Kidd Jordan

by: NOÉ CUGNY

The George and Joyce Wein Jazz and Heritage Center will open its doors to the JazzPoetry Ensemble for their “We Are Not Going Away 2018 NOLA” show on June 6, 2018.

The Columbus-based group will be joined by saxophonist and New Orleans’ father figure of improvisational music, Edward Kidd Jordan. Jordan will be followed by a number of family members, including trumpeter Marlon Jordan, vocalist Stephanie Jordan and flautist Kent Jordan.

In line with the band’s strong political message, proceeds will go to the Kate Schulte Foundation, who commits to use them to “support arts that further the cause of equal rights and equal justice.”

“We are witnessing a systematic denigration and dismantling of hard-won rights of people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants and refugees, Muslims, the disabled, the poor, the environment, and on and on,” announced bandleader, trombonist and poet Michael Vander Does on Thursday. “Silence is not an option.”

The foundation has collaborated with Kidd and Marlon Jordan for several years, bringing the New Orleans father and son to Columbus on several occasion. This will be the first time the Columbus collaborators make the trip down south.

The concert begins at 7:30 pm on June 6 at the George and Joyce Wein Jazz and Heritage Center, 1225 N. Rampart Street in New Orleans. Tickets start at $20 and are available at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3219787 - OffBeat Magazine

Edward Kidd Jordan – Saxophonist

“Kidd Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches. In recognition of his great musical achievements, knighthood was bestowed on him by the Republic of France where he holds the title Chevalier des Artes et Lettres.”


Legendary saxophonist Sir Edward “Kidd” Jordan is acclaimed internationally as one of the true master improvisers still performing today. Indie Jazz aptly describes Kidd Jordan as a “genteel man” who is probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world. Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches.

This virtuoso unselfishly shared his gift of and passion for music for more than 50 years, 34 of which he spent at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) until he retired in 2006 as head of the jazz studies program.

Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones, as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has performed and recorded with a broad array of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Lena Horne, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Gladys Knight, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, R.E.M., Art Neville, Aaron Neville, Johnny Adams, Deacon John, Ellis Marsalis, Cannonball Adderley, Alvin Batiste, Archie Shepp, Dewey Redmond, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Sun RA, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Alan Silva, Ed Blackwell, and Cecil Taylor, among others. He was a member of two prominent New Orleans Big Bands: William Houston, and Herb Tassin.

The Improvisation Arts Quintet, a group he founded in 1975 with drummer Alvin Fielder, bassist London Branch, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, and saxophonist Alvin Thomas which later included, pianist Darrel Lavigne, pianist Joel Futterman, bassist Elton Heron, flutist Kent Jordan and trumpeter Marlon Jordan has recorded a remarkable catalogue of free flowing instinctive interactive avant-garde music in which collective passages of sounds are more than personal freedom, but an evolution of complimentary imagery moving together and apart, each artist becoming an ear, an eye and most of all a heart for the sake of the creative spiritual soul.
Citing him as a visionary educator and performer, the French Government recognized Jordan in 1985 as a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, their nation’s highest honor.

In May of 2017 Jordan received an honorary doctor of music degree from Loyola University New Orleans ─ a distinction reserved at Loyola for eminent individuals whose lives of achievement and service exemplify the philosophy of Jesuit education.

For the past three decades or so Jordan has had a highly productive and close relationship with drummer Alvin Fielder and bassist William Parker. Jordan developed a close musical relationship with innovative pianist Joel Futterman back in the early 90's and they continue to perform and record together. Jordan's first recording was titled, "No Compromise" and that very accurately expresses his personal conviction about his music.

A New Orleans resident, Jordan was born in Crowley, Louisiana on May 5, 1935 where he grew up listening to Zydeco and Blues. It was there that he learned to play saxophone from his music teachers; Warren Milson and Joseph Oger, a French-Canadian. After hearing Charlie Parker and Lester Young, he became interested in the art of jazz improvisation.

His growth as a musician later continued at Ross High School in Crowley where he encountered Southern University alums Emmett Jacobs and William Byrd. When Mr. Jordan landed in Baton Rouge from 1952 to 1955 he advanced his music studies under Southern University’s band director T. Leroy Davis and woodwind teachers John Banks and Huel Perkins. At Southern he also connected with another soon-to-be musical legend, his band mate and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother and future brother-in-law the late Alvin Batiste.

Upon receiving his degree, Jordan relocated in 1955 to New Orleans, where he began playing R&B alongside musicians such as Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Joe Turner, Lloyd Lambert, Lawrence Cotton, Chuck Willis, George Adams, and Choker Campbell. He later earned his master’s degree in music from Millikin University and pursued post-graduate summer studies with Fred Hempke at Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois.

Jordan later earned his master’s degree in music from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois where he studied under Drs. J. Roger Miller, Roger Schueler and Jean Northrup. Jordan’s post-graduate summer studies lead him to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he studied under Fred Hemke who doubled as a reed maker.

Jordan organized the first World Saxophone Quartet in 1976 that included saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray accompanied by Alvin Fielder (drums), Elton Heron (electric bass), and London Branch (bass) at shows performed at SUNO (12/9/76) and the famed "Lu and Charilie's" (12/10/76 & 12/11/76) respectively. He has amassed a discography of over 30 recordings and has performed in jazz and music festivals around the world including Germany, Netherlands, Finland, France, and Africa, has been a featured performer with the New Orleans Philharmonic, as well as performed with various "pit bands" in support of shows that come through New Orleans. Jordan has been a regular performer at the Visions Festival in New York each spring.

After his years at Southern University as a student, Mr. Jordan began his journey to share his knowledge of music. Jordan began his formal teaching career in 1955 at Bethune High School in Norco, Louisiana. Prior to that, he spent time in New Orleans’ historic Faubourg Tremé as an instructor at the William Houston School of Music.

In 1972 he became a professor of music at Southern University where he shared his vision of improvisation and encouraged students to find their authentic creative voices for over 34 years. As chairman of Southern University’s Jazz Studies Program, he organized the first performance of the legendary World Saxophone Quartet featuring Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray, Julius Hemphil, and Oliver Lake. For over 25 years, he has taught at the Jazz and Heritage School of Music and has served as Artistic Director for the Louis Armstrong Satchmo Jazz Camp, an outstanding community outreach program.

“Mr. Jordan’s legacy is solidified by his insistence that his students’ music contain one critical element---originality. And he practices what he preaches. Mr. Jordan once said, “Nowadays everybody just wants to play the same stuff that everybody else is playing. Same solos, same licks, and I can see that, because everybody wants to be accepted, but I don't care about that. The minute someone wants to pat me on the back about something is the minute I'm ready to leave. You've got to know yourself and what you're capable of doing and how you want to do it.”

Jordan has taught hundreds, if not thousands, of students including well-known musicians Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, Leroy Adams, Calvin Johnson, Sammie “Big Sam”, William, Charles Joseph, Julius Handy, Curley Blanchard, Gary Brown, Kirk Ford, Raymond Deggs, George Pack, Richard Moten, John Longo, Reggie Houston, Wendell Brunius, Abe Thompson, Maynard Chatters, Jr., Elton Heron, Carl Leblanc, Darrell Lavigne, Tony Dagradi, Jonathan Batiste, and others.

Other former students includes; Brian Quezergue, Kenneth Anderson, Andrew Baham, Paul Batiste, Peter Batiste, Alonza Bowens, Neal Dominque, Joe Dyson, Kurt Ford, Natasha Harris, Arthur Mitchell, Aja Mohammed, Conan Pappas, Usie Phillips, Wesley Phillips, Khristopher Royal, Chris Severin, Vernon Severin, Troy Sawyer, Walter Smith, III, Tony Villon, Richard Moten, Louis Bibbs, Abe Compson, Wali Abbel Ra’oof, Safi Ra’oof, Gregory Agid, Courtney Bryan, Sarina Taylor, Bazile Williams, Ervin Williams, Glenny Massie, Rodney Massie, George Verret, LeRoy Haynes, Edward Francis, Robert Roy, Ed Berrin and many, many others.


