Edward Simon
Edward Simon Group feat. Magos Herrera
Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
1008 Wall St
San Diego, CA 92037
Jun 11, 2023
7:30 PM PDT
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About this concert
The Edward Simon Group featuring pianist Edward Simon, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Adam Cruz on drums, plus special guest, award-winning Mexican vocalist Magos Herrera and percussionist Luis Quintero, present a program entitled “Femeninas,” which celebrates the legacy of Latin American women songwriters including Violeta Parra (Chile), Marta Valdes (Cuba), Chabuca Granda (Peru), Elizabeth Morris (Argentina) and Joyce (Brazil) with a distinct jazz bent. Also included in the program will be Simon’s Chamber Music America commissioned multi-movement work, Latino Soy, which was funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and premiered at The Bowes Center in San Francisco, California in March 2022.
A native of Venezuela, Simon, has made a name for himself in the U.S. as a jazz improviser, composer-arranger and band leader. In recent years he has explored the commonalities that jazz has with the folkloric sounds of Latin America. Now based in the Bay Area, he is a member of the all-star SFJAZZ Collective, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow, along with being awarded multiple composition grants as part of the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works initiative. Simon has recorded 16 albums with his latest, Solo Live, released in October 2021. His 2016 album, Latin American Songbook, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album and was described as “brimming with lyricism, color, and groove, giving instrumental voice to songs originally made famous by such singers as Caetano Veloso and Mercedes Sosa.” Born in Mexico City and now based in New York, Herrera is a “dazzling jazz singer, songwriter, producer, and educator,” who was declared “one of the greatest contemporary interpreters of song” by The Latin Jazz Network. Best known for her eloquent vocal improvisation and her singular bold style, which embraces elements of contemporary jazz with Ibero-American melodies and rhythms, Herrera sings in Spanish, English, and Portuguese, and has garnered many awards and recognitions, including a Grammy short-list nomination in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category for her album Distancia (2009). The only female artist to have received the Berklee College of Music’s Master of Latin Music Award, she is a champion of women’s causes and a promoter of gender equality, serving as spokesperson for UN Women, and contributing to UNITE to end violence against women. She serves as an artistic advisor of the “National Sawdust,” one of Brooklyn’s most innovative venues, and produces and hosts a weekly radio program from New York for Mexico’s Public Radio. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, percussionist Luis Ernesto Quintero Vegas (who goes by Luis Quintero) hails from a lineage of distinguished musicians and singers. He has participated in over 700 musical productions spanning a wide range of genres and is a multiple Grammy or Latin Grammy Award winner, including with Chick Corea & The Spanish Heart Band for Best Latin Jazz Album (2019) and in with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra for Best Tropical Latin album (2018).
This concert is made possible with the support of Jazz Road, a national initiative of South Arts, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Solo Live Unisex T-Shirt (Dark Colors)
$25.0 USD
Femeninas Tour - Classic T-Shirt White
$30.0 USD
Femeninas Tour - Classic T-Shirt
$30.0 USD
Solo Live Unisex T-Shirt (Light Colors)
$25.0 USD
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Edward Simon Biography
Edward Simon was born in the coastal town of Punta Cardón, Venezuela where he grew up in a family of musicians surrounded by the sounds and rhythms of Latin and Caribbean music. The talent he showed as a youth led his father to send him to study in the US, where he won scholarships in classical piano at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia under the tutelage of concert pianist Susan Starr and in jazz at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Harold Danko. While a student in his teens, Simon performed with Philly guitarist Kevin Eubanks and saxophonist Greg Osby.
Settling in New York City in 1989, he performed with many jazz masters, including Herbie Mann, Paquito D'Rivera, Bobby Hutcherson, Bobby Watson, Terence Blanchard, Jerry Gonzalez and The Fort Apache Band, Arturo Sandoval, Many Oquendo and Libre and Don Byron. Simon quickly discovered that if he wanted to use jazz as a medium of expression he needed to immerse himself in this tradition. Membership in Bobby Watson's influential group Horizon (1989-94) and the Terence Blanchard Group (1994-2002) were instrumental to this end during his formative years. The experience of playing with Paquito D'Rivera proved to be pivotal, as it sparked an interest in the music of his native country.
