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Health & Fitness

The Jazz Urbane Premieres "Playing with Other People's Heads"

The Jazz Urbane, a group established by Berklee College of Music’s Africana Studies leader, Bill Banfield, will perform works from its latest album, Playing with Other People’s Heads, at Scullers Jazz Club on March 12, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. Special guest Tia Fuller will join the group for this celebration. Grammy Award-winning executive producer George Duke led the creation of Playing with Other People’s Heads, which explores the relationship between mentors and mentees through musical collaboration. Duke mentored Banfield and the Jazz Urbane throughout the album’s creation until Duke’s death in 2013. The Jazz Urbane continues to evolve and grow, showcasing a multi-generational group of artists comprised of Berklee students, faculty, and alumni.

Bill Banfield puts it this way, “Historically, the lifeline of jazz progression has always been its reach to younger creative impulses, in that exchange comes new voices; an inspiring, charged collective; and movements of style, aesthetics, and sound. The Jazz Urbane is about music making at the center of collaboration.”

Playing with Other People’s Heads features more than 30 Berklee faculty, students, and alumni, and the album took seven years to complete. As one of the largest cross-generational Berklee projects ever, the album features artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Christian Scott, Greg Osby, and Grace Kelly. Originally formed as the Bill Banfield Band in 1981, the Jazz Urbane’s latest iteration was established in 2006 with Esperanza Spalding as Banfield’s counterpoint. Banfield struggled with the modern grooves of younger members like Spalding and trumpeter Christian Scott.

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To create balance, he brought in a group of jazz veterans, such as George Russell Jr. and Lenny Stallworth, who joined the younger players in regular collaboration. The musicians learned from each other’s unique musical perspectives, and today’s Jazz Urbane is an inter-generational group that emphasizes “era criss-crossing” and partnership.

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