ACCELERATING THE TRANSITION TO RENEWABLE ENERGY WITH
JAZZ & GREEN TECHNOLOGY
The Soular Jazz Foundation promotes sustainable, clean energy with music events.
These events include parades, concerts and the annual Soular Jazz Festival.
Soular Jazz Festival
10th Annual!
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Featured Performers: Nadia Washington, the Gringo Kings, onwego
Nadia Washington
It is rare that you find gifted individuals in the world of music whose musicianship and artistry are reminiscent of the many legends and icons that have come before. Often compared to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn, her style incorporates a fusion of different musical avenues. Her smooth, velvet-cloaked vocals draw in an audience with the slightest effort, leaving many feeling quite misty in a state of emotional bliss.
Born and raised in Dallas, TX, Nadia began showing sighs of an entertainer at the age of 2. As far back as she could remember, she was surrounded buy some of the premiere musicians of the Dallas Metro-plex. Of course one in particular would be her mother, Nelda Washington, who took the hotel bar and lounge circuit by storm in the late 80s and early 90s. Being a single parent, her mother would bring her to studio sessions and some hotel gigs. This was the beginning of her education. “When I was an infant, I would watch her work intently and would never make a sound. It was mesmerizing to watch my mother perform.”
At the age of 5, Nadia had her first performance at a church that seated five thousand. This was the start of her passion for performing. As she began to really get serious about her craft, her mother would invite her to sing along with on some gigs. Eventually, Nadia began singing with her in studio sessions for clients such as Frito Lay and McDonalds. She has also been involved in numerous studio sessions with various major recording artists like David and Tamela Mann of the new television sitcom “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.”
By the time she hit her teen-age years, Nadia found a new passion. That passion was Jazz Music. At the age of 15, Nadia was accepted to Booker T.Washington HSPVA where could learn more about the music that mesmerized her. Attending this school led her to many more opportunities that gave her national recognition- winning 2 Down Beat Student Music Awards and the National Foundation of the Advancement of the Arts. In 2006, she received The Monterey Jazz Festival Outstanding Jazz Vocalist award and participated in the Grammy Jazz Ensemble. Nadia was also accepted to Berklee College of Music on the Bill Cosby Presidential Scholarship. “I was so honored and blessed to receive such a scholarship. I still can’t believe it to this day.” During her college years she experienced things that she could not conceive in her high school career.
OnWeGo
OnWeGo is a collaboration between David Thorne Scott (voice/bass), Mark Shilansky (piano/voice), Sara Caswell (violin), and Eric Byers (guitar/voice) embracing jazz, popular, and world music, with an emphasis on vocal harmony and collective improvisation. Original songs are heard side by side with carefully chosen covers by such artists as Crowded House, Leonard Cohen, Hall and Oates, and Cole Porter, in arrangements that feature the group members’ virtuoso playing and telepathic interplay.
Mark Shilansky
"Inventive, modern mainstream jazz pianist” (Jon Garelick, Boston Globe) Mark Shilansky provides melodic improvisation and infectious compositions on his own and to a host of jazz luminaries, as well as to the classroom, as a professor at Berklee College of Music and the University of New Hampshire. Shilansky’s six recordings as a leader include 2007’s “Join the Club,” a mostly Latin Jazz affair featuring David Bowie saxist Donny McCaslin, and 2013’s “Fugue Mill,” the eponymous debut of his Jazz/Bluegrass/Celtic project, and he is featured on over 60 recordings as a keyboardist, vocalist, composer/arranger, or producer, and in performance as band member for such artists as the New York Voices and Luciana Souza. As an artist he embraces the history of the styles in which he works, while seeking connections between them as a way of expressing a personal musical vision, characterized by lush harmonies, the exploration of the line between composition and improvisation, and an ever-present sense of humor. His works have been recorded by Robin McKelle, Kim Nazarian, and by Jazz All-State and College ensembles around the world.