Jordan was honored with Offbeat magazine’s first Lifetime Achievement Award for Music Education and his music contributions have been documented on CBS’ 60 Minutes. In 2008, Southern University at New Orleans Foundation honored Jordan during their annual BASH III and Jordan received a Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the Vision Festival XIII in New York City. In 2013, the Jazz Journalist Association named Jordan a “Jazz Hero.”


Although Mr. Jordan’s dedication to music education can safely be described as unmatched, his dedication to his family has been immeasurable. Through the years he has been able to boast being the husband of Edvidge Chatters Jordan and the father of Edward, Jr., Kent, Christie, Paul, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon. Four of the Jordan children are well-known professional musicians: Kent, a master flutist; Stephanie, a noted jazz singer; Rachel, a classical violinist; and Marlon, an acclaimed jazz trumpeter. Mr. Jordan even found a horse racing and training partner in his nephew Maynard Chatters, Jr. - New Orleans Agenda (As approved by Kidd Jordan)

NEW ORLEANS - Kidd Jordan & the Improvisational Arts Quintet will perform this Sunday, April 29, 2018 on the WWOZ Jazz Tent Stage at 1:25 PM at the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell. Joining Kidd for this auspicious performance will be pianist Joel Futterman, drummer Alvin Fielder, bassist William Parker, and his sons Kent Jordan and Marlon Jordan.

Sir Edward "Kidd" Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches. In recognition of his great musical achievements, knighthood was bestowed on him by the Republic of France where he holds the title Chevalier des Artes et Lettres."

The legendary saxophonist is acclaimed internationally as one of the true master improvisers still performing today. Indie Jazz aptly describes Kidd Jordan as a "genteel man" who is probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world. Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches.

This virtuoso unselfishly shared his gift of and passion for music for more than 50 years, 34 of which he spent at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) until he retired in 2006 as head of the jazz studies program.

Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones, as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has performed and recorded with a broad array of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Lena Horne, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Gladys Knight, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, R.E.M., Art Neville, Aaron Neville, Johnny Adams, Deacon John, Ellis Marsalis, Cannonball Adderley, Alvin Batiste, Archie Shepp, Dewey Redmond, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Sun RA, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Alan Silva, Ed Blackwell, and Cecil Taylor, among others. He was a member of two prominent New Orleans Big Bands: William Houston, and Herb Tassin.

The Improvisation Arts Quintet, a group he founded in 1975 with drummer Alvin Fielder, bassist London Branch, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, and saxophonist Alvin Thomas which later included, pianist Darrel Lavigne, pianist Joel Futterman, bassist Elton Heron, flutist Kent Jordan and trumpeter Marlon Jordan has recorded a remarkable catalogue of free flowing instinctive interactive avant-garde music in which collective passages of sounds are more than personal freedom, but an evolution of complimentary imagery moving together and apart, each artist becoming an ear, an eye and most of all a heart for the sake of the creative spiritual soul.
Citing him as a visionary educator and performer, the French Government recognized Jordan in 1985 as a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, their nation's highest honor.

In May of 2017 Jordan received an honorary doctor of music degree from Loyola University New Orleans ─ a distinction reserved at Loyola for eminent individuals whose lives of achievement and service exemplify the philosophy of Jesuit education.

For the past three decades or so Jordan has had a highly productive and close relationship with drummer Alvin Fielder and bassist William Parker. Jordan developed a close musical relationship with innovative pianist Joel Futterman back in the early 90's and they continue to perform and record together. Jordan's first recording was titled, "No Compromise" and that very accurately expresses his personal conviction about his music.

A New Orleans resident, Jordan was born in Crowley, Louisiana on May 5, 1935 where he grew up listening to Zydeco and Blues. It was there that he learned to play saxophone from his music teachers; Warren Milson and Joseph Oger, a French-Canadian. After hearing Charlie Parker and Lester Young, he became interested in the art of jazz improvisation.

His growth as a musician later continued at Ross High School in Crowley where he encountered Southern University alums Emmett Jacobs and William Byrd. When Mr. Jordan landed in Baton Rouge from 1952 to 1955 he advanced his music studies under Southern University's band director T. Leroy Davis and woodwind teachers John Banks and Huel Perkins. At Southern he also connected with another soon-to-be musical legend, his band mate and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother and future brother-in-law the late Alvin Batiste.

Upon receiving his degree, Jordan relocated in 1955 to New Orleans, where he began playing R&B alongside musicians such as Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Joe Turner, Lloyd Lambert, Lawrence Cotton, Chuck Willis, George Adams, and Choker Campbell. He later earned his master's degree in music from Millikin University and pursued post-graduate summer studies with Fred Hempke at Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois.

Jordan later earned his master's degree in music from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois where he studied under Drs. J. Roger Miller, Roger Schueler and Jean Northrup. Jordan's post-graduate summer studies lead him to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he studied under Fred Hemke who doubled as a reed maker.

Jordan organized the first World Saxophone Quartet in 1976 that included saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray accompanied by Alvin Fielder (drums), Elton Heron (electric bass), and London Branch (bass) at shows performed at SUNO (12/9/76) and the famed "Lu and Charilie's" (12/10/76 & 12/11/76) respectively. He has amassed a discography of over 30 recordings and has performed in jazz and music festivals around the world including Germany, Netherlands, Finland, France, and Africa, has been a featured performer with the New Orleans Philharmonic, as well as performed with various "pit bands" in support of shows that come through New Orleans. Jordan has been a regular performer at the Visions Festival in New York each spring.

After his years at Southern University as a student, Mr. Jordan began his journey to share his knowledge of music. Jordan began his formal teaching career in 1955 at Bethune High School in Norco, Louisiana. Prior to that, he spent time in New Orleans' historic Faubourg Tremé as an instructor at the William Houston School of Music.

In 1972 he became a professor of music at Southern University where he shared his vision of improvisation and encouraged students to find their authentic creative voices for over 34 years. As chairman of Southern University's Jazz Studies Program, he organized the first performance of the legendary World Saxophone Quartet featuring Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray, Julius Hemphil, and Oliver Lake. For over 25 years, he has taught at the Jazz and Heritage School of Music and has served as Artistic Director for the Louis Armstrong Satchmo Jazz Camp, an outstanding community outreach program.

"Mr. Jordan's legacy is solidified by his insistence that his students' music contain one critical element---originality. And he practices what he preaches. Mr. Jordan once said, "Nowadays everybody just wants to play the same stuff that everybody else is playing. Same solos, same licks, and I can see that, because everybody wants to be accepted, but I don't care about that. The minute someone wants to pat me on the back about something is the minute I'm ready to leave. You've got to know yourself and what you're capable of doing and how you want to do it."

Jordan has taught hundreds, if not thousands, of students including well-known musicians Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Leroy Adams, Calvin Johnson, Sammie "Big Sam", William, Charles Joseph, Julius Handy, Curley Blanchard, Gary Brown, Kirk Ford, Raymond Deggs, George Pack, Richard Moten, John Longo, Reggie Houston, Wendell Brunius, Abe Thompson, Maynard Chatters, Jr., Elton Heron, Carl Leblanc, Darrell Lavigne, Tony Dagradi, Jonathan Batiste, and others.

Other former students includes; Brian Quezergue, Kenneth Anderson, Andrew Baham, Paul Batiste, Peter Batiste, Alonza Bowens, Neal Dominque, Joe Dyson, Kurt Ford, Natasha Harris, Arthur Mitchell, Aja Mohammed, Conan Pappas, Usie Phillips, Wesley Phillips, Khristopher Royal, Chris Severin, Vernon Severin, Troy Sawyer, Walter Smith, III, Tony Villon, Richard Moten, Louis Bibbs, Abe Compson, Wali Abbel Ra'oof, Safi Ra'oof, Gregory Agid, Courtney Bryan, Sarina Taylor, Bazile Williams, Ervin Williams, Glenny Massie, Rodney Massie, George Verret, LeRoy Haynes, Edward Francis, Robert Roy, Ed Berrin and many, many others.

