[Dixielandjazz] Jonathan Russell wins ASCAP honorable mention

[Stephen G Barbone]

Way to go Jonathan.

Folks in the Philadelphia/Wilmington area can see Jonathan Russell in  
performance with the Barbone Street Trio this Sunday, Feb 21 at Arsht  
hall, University of Delaware Wilmington Campus, 2700 Pennsylvania  
Avenue, Wilmington DE. The music is American Songbook and a the event  
is The 77th Annual International Photographic Exhibit, presented by  
the Delaware Photographic Society. He will be performing there with us  
from 1:00 Pm to 3:45 PM. Admission is FREE.

Other members of the trio besides me are Tom Pontz piano and Bruce  
Campbell, bass. We are looking forward to working again with young  
Jonathan. Maybe he'll bring the music for his composition "Danny's  
Groove".

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
http://www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


New York, NY -- For Immediate Release --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  
(includingFrank 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 theveteran jazz master  
he has become."