David Thorne Scott is a singer and songwriter who “explores the intersection of Jazz and Americana, city and country, instrumentation and lyrics to create lush compositions and covers that are unifying, and healing, in their beauty.” (Eponymous Review) David has long been known for bringing a modern edge to the classics of the Great American Songbook. His album "Shade" was named a "Top 5 CD of the Year" by the Jazz Education Journal. Cadence Magazine said "he phrases like a saxophone player and is as slippery and hip as the young Mel Tormé." Herb Wong, one of the west coast's leading jazz experts, wrote “I haven’t been this moved by a performance of ‘For All We Know’ since Carmen McRae.” David's recent release is called "Thornewood", an album that explores the sweet spot between Jazz and Americana: Cole Porter and Harold Arlen placed next to John Denver and Townes Van Zandt. Special guests on the album include Paula Cole, Peter Eldridge, Jason Palmer, and Walter Smith III. David is a Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music.
Grammy® Nominee Sara Caswell “is a brilliant world-class violinist...one of the very best of the present generation of emerging young jazz stars” according to the late David Baker, internationally-renowned jazz educator and Director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. Rooted in an early exposure to a variety of musical genres, Sara’s technical facility intertwined with her gift for lyricism continue to attract growing attention to her artistry as a jazz soloist, sideman, and teacher. Voted into the DownBeat Magazine Critics and Readers Polls every year since 2013, Sara has released three highly-acclaimed albums under her own name – The Way to You (2023), But Beautiful(2005), and First Song (2000). She has been part of groups led by esperanza spalding (Chamber Music Society), Linda Oh (Aventurine), and has performed and/or recorded with artists and ensembles including Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, Donny McCaslin, Henry Threadgill, Dave Stryker, Helen Sung, Miho Hazama, Christian Sands, Regina Carter, Kishi Bashi, and Bruce Springsteen. She is a member of Joseph Brent's 9 Horses trio, Chuck Owen's The Jazz Surge, and the Caswell Sisters Quintet (a group she co-leads with her sister, vocalist Rachel Caswell). In 2013, Sara and Rachel joined forces with Grammy®-nominated jazz pianist Fred Hersch and recorded the album Alive in the Singing Air to rave reviews and its selection by jazz critic Thomas Cunniffe as one of the year's “Best Vocal CDs” on Jazz History Online. Sara has performed at Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, SFJazz, Blue Note (NYC and Tokyo), and at jazz festivals including Newport, Montreal, and Montreux. Sara is Currently on faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and New York University. Sara’s artistry and unique sound led international recording artist/violinist Mark O’Connor to write: “Most good violinists will never experience what Sara creates with her instrument. It is beautifully refined emotion that lifts the spirit…Jazz violin needs a universal ambassador...a player who can pick up where the last generation left off. Sara is well on her way to extending that tradition to touch new audiences.”
Eric Byers’ extraordinary proficiency and versatility as a guitarist and composer/arranger have been heard on recordings and in concert halls (including at Berklee College of Music where he serves as a professor of Harmony and Jazz Composition) and clubs around the world, with artists like Dave and Maureen Budway, George Russell, Jr, The Fifth Dimension, Lydia Harrell, No Static (New England’s Premier Steely Dan tribute band), Adrian Sicam, and Andrea Capozzoli.
The Gringo Kings
The Gringo Kings sprang out of Ed Harlow’s love of the famed Cuban Salsa band, Cubanismo. Imitation of Cubanismo preceded Harlow to shift The Gringo Kings’ repertoire to integrate his Jazz roots into subsequent compositions and arrangements. This includes influences from Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and many other giants of Jazz. Covers of Chicago and The Beatles complimenting Harlow’s numerous inventive originals.
The Gringo Kings is a Latin Jazz band in the truest sense - drawing from the giants of both styles.
Ed Harlow - tenor sax, compositions, arrangements
Zach Bushey - alto sax
Doug Olsen - trumpet
Eli Block - trumpet
Rob Krahn - trombone
Mark Shilansky - piano
Keala Kaumeheiwa - bass
Casey Scheuerell - drums
