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May 21st 2012
1800 West Division St.
Chicago, Ill 60622
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May 21st 2012
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Reginald Robinson
Reginald Robinson
Date Posted: November 17 2010
Written By: chicago jazz
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21st Century Ragtime: Reginald Robinson
JazzCity Season Finale
Friday December 3, 2010 @7PM
La Follete Park
1333 N. Laramie
Family Friendly and free!
Reginald Robinson discovered ragtime music when Urban Gateways sent Orbert Davis and his group to perform for Robinson’s 7th-grade class at Robert Emmet School, in the Austin neighborhood. Hearing them riffing on Joplin's "The Entertainer", the young man was transformed. He went on to teach himself to read music and master the piano so he could play the music that he heard that day. Robinson’s story is in many ways one of rags to riches—his parents didn’t have money for music lessons or a piano. He acquired a small keyboard, on which he began teaching himself how to play. Eventually his mother bought a piano from a neighbor who was moving. Reginald dropped out of school and spent the next three years teaching himself how to compose and write music.
Robinson went on to get his GED and in the process met key people including jazz instrumentalist Ira Sullivan and pianist Jon Weber who connected him to the jazz community and opportunities to perform. He recorded three CDs on Delmark Records between 1993 and 1998 but like many musicians was barely getting by.
In 2004, in the face of mounting financial difficulties, he nearly stopped playing the piano. Then one day the phone call came to tell him that he had won the prestigious John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur "Genius" Award. The award recognized Robinson’s unique and important contribution in evolving a music form that had not advanced much since it was, for a brief moment, America’s popular music in the early 1900s. The award brought financial support and well-deserved recognition to Robinson, and helped to finance the release of his long awaited self work Man Out of Time (2006). In January 2010, Robinson released a 3 disc compilation called Reflections. This three disc set of over 60 original audio and visual performances features new recordings of many of Robinson's old and new works.
This JazzCity concert will present Reginald Robinson in a solo concert followed by new arrangements of his music for a small ensemble featuring Robert Griffin on trumpet, Tim McNamara on clarinets and saxophones, Stephen Berry on trombone, Rob Dicke on drums and Stu Greenspan on bass guitar. The concert will open with members of the Jazz Institute’s CPS Teachers band, Noteworthy Jazz Ensemble.
A collaboration between the Jazz Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Park District, the JazzCity free concert series traces the evolution of Swing, Bebop, Latin-Jazz and Free-Jazz, highlighting Chicago’s rich historical jazz legacy with legendary resident musicians. Through these concerts the program reconnects Chicago’s communities to their own jazz history and America’s own art form.
For more information call 312.427.1676 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 312.427.1676 end_of_the_skype_highlighting x1
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