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Teen Jazz Violinist Jonathan Russell Earns ASCAP Honor

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New York, NY -- Jonathan Russell, the award winning fourteen-year-old jazz violinist from the Bronx has received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards for his piece “Danny's Groove". The ASCAP Awards are presented by The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers with additional support from The Gibson Foundation and were established in 2002 to acknowledge and encourage composers younger than 30 years of age. Russell is the youngest composer this year to have his work acknowledged through this program.



The initial impetus for this violin prodigy to set down his first jazz composition was the awarding of a Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin by fiddler, educator and composer Mark O'Connor and the violin maker Jonathan Cooper. Russell received the violin from O'Connor and the faculty at the Mark O'Connor fiddle camp in New York City last summer.



“Over the past few years, I have increasingly realized that we can use music to bridge the gaps between generations, races and cultures," says Mr. Russell. “As a journalist and fiddler, Daniel Pearl shared a similar vision of spreading understanding through words and sometimes music." That shared vision helped inspire Russell to compose a melody for his latest album Duets recorded with pianist Ron Drotos.



“I started off writing “Danny's Groove" by thinking of a bebop-like melody. When Ron came to look at it, he thought the solos might work well with a funk feel. I realized this added a nice touch because (perhaps as Danny would have wanted it) it bridged two worlds of jazz ... and it turned out to be a really good jam tune!" Russell has been jamming on that tune with musicians for the past six months. From an informal gathering of “Friends of Daniel" called FODfest, to performances with some of the best jazz musicians on the East Coast (including Frank Vignola and Nicki Parrot from the Les Paul Trio), to a recent session at a dance festival that focused on teen musicians, Russell has been building bridges with this tune.



“Danny's Groove", as any good jazz tune should be, has a memorable and “swingable" Benny Goodman-like melody with a chord progression that allows soloists to improvise a broad range of ideas. A sample of the tune is available for free from the Daniel Pearl Music Days e-Stage web site and several performances are available on sites such as youtube.



“This ASCAP acknowledgement really means a lot to me," opines Russell. “So many great jazz compositions are written every year and so many are submitted. I enjoy playing this tune and seeing how musicians respond to it especially when they find a groove that works for them." And that “groove" is exactly what Russell thinks Danny's Groove is all about.



About the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violins:
In 2003, luthier Jonathan Cooper made the first Daniel Pearl Memorial violin in honor of the international journalist and talented musician Danny Pearl, with a second violin following a few years later. In addition to being a journalist, Mr. Pearl played violin and fiddle wherever he traveled prior to his murder by terrorists in 2002. Mr. Cooper hoped that the violin would be used to promote music as a means for cultural understanding and tolerance. Each year, talented students from Mark O'Connor's fiddle camps are awarded the use of these violins for one year. The musicians perform year round and share Pearl's vision of building borderless friendships through music. The winners also dedicate concerts each year to the World Music Days mission of spreading “Harmony for Humanity."



About Jonathan Russell:
Bronx resident, Jonathan Russell has become an integral link to the future of jazz, connecting younger generations of listeners with great musicians and band leaders such as Wynton Marsalis, the late Les Paul, Bucky Pizzarelli and Ed Polcer. His youth presentations have helped connect students with jazz by identifying aspects of jazz in every day modern life. His performances seamlessly integrate modern and popular melodies into the fabric of jazz standards while respecting and acknowledging the golden age of jazz in America and the performers who have come before.



In 2005, at the age of nine, Jonathan was awarded an Alternative Styles Award by the American String Teachers Association. In 2006, Jonathan had the honor of being the youngest jazz musician ever invited to play in a master class at Jazz at Lincoln Center taught by today's foremost name in jazz violin, Regina Carter. In addition to numerous other awards and distinctions, Jonathan is most proud to have received the U.S. Ambassador's Award in Hungary for his performances promoting mutual understanding and strengthening the friendship between the two countries. In November of 2008 Jonathan appeared as one of the youngest ever feature performers with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Rose Hall in New York. Those performances at Rose Hall were also featured in a live broadcast on XM Satellite Radio and re-broadcast on NPR stations around the world.



Jonathan has been a feature performer at major jazz festivals including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, the Suncoast Dixieland Jazz Festival, the New Jersey and North Carolina jazz festivals. In 2008 he made his European debut at the Bohm Ragtime & Jazz Festival with performances in eight cities throughout Hungary. He has been featured at The Blue Note in New York City and has performed at other venues such as Iridium and Birdland. In the past he has performed with Wynton Marsalis, Bucky Pizzarelli, the late Les Paul, John Lamb, John Bunch, Svend Asmussen and more than 40 jazz bands from the United States and Europe.



A ninth grade student at Professional Children's School in Manhattan, Jonathan studies violin at the School for Strings with Allen Lieb while his jazz studies have been with Grammy Award winner Andy Stein of Prairie Home Companion's Shoe Band and jazz arranger Ron Drotos. Jonathan also pursues supplemental studies during the summer at Grammy Award winner Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Camp and master classes with the legendary jazz be-bop pianist and educator Barry Harris. In addition to violin studies, Jonathan is studying film scoring with two members of the faculty of NYU- Ron Sadoff and Ira Newborn.



His first CD entitled The Sheik of Araby features eleven standards from the jazz age. Jonathan's next CD, Puttin' On The Ritz, features many of the performers he has been working with including Bucky Pizzarelli, Joel Forbes, Joe Ascione, Nicki Parrott, Mark Shane and Ed Polcer. His latest CD entitled simply Duets is a collection of modern interpretations that according to jazz promoter Jack Kleinsinger, “demonstrates that the time has come to stop appraising Jonathan as a gifted prodigy and start acknowledging him as the veteran jazz master he has become."

Websites:
Jonathan Russell
ASCAP Press Release
Daniel Pearl World Music Days
Daniel Pearl Foundation
Violin Maker Jonathan Cooper

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