The UC Santa Cruz Jazz Big Band is closing out the fall quarter with a concert on Dec. 7 featuring guest pianist Benny Green, a former student of band director and UCSC music lecturer Charles Hamilton.
The performance, held on campus at the Music Center Recital Hall, will feature jazz pieces composed by jazz innovator Thelonious Monk, including “Ruby, My Dear” and “Rhythm-a-Ning,” along with Green’s “For Duke Pearson,” which was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Hamilton, a longtime Bay Area educator and 2023 inductee into the California Alliance for Jazz Hall of Fame, said Green stood out early on in his career. “The thing about him that was different was that he went off to make a name for himself in New York,” Hamilton said in a news release. “He couldn’t wait to get out of school so he could get to the East Coast. He got on with Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard and Betty Carter when he was very young.”
Current UCSC students say the collaboration is a rare opportunity to work with someone as experienced as Green. “I mean, the Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey are my favorite group, so to play with an actual living Jazz Messenger is insane to me,” said Justin Ray, a third-year student and band manager.
The reunion of musicians with Bay Area roots is “a real explosion of what we’ve got going on,” said fifth-year baritone saxophonist Lucas Elliot.
“That’s the whole idea — bringing well-known musicians to the campus, so the students will become familiar with who they are,” said Hamilton. “The exposure, that’s what’s important.”
Click here for tickets to the event.
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