Simon made his first recording as a leader in 1994 (Beauty Within, on Audioquest), giving birth to the Edward Simon Trio. That same year he became a Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition finalist. Since then he has written extensively for the trio, using it as a platform for other projects and developing his unique compositional voice. In 1995 Edward received his first commission and composed Rumba Neurotica for the Relache Ensemble.
In recognition of his distinctive accomplishments, Chamber Music America awarded Edward Simon the New Works: Creation and Presentation grant to compose the Venezuelan Suite. In recognition for his outstanding work in jazz composition. In 2005, he received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. Simon has served as adjunct faculty at the University of the Arts and continues to teach clinics, seminars and workshops at music schools and universities around the world. Currently, he serves as adjunct faculty at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in New York City. Simon has participated on more than forty recordings, including several Grammy nominated albums, lead by jazz greats such as Terence Blanchard, John Patitucci, Bobby Watson, and Herbie Mann among others and numerous soundtracks. He has produced eleven critically acclaimed albums as a leader including two New York Times Top Ten jazz records of the year: Edward Simon (Kokopelli, 1994) and Simplicitas (Criss Cross, 2005). Today, Simon keeps himself busy writing for and leading his trio, Ensemble Venezuela, Afinidad - a quartet co-lead with long time collaborator saxophonist David Binney and Simon, Simon & Simon, a project co-lead with his two brothers. While he may be considered as part of a new generation of "multilingual" musicians which have grown up studying classical, jazz and Latin American music, Edward is inventing a language that transcends any rigid genre.
Read MoreSettling in New York City in 1989, he performed with many jazz masters, including Herbie Mann, Paquito D'Rivera, Bobby Hutcherson, Bobby Watson, Terence Blanchard, Jerry Gonzalez and The Fort Apache Band, Arturo Sandoval, Many Oquendo and Libre and Don Byron. Simon quickly discovered that if he wanted to use jazz as a medium of expression he needed to immerse himself in this tradition. Membership in Bobby Watson's influential group Horizon (1989-94) and the Terence Blanchard Group (1994-2002) were instrumental to this end during his formative years. The experience of playing with Paquito D'Rivera proved to be pivotal, as it sparked an interest in the music of his native country.
Simon made his first recording as a leader in 1994 (Beauty Within, on Audioquest), giving birth to the Edward Simon Trio. That same year he became a Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition finalist. Since then he has written extensively for the trio, using it as a platform for other projects and developing his unique compositional voice. In 1995 Edward received his first commission and composed Rumba Neurotica for the Relache Ensemble.
In recognition of his distinctive accomplishments, Chamber Music America awarded Edward Simon the New Works: Creation and Presentation grant to compose the Venezuelan Suite. In recognition for his outstanding work in jazz composition. In 2005, he received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. Simon has served as adjunct faculty at the University of the Arts and continues to teach clinics, seminars and workshops at music schools and universities around the world. Currently, he serves as adjunct faculty at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in New York City. Simon has participated on more than forty recordings, including several Grammy nominated albums, lead by jazz greats such as Terence Blanchard, John Patitucci, Bobby Watson, and Herbie Mann among others and numerous soundtracks. He has produced eleven critically acclaimed albums as a leader including two New York Times Top Ten jazz records of the year: Edward Simon (Kokopelli, 1994) and Simplicitas (Criss Cross, 2005). Today, Simon keeps himself busy writing for and leading his trio, Ensemble Venezuela, Afinidad - a quartet co-lead with long time collaborator saxophonist David Binney and Simon, Simon & Simon, a project co-lead with his two brothers. While he may be considered as part of a new generation of "multilingual" musicians which have grown up studying classical, jazz and Latin American music, Edward is inventing a language that transcends any rigid genre.
Latin Jazz
Latin Jazz World Music
Venezuelan
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