The 1st annual Brooklyn Jazz Festival came about when Erik Eckstein, a New York City real estate developer, approached his guitar teacher Alex Skolnick about presenting music at the Lefrak Center in Prospect Park, a space he is currently leasing for roller -skating, ice-skating, and special events.
Alex contacted me and the three of us put our heads together to try to dream up events that would represent all that is great and wonderful about our music in New York City and beyond. It was a surprising gift. Here was somebody with the means and vision to do something meaningful.
Alex was not available for our August date, so I took the helm booking our first jazzfest. My goal was simple— to assemble the best musicians in the world within our budget, many of them local, and in doing so be sure that we represented the diversity that is a hallmark of Brooklyn itself. I wanted this to actually be a jazz festival, artists who were both deep in the history of this music, and doing their own thing with it in the language of now.
We’ll have burning Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms with Bobby Sanabria and Vinicius Gomes, piano odysseys with Jason Moran, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Craig Taborn, moving and virtuosic sax playing with Chris Potter, Ingrid Laubrock, and others. Representing the guitar is Emmanuel Michael with Marcus Gilmore’s band, Vinicius, myself, and Vernon Reid who joins me in celebrating the seminal 1970 Miles Davis recording, “In a Silent Way.” We definitely plan to do the Miles music in our own way, they’ll be a lot of way out sonic exploration and funk. Linda May Han Oh and Joel Ross (as well as Marcus with is quintet) represent the younger generation, and all three have delightfully individual ensembles and approaches. Just the drummers at this festival boggle the mind, Eric Harland, Taurus Mateen, Sanabria, Gilmore, Kendrick Scott, and (? Matt can you remind me who is with Joel Ross and Linda on drums?0
The day’s offerings will take the listener far and wide, moments of delight, moments of surprise, moments of ecstasy and calm beauty— and in each case, inner connectivity and deeply felt dialogue.