Jordan was honored with Offbeat magazine's first Lifetime Achievement Award for Music Education and his music contributions have been documented on CBS' 60 Minutes. In 2008, Southern University at New Orleans Foundation honored Jordan during their annual BASH III and Jordan received a Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the Vision Festival XIII in New York City. In 2013, the Jazz Journalist Association named Jordan a "Jazz Hero."

Although Mr. Jordan's dedication to music education can safely be described as unmatched, his dedication to his family has been immeasurable. Through the years he has been able to boast being the husband of Edvidge Chatters Jordan and the father of Edward, Jr., Kent, Christie, Paul, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon. Four of the Jordan children are well-known professional musicians: Kent, a master flutist; Stephanie, a noted jazz singer; Rachel, a classical violinist; and Marlon, an acclaimed jazz trumpeter. Mr. Jordan even found a horse racing and training partner in his nephew Maynard Chatters, Jr.

Started in 1970, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival continues to showcase the most important names in music history alongside many of Louisiana's favorite entertainers. Advanced single-day tickets for Jazz Fest are $70 (Through Thursday, April 26). The gate price will be $80. Tickets for children ages 2 - 10 are $5 and must be purchased at the gate. Adult advance tickets are available at www.nojazzfest.com
and www.ticketmaster.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling (800) 745-3000. The least expensive way to purchase tickets is by doing so in-person with cash at the Smoothie King Center Box Office, 1501 Dave Dixon Drive, New Orleans.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell is a co-production of Festival Productions Louisiana, LLC. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Festival Productions, Inc.-New Orleans) and AEG Louisiana Production, LLC. (a subsidiary of AEG Live). - Sylvain Music Notes

Tuesday, March 6th @ 6:30-7:30 PM

EMCM Presents: The Educator's Series
A Tribute to New Orleans Music Education Trailblazers - New Orleans Agenda

CNN political contributor Van Jones, restaurateur Ella Brennan and musician Kidd Jordan to be honored at Commencement 2017

NEW ORLEANS - Loyola University New Orleans will award honorary degrees to CNN political contributor Van Jones, musician Kidd Jordan and restaurateur Ella Brennan at Commencement 2017, at 9:45 a.m., Saturday, May 13, in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Jones will deliver the commencement address to more than 750 graduates.

Later the same day, Fourth Circuit Appellate Judge, the Hon. Madeleine M. Landrieu, J.D. '87, H '05 will deliver the law school commencement address at Commencement 2017 for the Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law, which runs from 5:45 to 7 p.m., also in the Superdome. In February, Loyola announced Landrieu would be the new dean of the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, starting July 2017. Retired criminal court judge, the Hon. Dennis Waldron, J.D. '73 will receive an honorary doctor of laws.

"These extraordinary individuals have helped to shape New Orleans' present, past, and future while making lasting contributions to their fields," said Loyola University New Orleans President the Rev. Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., Ph.D. "Their lives of achievement and service have been deemed worthy of special commendation, and we are pleased to present them higher education's most prestigious recognition, an honorary degree ─ a distinction reserved at Loyola for eminent individuals whose lives of achievement and service exemplify the philosophy of Jesuit education."

Edward Kidd Jordon - Biography

"Kidd Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches. In recognition of his great musical achievements, knighthood was bestowed on him by the Republic of France where he holds the title Chevalier des Artes et Lettres."


Edward "Kidd" Jordan Legendary saxophonist Sir Edward "Kidd" Jordan is acclaimed internationally as one of the true master improvisers still performing today. Indie Jazz aptly describes Kidd Jordan as a "genteel man" who is probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world. Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches.

This virtuoso unselfishly shared his gift of and passion for music for more than 50 years, 34 of which he spent at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) until he retired in 2006 as head of the jazz studies program.

Jordan performs on tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, C-melody and sopranino saxophones, as well as contrabass and bass clarinets. He has performed and recorded with a broad array of musicians in styles ranging from R&B to avant-garde jazz, including Lena Horne, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson, Gladys Knight, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, R.E.M., Art Neville, Aaron Neville, Johnny Adams, Deacon John, Ellis Marsalis, Cannonball Adderley, Alvin Batiste, Archie Shepp, Dewey Redmond, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Sun RA, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Alan Silva, Ed Blackwell, and Cecil Taylor, among others. He was a member of two prominent New Orleans Big Bands: William Houston, and Herb Tassin.

The Improvisation Arts Quintet, a group he founded in 1975 with drummer Alvin Fielder, bassist London Branch, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, and saxophonist Alvin Thomas which later included, pianist Darrel Lavigne, pianist Joel Futterman, bassist Elton Heron, flutist Kent Jordan and trumpeter Marlon Jordan has recorded a remarkable catalogue of free flowing instinctive interactive avant-garde music in which collective passages of sounds are more than personal freedom, but an evolution of complimentary imagery moving together and apart, each artist becoming an ear, an eye and most of all a heart for the sake of the creative spiritual soul.

Citing him as a visionary educator and performer, the French Government recognized Jordan in 1985 as a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, their nation's highest honor.

For the past three decades or so Jordan has had a highly productive and close relationship with drummer Alvin Fielder and bassist William Parker. Jordan developed a close musical relationship with innovative pianist Joel Futterman back in the early 90's and they continue to perform and record together. Jordan's first recording was titled, "No Compromise" and that very accurately expresses his personal conviction about his music.

A New Orleans resident, Jordan was born in Crowley, Louisiana on May 5, 1935 where he grew up listening to Zydeco and Blues. It was there that he learned to play saxophone from his music teachers; Warren Milson and Joseph Oger, a French-Canadian. After hearing Charlie Parker and Lester Young, he became interested in the art of jazz improvisation.

His growth as a musician later continued at Ross High School in Crowley where he encountered Southern University alums Emmett Jacobs and William Byrd. When Mr. Jordan landed in Baton Rouge from 1952 to 1955 he advanced his music studies under Southern University's band director T. Leroy Davis and woodwind teachers John Banks and Huel Perkins. At Southern he also connected with another soon-to-be musical legend, his band mate and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother and future brother-in-law the late Alvin Batiste.

Upon receiving his degree, Jordan relocated in 1955 to New Orleans, where he began playing R&B alongside musicians such as Guitar Slim, Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Big Joe Turner, Lloyd Lambert, Lawrence Cotton, Chuck Willis, George Adams, and Choker Campbell. He later earned his master's degree in music from Millikin University and pursued post-graduate summer studies with Fred Hempke at Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois.

Jordan later earned his master's degree in music from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois where he studied under Drs. J. Roger Miller, Roger Schueler and Jean Northrup. Jordan's post-graduate summer studies lead him to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he studied under Fred Hemke who doubled as a reed maker.

Jordan organized the first World Saxophone Quartet in 1976 that included saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray accompanied by Alvin Fielder (drums), Elton Heron (electric bass), and London Branch (bass) at shows performed at SUNO (12/9/76) and the famed "Lu and Charilie's" (12/10/76 & 12/11/76) respectively. He has amassed a discography of over 30 recordings and has performed in jazz and music festivals around the world including Germany, Netherlands, Finland, France, and Africa, has been a featured performer with the New Orleans Philharmonic, as well as performed with various "pit bands" in support of shows that come through New Orleans. Jordan has been a regular performer at the Visions Festival in New York each spring.

After his years at Southern University as a student, Mr. Jordan began his journey to share his knowledge of music. Jordan began his formal teaching career in 1955 at Bethune High School in Norco, Louisiana. Prior to that, he spent time in New Orleans' historic Faubourg Tremé as an instructor at the William Houston School of Music.

In 1972 he became a professor of music at Southern University where he shared his vision of improvisation and encouraged students to find their authentic creative voices for over 34 years. As chairman of Southern University's Jazz Studies Program, he organized the first performance of the legendary World Saxophone Quartet featuring Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray, Julius Hemphil, and Oliver Lake. For over 25 years, he has taught at the Jazz and Heritage School of Music and has served as Artistic Director for the Louis Armstrong Satchmo Jazz Camp, an outstanding community outreach program.

