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Angel City Jazz Festival Opens October 2nd at REDCAT with Henry Grimes's Return to the LA Stage plus the Dwight Trible/John Beasley Duo

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Angel City Jazz Festival
Los Angeles' cutting-edge jazz celebration, the Angel City Jazz Festival, now in its third year, is pleased to open its 2010 edition with a very special return to the Los Angeles stage by Henry Grimes, the legendary “lost" bassist. Opening for Henry in this evening of astonishing music will be the Dwight Trible/John Beasley Duo, showcasing Trible's soulful vocals and Beasley's outrageous piano chops.

On Saturday October 2nd, The Angel City Jazz Festival opening night event takes place at REDCAT, 631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. REDCAT is located at the corner of Second and Hope Streets in downtown Los Angeles, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. The evening will begin with a reception at 8:00pm followed by the concert at 8:30pm. Tickets are $30 ($25 for students with current I.D.) and are available through REDCAT's Box Office by calling 213 237-2800 or visiting redcat.org.

Grimes will perform as Henry Grimes & Friends, and what an impressive group of friends he has. The ensemble features Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet, Vinny Golia on winds, Ben Rosenbloom on piano, Alex Cline on drums and vocalist Dwight Trible as a special guest.

A leader in jazz in the 1950s and 1960s after attending Juilliard, Grimes helped create avant- garde jazz alongside Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor. Sadly, a late 1960s trip to the West Coast to work with Al Jarreau went awry, leaving Henry in Los Angeles with a broken bass he couldn't pay to repair, so he sold it for a small sum and faded away from the music world. Many years passed with nothing heard from him, as he lived in his tiny rented room in an S.R.O. hotel in downtown Los Angeles, working as a manual laborer, custodian, and maintenance man, and writing many volumes of handwritten poetry.

He was discovered there by a Georgia social worker and fan in 2002 and was given a bass by William Parker, and after only a few weeks of ferocious woodshedding, Henry emerged from his room to begin playing small concerts around LA, and shortly afterwards made a triumphant return to New York City in May, 2003 to play in the Vision Festival. Now, at 74 Henry is back living, working and teaching in New York, playing music with top modern jazz artists including Rashied Ali, Marshall Allen, Fred Anderson, Marilyn Crispell, Andrew Cyrille, Bill Dixon, Dave Douglas, Paul Dunmall, David Murray, William Parker, and Marc Ribot, touring throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Mr. Grimes can be heard on 85 recordings on various labels, including Atlantic, Ayler Records, Blue Note, Columbia, ESP- Disk, ILK Music, Impulse!, JazzNewYork Productions, Pi Recordings, Porter Records, Prestige, Riverside, and Verve. For more information please visit http://www.henrygrimes.com

Regarded as two of the most talented players of their generation, Dwight Trible and John Beasley will perform as a seldom heard duo to open the third annual Angel City Jazz Festival. Together they will explore the outer reaches of musical invention. Vocalist Trible has collaborated with Pharoah Sanders, Charles Lloyd, Billy Childs and Horace Tapscott. In addition to his acclaimed work in jazz, Trible is well respected in the hip hop community and has recorded for cutting edge labels Ninja Tune, Plug Research and Ubiquity. Pianist John Beasley is a prodigious performer and composer who has worked with Miles Davis, Steely Dan, Freddie Hubbard, Bennie Maupin, Christian McBride and James Brown. His chops have taken him deep into the mainstream as a musical director on American Idol, for Queen Latifah, and most recently on the world tour of International Bollywood sensation A.R. Rahman.

ABOUT THE ANGEL CITY JAZZ FESTIVAL:

The Angel City Jazz Festival, LA's only jazz and new music festival, is a weeklong celebration at six exciting venues, combining music, film, art, dance and food with two world premieres. The Angel City Jazz Festival features innovative and original jazz musicians from the west coast and around the world. The festival presents established jazz artists, as well as lesser-known emerging talent, with a focus on west coast creative jazz, past, present and future. The 2010 festival is produced by Angel City Arts, in association with the LA County Arts Commission, LACMA, CalArts, L.A. Film Forum, Cryptogramophone Records and the Jazz Bakery.

The festival can receive tax-deductible donations through Angel City Arts, a 501(c)3 non- profit corporation.

ABOUT REDCAT:

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater) is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts center for innovative visual, performing and media arts located in downtown Los Angeles inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Through performances, exhibitions, screenings, and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT continues the tradition of the California Institute of the Arts, its parent organization, by encouraging experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse.

For more information about REDCAT, visit redcat.org or call 213 237-2800.

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