Gary Smulyan at BLU Jazz+

Internationally-acclaimed & award-winning baritone saxophonist returns to the Rubber City for a very special live concert (8PM) and masterclass (6PM, FREE) event! Presented by the BLU Jazz+ Masterclass Foundation. Featuring Theron Brown, David Morgan, Zaire Darden.

Award winning multi-in­strumentalist, Gary Smulyan, started his music career by first learning alto saxophone during his teenage years on Long Island. Today he is critically acclaimed across-the-board and recognized as a major voice on the bari­tone saxophone. His playing is marked by an aggressive rhythmic sense, an intel­ligent and creative harmonic approach – and perhaps most importantly – a strong and incisive wit.

While still in high school, he had the chance to sit in with major jazz artists such as legendary trumpeter Chet Baker, saxophonist Lee Konitz, trombonist Jim­my Knepper and violinist Ray Nance.

After graduating high school he at­tended SUNY-Postsdam and Hofstra Uni­versity before he joined Woody Herman’s Young Thundering Herd in 1978. It was a remarkable collection of young musicians who ultimately would find themselves in the forefront of present-day jazz. Joining Smulyan in the band were saxophonist Joe Lovano, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer John Riley, who would eventu­ally become a fixture in the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.

In 1980, unlike many of his colleagues and peers Smulyan didn’t have to go very far to move into New York City proper where he became part of the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra then under the direction of Bob Brookmeyer, tonight’s commis­sioned artist, composer and guest conduc­tor. Smulyan also found work with other important large ensembles including the Mingus Epitaph Band and the Smithso­nian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

“Smulyan’s tone seems to get bigger and his ideas more expansive from album to album…”
– JazzTimes

Gradually establishing himself the talented Smulyan was asked to share the stage and the recording studio with a stunning potpourri of luminaries includ­ing: trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Stan Getz, pianist Chick Corea, timbales king Tito Puente, and R&B/Blues and soul icons Ray Charles, B.B. King and Diana Ross.

Smulyan, in addition to performing and recording in support of a myriad of people began to accumulate a discogra­phy as a leader. At this point in his career he has at least 10 recordings out under his own name. Meanwhile he continues to play with wide variety of artists – each presenting him with an opportunity to fully express himself. In addition to his work on Monday nights with the Van­guard Jazz Orchestra, Smulyan remains close with Lovano, working with him in his nine-piece Nonet; then there is the exhilarating and liberating Dave Holland Octet and the seminal bassist’s Big Band. Beyond that, Smulyan has also enjoyed stints in the cooperative Three Baritone Saxophone Band as well as working with powerhouse tenor saxophonist George Coleman in his octet and the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band that, similar to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, is com­prised of some of the world’s best players.

No matter who he is performing with – or whether he is leading his own band at the time – Smulyan brings to the stage the spirit, style and savvy of a deep­ toned master of bebop. “Gary Smulyan’s lineage comes more from musicians like Cecil Payne, Leo Parker, Pepper Adams, Serge Chaloff and Nick Brignola – the few baritonists that dared to master the tricky, chromatic music known as bebop,” wrote All About Jazz’s Francis Lo Kee in a review. “Indeed…Smulyan is fluent in the language.” He was heavily influenced by Adams who was known as “The Knife” for his hearty tone and the energy of his rhythmic playing style. Smulyan’s Homage was recorded following Adams’ death, and every track on the recording, released in 1994, is written by Adams. Similarly, Smulyan organized the Three Baritones Band, which places him in the company of two of his seniors – Ron­nie Cuber and Nick Brignola. The group released Plays Mulligan in 1998, the date serving as a tribute to the late Gerry Mul­ligan, one of the foremost baritone saxo­phonists in jazz history and a mentor for many artists, including Smulyan. “Smulyan’s tone seems to get bigger and his ideas more expansive from album to album,” wrote long-time critic Doug Ramsey in Jazz Times magazine. In 1995, WBGO, the all-jazz, Newark, N.J.-based NPR station voted Smulyan’s Saxophone Mosaic as one of the best 25 CDs of 1995; two years later the Boston Globe selected the baritone saxophonist’s Gary Smulyan with Strings as one of the 10 best jazz CDs of 1997.

Always in search of new ideas, in 2008 Smulyan released High Noon – The Jazz Soul of Frankie Laine; it is a nine-piece band tribute to the prolific 1940s and 1950s pop singer Frankie Laine who died in 2007 at age 93. “This is the kind of album whose melodies linger after the session’s over,” wrote another long-time critic, Owen Cordle of Charlotte News and Observer.