Ambrose Akinmusire

Ambrose Akinmusire

Saturday, September 17, 2022, 8 pm

Vermont Jazz Center
72 Cotton Mill Hill #222
Brattleboro VT 05301

This concert will have ONLY a limited in-person audience.  There will NO livestream component.

Akinmusire is a multiyear winner of Downbeat’s critics’ choice awards for Trumpeter of the Year (including 2021) and Jazz Artist of the Year.

A visionary artist with six albums as a leader, he is a first call sideman found on recordings with Joni Mitchell, Brad Mehldau, Kendrick Lamar and many others.

Ambrose Akinmusire is a truth-teller whose music is an expression of his personal journey as a Black man. Although he loves playing jazz standards, he has chosen to compose original music that draws attention to the realities of racism.

It’s important to me to talk about the injustices that Black people experience, and the fear that I have walking around the United States and really a lot of places in the world.

And that is why I called this last album a blues album – it’s trying to express beauty and pain at the same time, trying to express what is to me the most defining part: resilience. And that’s what all my records are trying to express.”

Akinmusire’s sound on the trumpet is unlike anyone else’s. He masterfully bends notes up and down to make the air coming out of his horn sound like the melismas of a human voice.

Along with the timbre of the voice, Akinmusire explores sonic possibilities such as unique forms, atypical instrumentation, extended techniques and varied textures.

Akinmusire’s most recent album, his fifth for Blue Note Records, On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused Moment, has been nominated as Best Jazz Instrumental Album for the 2021 Grammy Awards.

The list of his accolades include Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition Winner, Carmine Caruso International Trumpet Solo Competition Winner; Downbeat Critics Poll: Jazz Artist of the Year, Best Trumpet (numerous times); Jazz Times Critic’s Poll: Trumpeter of the Year (3 times), Artist of the Year, Record of the Year; New York Times Best Jazz Album of the year (2011), Jazz Journalist Association Trumpeter of the Year and others too numerous to mention.

His discography includes 6 albums as a leader and sideman work with Kendrick Lamar, Joni Mitchell, Joel Ross, Brad Mehldau, the Blue Note All-Stars, Mary Halvorson, Jen Shyu, Somi, Marcus Miller, Dayna Stephens, Trilok Gurtu, Gerald Clayton, the Yellow Jackets, Jack DeJohnette, Archie Shepp, David Binney, Terri Lyne Carrington, Roy Hargrove, Mimi Jones, Esperanza Spalding, Linda May Han Oh, Tom Harrell and many others.

“Akinmusire is one of the most acclaimed jazz artists of his generation, a trumpeter of deep expressive resources and a composer of kaleidoscopic vision.” —NPR

Ambrose Akinmusire – trumpet
Micah Thomas – piano
Linda Oh – bass
Tim Angulo – drums

Sponsored by a Friend of the Vermont Jazz Center educational programs.

$20-40 sliding scale
Reservations online & by phone
Proof of Covid-19 vaccination and photo ID required.

www.vtjazz.org
gingervjc@gmail.com
802 258 9088

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