"Mr. Jordan's legacy is solidified by his insistence that his students' music contain one critical element---originality. And he practices what he preaches. Mr. Jordan once said, "Nowadays everybody just wants to play the same stuff that everybody else is playing. Same solos, same licks, and I can see that, because everybody wants to be accepted, but I don't care about that. The minute someone wants to pat me on the back about something is the minute I'm ready to leave. You've got to know yourself and what you're capable of doing and how you want to do it."

Jordan has taught hundreds, if not thousands, of students including well-known musicians Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Leroy Adams, Calvin Johnson, Sammie "Big Sam", William, Charles Joseph, Julius Handy, Curley Blanchard, Gary Brown, Kirk

Ford, Raymond Deggs, George Pack, Richard Moten, John Longo, Reggie Houston, Wendell Brunius, Abe Thompson, Maynard Chatters, Jr., Elton Heron, Carl Leblanc, Darrell Lavigne, Tony Dagradi, Jonathan Batiste, and others.

Other former students includes; Brian Quezergue, Kenneth Anderson, Andrew Baham, Paul Batiste, Peter Batiste, Alonza Bowens, Neal Dominque, Joe Dyson, Kurt Ford, Natasha Harris, Arthur Mitchell, Aja Mohammed, Conan Pappas, Usie Phillips, Wesley Phillips, Khristopher Royal, Chris Severin, Vernon Severin, Troy Sawyer, Walter Smith, III, Tony Villon, Richard Moten, Louis Bibbs, Abe Compson, Wali Abbel Ra'oof, Safi Ra'oof, Gregory Agid, Courtney Bryan, Sarina Taylor, Bazile Williams, Ervin Williams, Glenny Massie, Rodney Massie, George Verret, LeRoy Haynes, Edward Francis, Robert Roy, Ed Berrin and many, many others.

Jordan was honored with Offbeat magazine's first Lifetime Achievement Award for Music Education and his music contributions have been documented on CBS' 60 Minutes. In 2008, Southern University at New Orleans Foundation honored Jordan during their annual BASH III and Jordan received a Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the Vision Festival XIII in New York City. In 2013, the Jazz Journalist Association named Jordan a "Jazz Hero."

Although Mr. Jordan's dedication to music education can safely be described as unmatched, his dedication to his family has been immeasurable. Through the years he has been able to boast being the husband of Edvidge Chatters Jordan and the father of Edward, Jr., Kent, Christie, Paul, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon. Four of the Jordan children are well-known professional musicians: Kent, a master flutist; Stephanie, a noted jazz singer; Rachel, a classical violinist; and Marlon, an acclaimed jazz trumpeter. Mr. Jordan even found a horse racing and training partner in his nephew Maynard Chatters, Jr. - JazzCorner News

NEW ORLEANS - Don't miss this rare opportunity to experience the power of free improvisation presented by two legends of the art form; Sir Edward "Kidd" Jordan and Hamiet Bluiett on Thursday, April 30. The two kings of improvisers appropriately team up on International Jazz Day for a night to be remembered at the Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans for a 9:00 PM show at the Music at the Mint series.

Kidd Jordan is acclaimed internationally as one of the true master improvisers still performing today. Indie Jazz aptly describes Kidd Jordan as a "genteel man" who is probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world. Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick as far back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches. In recognition of his great musical achievements, knighthood was bestowed on him by the Republic of France where he holds the title Chevalier des Artes et Lettres.

This virtuoso unselfishly shared his gift of and passion for music for more than 50 years, 36 of which he spent at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) until he retired in 2006 as head of the jazz studies program. Indie Jazz aptly describes Mr. Jordan as a "genteel man" who is "probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world."

Hamiet Bluiett was born in Lovejoy, Illinois just north of East St. Louis. He moved to New York in 1969 where he was a member of The Charles Mingus Quintet and the Sam Rivers large ensemble. Hamiet was a founding member of The World Saxophone Quartet, perhaps the most celebrated saxophone ensemble in the history of jazz.

"The most prominent baritone saxophonist of his generation, Hamiet Bluiett combines a blunt, modestly inflected attack with a fleet, aggressive technique, and (maybe most importantly) a uniform hugeness of sound that extends from his horn's lowest reaches to far beyond what is usually its highest register. Probably no other baritonist has played so high, with so much control; Bluiett's range travels upward into an area usually reserved for the soprano or even sopranino. His technical mastery aside, Bluiett's solo voice is unlikely to be confused with any other. Enamored with the blues, brusque and awkwardly swinging, in his high-energy playing Bluiett makes a virtue out of tactlessness; on ballads he assumes a considerably more lush, romantic guise. Like his longtime collaborator, tenor saxophonist David Murray, Bluiett incorporates a great deal of conventional bebop into his free playing. In truth, Bluiett's music is not free jazz at all, but rather a plain-spoken extension of the mainstream tradition..." (Chris Kelsey)

This special presentation is hosted by the New Orleans Arts and Cultural Host Committee, presenters of the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp. The Jazz Camp Alumni and Faculty band will open the show.

Edward Kidd Jordan - Saxophonist, Happy 80th Birthday - May 5, 2015

Legendary saxophonist Sir Edward "Kidd" Jordan is acclaimed internationally as one of the true master improvisers still performing today. Indie Jazz aptly describes Kidd Jordan as a "genteel man" who is probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world. Jordan was recognized as a jazz maverick back in the 1940s intent on exploring jazz rooted music's outer reaches. In recognition of his great musical achievements, knighthood was bestowed on him by the Republic of France where he holds the title Chevalier des Artes et Lettres.

This virtuoso unselfishly shared his gift of and passion for music for more than 50 years, 36 of which he spent at Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) until he retired in 2006 as head of the jazz studies program. Indie Jazz aptly describes Mr. Jordan as a "genteel man" who is "probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world."
The list of bands and artists Jordan has performed with reads like a 40-year Grammy program and includes such legends as Cannonball Adderley, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Ed Blackwell, Ellis Marsalis, Ray Charles, Cecil Taylor, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Archie Shepp, Aaron Neville, Sun Ra, Peter Korvald, William Parker, Alan Silva, Louis Moholo, Sunny Murray, Hamid Drake, Lena Horne, Gladys Knight, Big Maybelle, and Aretha Franklin just to name a few. A big part of Mr. Jordan's résumé is the Improvisational Arts Ensemble a group he founded in 1975 with drummer Alvin Fielder, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, Jr. and bassist London Branch. The inclusion of the late Alvin Thomas transformed the group into the Improvisational Arts Quintet.

For the past three decades or so Kidd has had a highly productive and close relationship with drummer Alvin Fielder and bassist William Parker. Kidd developed a close musical relationship with innovative pianist Joel Futterman back in the early 90's and they continue to perform and record together. Kidd's first recording was titled, "No Compromise" and that very accurately expresses his personal conviction about his music.

Mr. Jordan earned his degree in music from SUNO's sister campus Southern University and A&M College in 1955. He later earned his master's degree in music from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois where he studied under Drs. J. Roger Miller, Roger Schueler and Jean Northrup. Mr. Jordan's post-graduate summer studies lead him to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he studied under Fred Hemke who doubled as a reed maker.

A New Orleans resident, Jordan was born in Crowley, Louisiana on May 5, 1935. It was there that he learned to play saxophone from Joseph Oger, a French-Canadian teacher. His growth as a musician later continued at Ross High School in Crowley where he encountered Southern University alums Emmett Jacobs and William Byrd. When Mr. Jordan landed in Baton Rouge from 1952 to 1955 he advanced his music studies under Southern University's band director T. Leroy Davis and woodwind teachers John Banks and Huel Perkins. At Southern he also connected with another soon-to-be musical legend, his band mate and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother and future brother-in-law the late Alvin Batiste.

