bridgewater complement each other's blazing sense of timing. Even a
melodious, good time, mid-temp piece like the title cut eventually transforms into a
note-filled juggernaut. On "Samba, Para Ustedes Dos" the four horn soloists
manage some incredibly acrobatic eighteen-bar melody heads before plunging into some
dizzying Samba jams. Steve Turre glides through his difficult solos with barely a
scratch. by Keith Zimmerman
BRE - Jazz Notes
Cecil Bridgewater - I Love Your Smile
Composer/trumpeter/arranger Cecil Bridgewater presents a
collection that is a true ensemble recording. Pianist Roland Hanna; bassist Tyrone Brown;
Michael Carvin, drums; Antonio Hart, alto sax; Steve Turre, trombone; Earl McIntyre, bass
trombone; and Mark Taylor on French horn, play tunes as a cascading collective. Vocalist
Vanessa Rubin lends her controlled stylings to "Never Too Young To Dream," a
ballad steeped with warmth. Hart's sax solo complements Cecil's trumpet on this tune. Good
chops are displayed on "Samba, Para Ustedes Dos." "Waltz for Duke
Pearson" and "As I Live And Breathe" enable a brassy rhubarb amongst the
players. "Magic" is a fast-paced tribute to the NBA legend while "I Love
Your Smile" goes out to Cecil's late grandmother, and is more sedate. by
Peter Miro
Wisconsin State Journal - Saturday, October 29, 1994
Richard Davis, Friends multiply music sounds
Trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater...tends to play thoughtfully,
almost coolly, using silence and simple phrasing, editing himself as he goes along. by
Paul Baker
Saint Paul Pioneer Press - May 7, 1991
Max Roach Quartet is exciting, entertaining
Trumpeter Bridgewater -- who stood erectly and nearly
motionless -- played thoughtful, low-key, beautifully constructed and subtly expressive
solos in his previously mentioned warm and quite pure tone. His phrasing seemed quite
original. by Bob Protzman
