Available for viewing HERE June 1-31, 2021
Join Us For A Special New Mexico Jazz Festival Revisioned Virtual Concert Event
Coming in June!
Live From the Outpost Stage Featuring Class of 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, Albert “Tootie” Heath, with Doug Lawrence, tenor saxophone; Dan Trudell, Hammond B3 Organ; and César Bauvallet, congas.
Recorded live at the Outpost Performance Space
Major support for the New Mexico Jazz Festival Revisioned video production was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; the Kaman Foundation; the McCune Charitable Foundation; the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The City of Albuquerque—Mayor Tim Keller, Dr. Shelle Sanchezand the Arts and Culture Department; the Albuquerque City Council; the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund of the City of Albuquerque; the NM State Legislature; Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, and more.
This New Mexico Jazz Festival Revisioned video was produced by Reinhard Lorenz, First Eye Films; Tom Guralnick,The New Mexico Jazz Festival & Outpost Performance Space; and Andres Martinez, Audio Engineer
Founded in 2006, the New Mexico Jazz Festival is a partnership between Outpost Performance Space and the Lensic Performing Arts Center.
Outpost is pleased to present a New Mexico Jazz Festival Revisioned virtual concert event featuring legendary drummer and recently named 2021 NEA Jazz Master, Albert “Tootie” Heath (of The Heath Brothers fame), along with Albuquerque’s own Doug Lawrence (renowned lead tenor saxophonist with the Count Basie Orchestra for over 25 years); the great Chicago Hammond B3 organist Dan Trudell; and Cuban conga master César Bauvallet. Celebrating Tootie’s prolific career in jazz, this all-star quartet will perform music that incorporates many of the great drumming beats and grooves which he has been known for and which have been documented on numerous iconic recordings with John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Yuseff Lateef, The Modern Jazz Quartet, The Heath Bros. and many more. Tootie Heath, who is now a Santa Fe resident, and Doug Lawrence have become good friends over the past few years, and while Lawrence worked many gigs in NYC with Tootie’s late brother, Jimmy Heath, this will be the first time he and Tootie will be performing together. As Doug describes it, “It’s going to be a swinging and groove beat event!”
About the Band:
Legendary drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, who was named a 2021 NEA Jazz Master, and who we featured in our Meet the NEA Jazz Master virtual event with retired NEA Chairman, A.B. Spellman just this past February, made his recording debut with the legendary John Coltrane in the late 1950’s, and has since performed and played on more than 100 recordings with everyone from JJ Johnson to Cannonball Adderley, Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Clifford Jordan, his nephew Mtume, Yusef Latef, Herbie Hancock and many more. Part of the famed Heath Brothers band with his older brothers, bassist Percy Heath and saxophonist Jimmy Heath (both also NEA Jazz Masters) from 1975 until Percy’s passing in 2005, he also served as the drummer in the Modern Jazz Quartet in the mid-1990s. Since the late 2000s Heath has produced and led the Whole Drum Truth, an intergenerational jazz drum ensemble featuring legendary and emerging jazz drummers. Tootie and his wife Beverly moved to Santa Fe in 2013 and he has since become an integral part of our New Mexico jazz community.
Known throughout the world as the featured soloist and lead tenor saxophonist with the Legendary Count Basie Orchestra, Doug Lawrence, who makes his home in Albuquerque, has appeared with this iconic orchestra for over two decades at virtually every major concert hall, jazz club and music festival in the world and his resumé without the Count Basie Orchestra reads like a “who’s who” of music. He has performed and recorded with Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Benny Goodman, Stevie Wonder, Tony Bennett, Nancy Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie, Rosemary Clooney and Jimmy Cobb to name a few. The Hammond Organ has played a major role in Doug Lawrence’s career. Invited to join “Wild Bill” Davis’ trio in the mid 1980’s in New York City where he appeared in a live series of radio performances at the famous West End Jazz Club, he went on to work with Bill Doggett, Jack McDuff, Bobby Forrester, Mike LeDonne and others as well as with the great Joey DeFrancesco on the Ray Charles hit recording “I Feel Bad.” By the mid 1990’s the Hammond Organ had become firmly planted in Doug’s storied career.
Chicago based organist and pianist Dan Trudell met Doug Lawrence in 2000 and they immediately hit it off musically and personally. They have since enjoyed a long collaboration, performing and recording in trio and quartet formats. Influenced by and compared to organists Larry Young, Jack McDuff, Dr Lonnie Smith and “Wild Bill” Davis, Trudell is now considered one of the best B3 organists on the scene. He has performed on piano and organ with everyone from Aretha Franklin, Ron Carter, and Kurt Elling to Joe Magnorelli, Joe Williams, Jimmy Heath, Jon Faddis, Roy Hargrove, Eric Alexander, Benny Golson and Clark Terry. “Trudell infuses almost everything he plays with at least a whiff of funky jazz, no matter how sophisticated the tune or how complicated the solo.” (Neil Tesser, jazz journalist).
Originally from Cuba, César Bauvallet is a renowned trombonist, percussionist (congas, bongos, timbales, batá drums, as well as drumset and hand percussion), singer, composer, arranger and bandleader. A professional performer for more than 30 years, he is most widely known here in New Mexico as the leader of the popular 9-piece Salsa band, Son Como Son. Bauvallet is also a music educator and has taught Outpost’s popular Latin Music classes for the past many years.