"His first instrument was the C-melody saxophone followed by the alto saxophone which remains one of his favorite horns. He also plays the soprano, sopranino, baritone saxophone and clarinets. But it is the tenor saxophone that allows Kidd the range to express what he wants to express. He started playing by ear almost from the start playing licks he picked up from the recordings of Charlie Parker and Sonny Stitt."

Kidd organized the first World Saxophone Quartet in 1976 that included saxophonists Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray accompanied by Alvin Fielder (drums), Elton Heron (electric bass), and London Branch (bass) at shows performed at SUNO (12/9/76) and the famed "Lu and Charilie's" (12/10/76 & 12/11/76) respectively. He has amassed a discography of over 30 recordings and has performed in jazz and music festivals around the world including Germany, Netherlands, Finland, France, and Africa, has been a featured performer with the New Orleans Philharmonic, as well as performed with various "pit bands" in support of shows that come through New Orleans. Kidd has been a regular performer at the Visions Festival in New York each spring.

After his years at Southern University, Mr. Jordan began his journey to share his knowledge of music. Mr. Jordan began his formal teaching career in 1955 at Bethune High School in Norco, Louisiana. At one time he spent time in New Orleans' historic Faubourg Tremé as an instructor at the William Houston School of Music. It was in 1972, however, that he arrived at another historic place, Pontchartain Park the home of Southern University at New Orleans; and he taught there until 2006.
Mr. Jordan's legacy is solidified by his insistence that his students' music contain one critical element---originality. And he practices what he preaches. Mr. Jordan once said, "Nowadays everybody just wants to play the same stuff that everybody else is playing. Same solos, same licks, and I can see that, because everybody wants to be accepted, but I don't care about that. The minute someone wants to pat me on the back about something is the minute I'm ready to leave. You've got to know yourself and what you're capable of doing and how you want to do it."

Mr. Jordan shared his passion for music with scores of students who attended SUNO or participated in on-campus programs. Music fans could see the fruits of his skills with his organization of the World Saxophone Quartet and other students and musicians who passed through the doors of the university. His influence is apparent through former students such as Charles Joseph, one of the founding members of the revolutionary Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Mr. Jordan's work also included founding such programs as the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp and the Heritage School of Music.


Mr. Jordan's legacy is solidified by his insistence that his students' music contain one critical element---originality. And he practices what he preaches. Mr. Jordan once said, "Nowadays everybody just wants to play the same stuff that everybody else is playing. Same solos, same licks, and I can see that, because everybody wants to be accepted, but I don't care about that. The minute someone wants to pat me on the back about something is the minute I'm ready to leave. You've got to know yourself and what you're capable of doing and how you want to do it."

Mr. Jordan shared his passion for music with scores of students who attended SUNO or participated in on-campus programs. Music fans could see the fruits of his skills with his organization of the World Saxophone Quartet and other students and musicians who passed through the doors of the university. His influence is apparent through former students such as Charles Joseph, one of the founding members of the revolutionary Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Mr. Jordan's work also included founding such programs as the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp and the Heritage School of Music.

Yet, Kidd was always driven to search for something different musically. Even his solos with the R&B groups were noted as "different" by his fellow musicians. He moved away from playing "tunes" in his effort to discover his own musical convictions. He has always been focused on being a musician first and mastering the technique of his horns. For Kidd, technique allows him the freedom to play the saxophone the way he wants to play it. It is the "aesthetic" or feeling of playing that drives Kidd's playing. As Kidd has said "styles are born out of people's technique." When people have enough technique then they can do some things." To this day, Kidd still practices his instruments seriously. He has been known to practice by playing musical phrases in response to bird's and other sounds of nature. For Kidd creating music is all about developing one's ear. As he says, "you have to hear what you're trying to get at." Asked to define his work, Jordan calls it "creative improvisational music." - Charles Lester Music

Jordan's teaching has touch so many in New Orleans and continues to build an everlasting legacy, his list of former students includes; Bradford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, Charles Joseph, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Leroy Adams, Calvin Johnson, Sammie "Big Sam" William, Julius Handy, Elton Herron, Carl Leblanc, Darrell Lavigne, Brian Quezergue, Kenneth Anderson, Andrew Baham, Paul Batiste, Peter Batiste, Jonathan Batiste, Curley Blanchard, Alonza Bowens, Gary Brown, Maynard Chatters, Jr., Tony Dagradi, Neal Dominque, Joe Dyson, Kurt Ford, Natasha Harris, Arthur Mitchell, Aja Mohammed, George Pack, Conan Pappas, Usie Phillips, Wesley Phillips, Khristopher Royal, Chris Severin, Vernon Severin, Troy Sawyer, Walter Smith, III, Tony Villon, Richard Moten, Louis Bibbs, Abe Compson, Wali Abbel Ra'oof, Safi Ra'oof, Gregory Agid, Courtney Bryan, and a host of others.

Although Mr. Jordan's dedication to music education can safely be described as unmatched, his dedication to his family has been immeasurable. Through the years he has been able to boast being the husband of Edvidge Chatters Jordan and the father of Edward, Jr., Kent, Christie, Paul, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon. Four of the Jordan children, Kent, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon, are professional musicians. Mr. Jordan even found a horse racing and training partner in his nephew Maynard Chatters, Jr. - The New Orleans Agenda

NEW ORLEANS - The Southern University at New Orleans Foundation is proud to honor Edward “Kidd” Jordan for BASH III. The virtuoso unselfishly shared his gift of and passion for music for 51 years, 36 of which he spent at Southern University at New Orleans. Indie Jazz aptly describes Mr. Jordan as a “genteel man” who is “probably the single most under-documented jazz musician of his generation, a fact that is even more remarkable when you consider that he is also one of the busiest musicians in the world.”

Born in Crowley, Louisiana on May 5, 1935, Mr. Jordan earned his degree in music from SUNO’s sister campus Southern University and A&M College in 1955. He later earned his master’s degree in music from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois where he studied under Drs. J. Roger Miller, Roger Schueler and Jean Northrup. Mr. Jordan’s post-graduate summer studies lead him to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he studied under Fred Hemke who doubled as a reed maker.

Mr. Jordan’s musical odyssey began in his home town of Crowley. It was there that he learned to play saxophone from Joseph Oger, a French-Canadian teacher. His growth as a musician later continued at Ross High School in Crowley where he encountered Southern University alums Emmett Jacobs and William Byrd. When Mr. Jordan landed in Baton Rouge from 1952 to 1955 he advanced his music studies under Southern’s band director T. Leroy Davis and woodwind teachers John Banks and Huel Perkins. At Southern he also connected with another soon-to-be musical legend, his band mate and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother Alvin Batiste.

After his years at Southern, Mr. Jordan began his journey to share his knowledge of music. Mr. Jordan began his formal teaching career in 1955 at Bethune High School in Norco, Louisiana. At one time he spent time in New Orleans’ historic Faubourg Tremé as an instructor at the William Houston School of Music. It was in 1972, however, that he arrived at another historic place, Pontchartain Park the home of Southern University at New Orleans; and he taught there until 2006.

Mr. Jordan’s legacy is solidified by his insistence that his students’ music contain one critical element---originality. And he practices what he preaches. Mr. Jordan once said, “Nowadays everybody just wants to play the same stuff that everybody else is playing. Same solos, same licks, and I can see that, because everybody wants to be accepted, but I don't care about that. The minute someone wants to pat me on the back about something is the minute I'm ready to leave. You've got to know yourself and what you're capable of doing and how you want to do it.”


His instruments are tenor, baritone, soprano, alto, sopranino and c-melody saxophones as well as contrabass and the bass clarinets. He has performed and recorded with such legends as Cannonball Adderley, Fred Anderson, Ornette Coleman, Ed Blackwell, Ellis Marsalis, Ray Charles, Cecil Taylor, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, just to name a few. A big part of Mr. Jordan’s résumé is the Improvisational Arts Ensemble a group he founded with drummer Alvin Fielder, trumpeter Clyde Kerr, Jr. and bassist London Branch. The inclusion of the late Alvin Thomas transformed the group into the Improvisational Arts Quintet.

