PHOENIX RISING 100 YEARS OF JAZZ is the latest music project from internationally acclaimed jazz bassist Alan Lewine. Proceeds of this concert will benefit Ability360, Arizona's largest center for independent living, which empowers people with disabilities to live independent lifestyles within the community. Phoenix Rising likewise promotes the capabilities of people who might be perceived as having disabilities.
Alan lost a leg at only 21 and has walked on crutches for over 45 years. And he has been a gigging musician for nearly as long, performing across the US and in Europe with 18 albums as a leader, sideman and producer and founder of Owlsong Productions. Alan understands the perceptions sometimes held of people who have or appear to have disabilities. But he never let that stop him. Alan says, “I let my bass do the walking.”
Don’t miss Alan’s new Phoenix Rising Xtet, featuring world-renowned jazz musicians like HOWARD ALDEN, DENNIS ROWLAND and LOUISE BARANGER, in a 7-piece band with Arizona’s top players. After decades on the road and several albums on major labels, Dennis was silenced a few years ago by a serious stroke. But now he’s teaching and singing again with the all the suave coolness he brought to his years with the Count Basie Orchestra.
This concert will illustrate how each generation of players had to subvert the dominant paradigm and reinvent music! Over 2 sets, hear the groundbreaking jazz hits of the last hundred years. Music from trad (Dixieland), the Swing Era, Django Reinhardt’s gypsy jazz, Bebop, Brubeck, Ornette, Trane and beyond.
ABOUT ABILITY360
Ability360 continues a 40-plus-year tradition of empowering programs for people with all disabilities. Ability360 offers and promotes programs to empower people with disabilities to take personal responsibility so that they may achieve or continue independent lifestyles within the community. The independent living philosophy states that people with disabilities should have the same civil rights, options, and control over choices in their own lives as do people without disabilities. Ability360 is located at 5025 E. Washington St. Ste. 200, Phoenix, AZ 85034, http://www.ability360.org, 602-256-2245.