Mr. Jordan shared his passion for music with scores of students who attended SUNO or participated in on-campus programs. Music fans could see the fruits of his skills with his organization of the World Saxophone Quartet, which included Hamiet Bluiett, David Murray, Julius Hemphill, and Oliver Lake. Another big influence was seen in his former SUNO student Charles Joseph, one of the founding members of the revolutionary Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Mr. Jordan’s work also included founding such programs as the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp and the Heritage School of Music.

So significant has his work been that his work was documented by CBS institution 60 Minutes and he was honored with Offbeat magazine’s first Lifetime Achievement Award for Music Education. In 1985 the French Ministry of Culture recognized Mr. Jordan as a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the French government’s highest artistic award for his work as an educator and performer. In 2008 Mr. Jordan was also named a Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the Vision Festival XIII in New York City.

Although Mr. Jordan’s dedication to music education can safely be described as unmatched, his dedication to his family has been immeasurable. Through the years he has been able to boast being the husband of Edvidge Chatters Jordan and the father of Edward, Jr., Kent, Christie, Paul, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon. Four of the Jordan children, Kent, Stephanie, Rachel and Marlon, are professional musicians. Mr. Jordan even found a horse racing and training partner in his nephew Maynard Chatters, Jr.

- Sylvain Music Notes

By Neda Ulaby

All Things Considered, June 11, 2008 - New York City's Vision Festival honors New Orleans saxophonist Kidd Jordan Wednesday night. At 73, Jordan is a legend in avant-garde jazz circles. He's been given France's highest cultural honor: a knighthood of the order of arts and letters.

Yet in spite of these high honors, the saxophonist is still under the radar. Jordan, an avowed contrarian, says he couldn't care less about being popular. He just does what he does, even if that means being part of a tiny club of cranky purists.

"The majority of people need somebody else to say yes to what they're doing," Jordan says. "They need someone to pat them on the back, say, 'Oh man so and so.' But when someone starts patting me on my back, I start moving away. I say, 'No, I'm not supposed to be here.' "

Why?

"Because what I'm doing ... How can I say it? If the majority likes it, then I'm supposed to go the other way."

Too 'Outside' for New Orleans

Edward "Kidd" Jordan was born in rice country — Crowley, La. — in 1935. As a kid, he used to listen to the Charlie Parker albums that black GIs brought home after the war. Jordan thought he'd work with horses like his father, but he went to college instead, studied music and wound up playing jazz professionally. His progressive tastes did not sit well with conservative Southern audiences.

"Every now and then, people would tell me, 'Don't go too far out in solos,' " Jordan says. "We used to play for balls here in New Orleans, and they'd say, 'Give him some chicken, put some chicken in his mouth, stop him!' I would be downstairs practicing, and people would say, 'Man, go get him something, stop him from practicing.' And they'd give me one solo a night — that's all I needed."

To support himself, Jordan played in pit bands for shows on tour and backed up musicians such as Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. Jordan never minded playing conventional music, as long as he respected the musician.

"I remember one time, I did a recording with Albert King, and Albert King said, 'Wine and whiskey is all I crave, I want a big-legged woman to carry me to my grave.' When he said that, the horn fell out of my mouth," Jordan says. "The inflection he had on it! And he knew he messed me up that day. Wow! The way he said it! That was really, really the blues."

Rooted in His Family

New Orleans isn't known for its avant-garde jazz scene, so it's hard not to wonder why Jordan didn't move to more supportive communities in Chicago or New York City.

"Well, really, my family's here. My friends are here," Jordan says. "And if you got an idea of what you want to do, I think you can do it in the wilderness. You can do it in Egypt, somewhere in the desert. And make it happen in your kitchen. I used to feel better in my kitchen than in New York City. If you're really playing, it doesn't matter where you're at."

That said, Jordan is the patriarch of a large, deeply rooted New Orleans musical family. His music is different from theirs, but he's recorded with them, trading solos with his son Marlon, an acclaimed jazz trumpeter.

Jordan's family includes hundreds or even thousands of students, including Branford and Wynton Marsalis. He started Southern University's jazz program and taught there for decades. Jordan's good friend, Clyde Kerr, is a jazz trumpeter and fellow educator. He says Jordan's the kind of legend who doesn't get the respect he deserves in his own town.

"Kidd is a New Orleans musician," Kerr says. "He's been here so long, but a lot of people in this town have a certain idea about what is a New Orleans musician or what is New Orleans music. It has to be a certain way."

Still, the local community pays its dues to Jordan. His tune "Kidd Jordan's Second Line" has been recorded by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, whose musicians were local kids he helped mentor.

Surviving Hurricane Katrina

Those kids, like so many others, were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Jordan lost his home in the Upper Ninth Ward. He and his wife evacuated in record time, he says, because he knew all the country back roads from touring them as a musician. But his son Marlon was driven to his roof by the flood for five days. He encountered alligators and dead bodies as helicopters passed by him.

Less than a month later, Jordan went in the studio and recorded a melancholy and angry album called Palm of Soul with percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker.

Jordan now lives in Baton Rouge. He says he'd love to return to New Orleans, but financially it's too hard. Still, he says, he doesn't care where he lives, just as long as he can play.

"And like when I practice, I don't practice songs," Jordan says. "Now around here, they may have some birds in the trees. I may play off of the birds, do things like that ... Imitating and playing off of them. Now, that's some natural music. When I get to the point where the birds are, I will be ready to go. Say, ' - NPR All Things Consired

By John Litweiler, JAZZ REVIEW

Fred Anderson, Edward 'Kidd' Jordan, Tatsu Aoki, Alvin Fielder

At the Velvet Lounge

The Jordan family of New Orleans is featured in this month's issue of Down Beat magazine, and last week proved to be Jordan week in Chicago jazz. It began with Edward "Kidd" Jordan's sons and daughters at Jazzfest 2006. Then, on Friday, their father himself finally returned here.

This dynamic New Orleans tenor saxophonist had been scheduled to play at the old Velvet Lounge last September, but Hurricane Katrina knocked down his home and canceled that visit. It's only right that Jordan -- a Chicago favorite since the early 1990s, when he and club owner Fred Anderson, a fellow tenorist, began playing annual shows together -- made it back here for the grand reopening of the Velvet at its new location, 67 E. Cermak.

This was an evening to rejoice. The old Velvet Lounge was a dark, L-shaped neighborhood tavern, part of which Anderson had converted into a music room. Its opposite is the new Velvet, designed for music: a square room with a large stage, a bar on one side and what seems like more tables. With a crowd there for the ribbon-cutting, it felt as cozy as the old Velvet had been, while the sparks between the musicians were, if anything, more electrifying than ever. What they played was a celebration of free jazz and its power to move the spirit.

These two made a provocative contrast: Anderson the naturalist, with his dark, middle and low-register colors; Jordan the abstract expressionist, in bright falsetto cries and bold, distorted tones. The medium was free improvisation, with tempos changing on impulse, without harmonic structures and almost no themes, though a handful of spontaneous two-sax riffs emerged. Jordan's lines were skyrockets of screaming, honking ecstasy that mounted to grand, Beethovenlike climaxes, complete with false endings.

The more earthy Anderson played long lines of strong, angular melody, including complex afterthoughts, as if he was reexamining his ideas. Both soloed at length and then played many two-tenor collective improvisations. Sometimes their duets staggered, exhausted. Usually, though, they were intriguing together, here clashing madly, there mingling joyously, with Anderson playing longer tones in a big, hard sound and Jordan hollering hoarsely in double time.

Jordan also invented a wandering, lyrical ballad while Tatsu Aoki accompanied cleverly on bass, in deep, chunky tones and shifting tempos. Much of the evening's best music came from the inspired drummer Alvin Fielder, a Mississippian and ex-Chicagoan who had been Anderson's partner in the 1960s and now is Jordan's regular accompanist. He's a one-man nuclear power plant who creates layers of complex polyrhythms, yet his quick responses to his mates were tense and ingenious.

Fielder's style and sound are heavy, loud, swinging and a big step beyond Elvin Jones' innovations. He also often clicked, tinkled and rang softly, and in out-of-tempo duets he challenged both tenorists by extending their ideas. Perhaps because the acoustics of the new Velvet Lounge favored him, it was one of his finest recent performances.

The old Velvet Lounge became a leading venue because a gifted young generation of musicians and their eager audience began revitalizing Chicago's exploratory jazz scene in the 1990s. New black and white improvisers crossed this city's racial borders to play at the Velvet with their liberated elders. Along the way, Fred Anderson at last became noted internationally as the major saxophonist he is, and his club became a showcase for top touring free-jazz artists, as well as Chicagoans.

With the Jordan-Anderson grand opening and a full schedule of bookings, the new Velvet Lounge has picked up the old club's baton. We music lovers eagerly anticipate.

John Litweiler is a Chicago jazz critic and author.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

- Chicago Sun-Times, Aug 14, 2006

Though he's been recording since the 1950s, Kidd Jordan has never made anything like Palm of Soul. This trio session, recorded less than a month after Hurricane Katrina chased the 70-year-old saxophone master from his native New Orleans, is a testament to a life steeped in the deepest reservoirs of American music and fully committed to the moment. Completely improvised, the date brings Jordan back together with a pair of treasured colleagues, consummate players with whom he enjoys a rare connection: drummer Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker.

The delicately shifting sonic space of these pieces, awash in the sensory cues of Asian, African and Indian folk forms, evokes the exploratory tradition of 1960s innovators such as trumpeter Don Cherry – with whom both Drake and Parker were affiliated early in their careers – while the mercurial glimmer of Jordan's soulfully considered lines reflect the essential fact of jazz: At its truest, it is the sound of someone thinking on their feet, an evanescent confluence of breath, heart, intellect and nerve. Jordan navigates the rhythmic shimmers and hovering tone-clouds created by Parker and Drake with a tenor that can sear like an erupting sunspot or cascade as softly and unpredictably as a leaf slipping down an autumn breeze.


AUM Fidelity has wanted to produce an album with New Orleans’ saxophonist/teacher/role model Kidd Jordan in trio with fellow master musicians William Parker and Hamid Drake for some time. Everything came together in Summer 2005. The recording session was set for the 3rd week of September and flights to NYC from New Orleans and Chicago were booked. Then Katrina hit. Kidd’s home was of the more than 100,000 wiped from the map of Louisiana. When we were finally able to reach Kidd after the storm and ask if he would still be able to make the session, he said simply,“Yeah man, let’s do it!”

From the gently yearning space search "Forever" to the epic saga "Living Peace" (which to my ears sounds like the shifting energy of New Orleans as Katrina approached, and then, finally broke the levees) to the deep North African grooves created on "Unity Call" and "So Often" to the majestic Far East parade of the closing track – Palm of Soul presents three master musicians in intimate musical conversation at the highest levels – rendering songs and mesmeric pieces which elicit the full gamut of emotion. A major, utterly distinct and distinguished album work.
- AUM Fidelity

Independent Ear Guest Interview:
A Conversation with Kidd Jordan
By Rahsaan Clark Morris

Edward "Kidd" Jordan has been through a lot over the past year. A long-time resident of New Orleans and part of one of that city's many musician families, like many of his friends and neighbors, among them young Chicago trumpeter Maurice Brown who had re-located there, the tenor sax player/educator was a victim of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, losing his house and everything in it. Thankfully, his family was spared, though there was a scare concerning his youngest son, the accomplished trumpeter Marlon, who, as Kidd later learned, had been trapped in the attic of his house for over 5 days and had to be rescued by helicopter. My own experience listening to Kidd's music included the times I would finish work at the Chicago Jazz Fest and would head over to Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge for the after sets where Kidd has been a regular for many years. I caught up with him after his return from a benefit in New York for Hurricane Relief efforts by musicians from the New Music/avant garde community.

The list of creative musicians Kidd Jordan has worked with over the years reads like a who's who of stalwart explorers: Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, Julius Hemphill, Alvin Batiste, and more recently: William Parker, Fred Anderson, Kahil el Zabar, Andrew Cyrille, Henry Grimes, and his working group with pianist Joel Futterman and drummer Alvin Fielder, to name just a few. I reached Jordan in Baton Rouge where he had taken up residence post-Katrina.

Rahsaan Clark Morris: How do you feel after all that has happened to you?

Kidd Jordan: You know, I just take things in stride. There's not much I could do about it anyway, so I just suck it up and move on. Material things are not what is so important. Sometimes I do feel low about some of the personal things that have been lost, family portraits and certain mementos, but then I just have to keep going and not think about it. I have to get back to work.

RCM: How is Marlon doing? I heard about his experience.

KJ: Marlon is alright. He just did a gig up in New York with Wynton [Marsalis] and some other musicians, so he is getting his thing back together. [Marlon and his vocalist sister Stephanie Jordan subsequently participated in a special world tour helmed by Jackie Harris under the auspices of Jazz at Lincoln Center.]

RCM: How did the storm affected your ability to work and play your music? I know you work with the Southern University Jazz Ensemble, for one thing.

KJ: I've just finished writing some arrangements for the band. And I still work with the sections of the [University] marching band, the woodwind sections. I probably will still work with certain music students [tutoring]. But, my house is completely gone. My office was completely underwater. Even though they have pumped things out, I think they have even declared the area where I lived a Dead Zone. I lived about three blocks from Lake Ponchartrain [where the levees gave way]. Where I lived was called the Kenilworth section, a nice community, a very thriving community.

RCM: Earlier, you said you had recently made a recording session in New York with [drummer] Hamid [Drake] and [bassist] William Parker. How did that go?

KJ: We had been scheduled to do this gig for a while and it went well. We did some short pieces and then some longer ones. There was a lot of variety [musically] in the pieces. I'm not sure what will be on the CD; it might end up being some of the longer pieces with maybe a few extras.

RCM: Besides playing trap set, did Hamid play frame drum [which he is becoming masterful at; witness his work with Fred Anderson on Fred & Hamid Back Together Again]?

KJ: He played frame drum and a lot of other percussion, and William also played different things and some percussion. So, it went well. I was in New York for the [Katrina victim's] benefit. There were many performers there: Kahil, [baritone sax player] Hamiett [Bluett] and [violinist] Billy Bang really burned on their set.

RCM: I just listened the other day to Kahil and the Ritual Trio [bassist Yosef Ben Israel, tenor saxophonist Ari Brown]. They had played a gig last December at River East in Chicago and they had Billy with them as guest and that set was burning as well.

KJ: Well, they really worked it that night.

RCM: As I said, you lead the Southern University Jazz Ensemble, and when you've come to Chicago in the past, you've played in smaller groupings at the Velvet Lounge, among other places. Do you have a preference for group size and configuration, or maybe I should ask in what context is your voice best heard?

KJ: Anytime you perform, you play off of whatever the other musicians are doing. So I listen. They're listening to me and that's where the music happens. In the larger groups, you have to listen more acutely, but that is the most important part: listening.
- Independent Ear

By Carl Schoettler,
Sun Reporter/Originally published November 2, 2005

They say in New Orleans that horn man Kidd Jordan has always remained faithful to the sounds in his soul.

Jordan has played his tenor saxophone with everyone from Aretha Franklin to New Orleans piano legend Professor Longhair to Perry Como to the jazz explorations of the World Saxophone Quartet to the Sun Ra Arkestra.

But for decades the sounds in his soul have been summoned forth by what he calls creative improvisational music. He's played everything from be-bop to hip-hop, but when he's playing from the deepest chambers of his heart he wants to start someplace fresh and new on every piece.

Hurricane Katrina washed Jordan out of the New Orleans home he and his family lived in for 30 years or more. So he's been on the road with the deeply personal jazz he plays on his tenor. He'll perform in a trio Saturday at An Die Musik. The appearance will benefit the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp and the New Orleans Musicians Clinic.

Jordan has lived, worked and taught in New Orleans most of his life, but his free improvisational sound might be heard more often on the downtown jazz scene in Manhattan than on Bourbon Street in his hometown. Or maybe in France, Germany or Austria, where like many jazz musicians, he is perhaps better known than he is in America. France has named him a Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres, a cultural award also given to such worthies as William Faulkner, James Joyce, Oscar Peterson and Meryl Streep.

He'll play here with Joel Futterman, a piano player who left New York City for Virginia Beach, Va., and Alvin Fielder, a Mississippi drummer who helped launch the jazz-focused Association for Advancement of Creative Music in Chicago.

"Alvin Fielder, I've been playing with him about 25 years down here in New Orleans," Jordan says. The list of people Fielder has played with reads like an unabridged edition of the Encyclopedia of Jazz.

Jordan met Futterman at a recording session in Upper Marlboro.

"The first time we played together I knew we were soulmates," Jordan says. "[We hit it] off right at the moment he started playing. We lit into one another and it's been going ever since. It was like magic."

With the trio, he might start improvising on a chord or even just a handful of notes.

"That's right, then keep meandering and going on and on," says Jordan, 70. "And as you play something and somebody else plays something, you start making a tonal center. Like gravity. You can go out, like going to the stratosphere and coming back. That's a way of holding together."

He and his wife, Edvidge, a classical pianist, fled Katrina to Baton Rouge, where they stayed with his sister and brother-in-law until last week when they moved into their own apartment. He'd taught about 35 years at Southern University in New Orleans where he started the jazz studies program. Since Katrina submerged the New Orleans campus he's been teaching at the university's Baton Rouge branch.

Incidentally, his name is Edward. He got "Kid" when he was about 15 playing with older musicians. He's said he added the second D to distinguish "me from a goat."

- Sun Reporter

Fred Anderson, Kidd Jordan & Friends
Chicago IL, 2 September 2000

by Derek Taylor
September 2000

For followers of free jazz in the Midwest Chicago is an obvious Mecca of sounds. On any given weekend there's certain to be something happening in the city at one of the handful of venues that make the music their regular stock and trade. The Empty Bottle, Hot House, Green Mill, are all regular watering holes for fans of adventurous and uncompromising sounds. But if a hierarchy were ever imposed on the city's venues the Velvet Lounge, situated on Chicago's near South Side, would easily rank at the top. Once you set foot inside the place, take a seat at the bar or a table, and the music from the players clustered atop the plyboard-constructed stage starts, the reasons behind its esteem pour down like a cool inviting rain. It's a museum for the music, but not in the traditional musty, dusty definition of that word. Fred Anderson's joint is a living, breathing repository—one that makes and documents history on a nightly and continuous basis. Nearly every evening of the week there's something happening there—whether it's a local group with a regular weekly gig or another from out of town just passing through, something about the place inspires musicians to turn out their finest and most unfettered work. What's more, the majority of it is recorded and archived by Fred's right-hand soundman Clarence Bright.

The tapes were definitely rolling on this night for the first of two Chicago Jazz Festival 'after sets' reconvening Fred and his old New Orleans chum Kidd Jordan on stage with friends. Jordan has made the yearly trip a tradition and my experiences at last year's meeting made this year's a must-hear. Calling such an event a Jazz Festival 'after set' is something of a misnomer in that by and large the most exciting and memorable events always seem to transpire after the facilities over at Grant Park have closed up shop for the night. This night was no different and once bassist Darius Savage and drummer Vincent Davis took the stage at a little past 9:30 we all settled in for the main event.

After a brief bass/drums preface that had both Davis and Savage breaking a light sweat Kidd stepped up on stage and over a forceful rhythmic vamp let fly with stream of keening, frayed lines. In a solo that continued to gain both steam and volume, Kidd unleashed a torrent of overblown shouts from his tenor—skipping across the altissimo register and leaving the audience agape when his reed finally parted from his mouth. A quick rhythmic break and Fred joined his friend on stage, fastening his tenor to his torso harness, hunching down into his signature crouch and answering with a deep, almost baritone resonance. Working a supple thematic strand deep into the ears of the audience, Fred swabbed out any and all wax—leaving our eager canals cleansed and prepped to receive the melodic milk to follow. Paving the way further, Savage and Davis generated a furious pace tugging out a choppy rhythmic sea over which Fred vaulted with ropy foghorn blasts. After another gorgeously conceived solo Fred stepped back, laying out with Davis and allowing Savage time alone with his strings. Mixing sparsely placed plucks with double-timed strums Savage's solo was a little on the simplistic side, but with Davis' cymbal punctuations his statement still managed to support considerable weight.

Fred soon returned blowing in balladic mode over a shuffling syncopated beat before Kidd joined him and the two engaged in the first of several duets. Twining upper register tones with juxtaposed high and low streams, the pair was like a post-modern incarnation of Ammons and Stitt. After an incredibly sustained exchange Fred finally dropped out leaving Kidd again with the rhythm before Douglas Ewart, who had been waiting in the wings stepped up and moved to the front on soprano. Taking a protracted solo heavily steeped in multiphonics, but somewhat lacking in terms of melodic range Ewart mimicked a snake charmer trying to lull his serpent with a wall of notes. Fred eventually returned blowing throaty counterpoint underneath and signaling a shift for a solo from Davis. The drummer's exposition was so precise in execution and stentorian in volume that the eventual reappearance of the ensemble almost seemed premature. Fred, Kidd and Ewart—blowing from his chair stage-side—took the set out to unanimous and clamorous applause. The din was so loud that ears were ringing by its close.

Set two opened with Tatsu Aoki taking over bass duties and AACM legend Ajaramu setting up a hasty shop behind the drum kit. Working over a thickly syncopated funk beat Kidd and Fred entered together, turning the base metals of their horns into vessels of pure opaline magic. Arthur Taylor, an AACM member I'm unfamiliar with, took the stage soon after a lengthy exchange from Fred and Kidd, blowing a long, if somewhat restrained solo on alto. Nipping at the heels of the horns, - ONE Final Note

Kidd Jordan & The Improvisational Arts Quintet /
New Orleans LA, 28 April 2001

by Frank Rubolino
September 2001

The JazzFest in New Orleans has been going at a strong pace for over 30 years, but it has not held the reputation for being a forum for cutting edge, innovative music. However, for 2001, the festival did allocate time for music that does not typically fit the commercial mainstream tastes of the tens of thousands of people who attend this huge event spread out over ten stages on the racetrack grounds. When I heard from band members that Kidd Jordan was re-assembling his Improvisational Arts Quintet for the festival and had expanded it to a sextet that included Fred Anderson, Joel Futterman, Alvin Fielder, Elton Heron, and Clyde Kerr, I decided to make the trip from Houston solely to see this dynamic lineup.

The band played at the inappropriate time of 1 PM in the Jazz Tent to an unusually large crowd as new music concerts go. Futterman began with an immediately ambitious solo, and this paved the way for an incredibly intense, 15-minute assault of the tenor saxophone by Anderson. He blew with sustained vigor, spewing out round after round of armor-piercing bullets. An exhausted Fielder told me after the concert that he had never been pushed to such extremes by a musician as he was accompanying Anderson's sprint. Fielder did keep pace, and the entire band was energized by Anderson's performance.

Kerr showed great forcefulness as the trumpeter of the band. He played with power and emotion and regularly responded with engrossing free trumpet outbursts. He was a fine counterbalance between the two tenor players. When Jordan made his first entry, he initially calmed the waters with a tender sequence of unexpected quietude, but then he also began interjecting emotional tenor responses. It all built to a beautiful crescendo of intensity, with Jordan and Anderson flanking Kerr and interacting intuitively and wholeheartedly. Futterman continually emitted acute lines of demarcation, playing with his patented cross-handed approach to produce a continual stream of charged ions. Heron on electric bass responded resonantly with ever-changing bass lines filled with tension and diversification.

Behind the overt commotion, Fielder mapped out a militant strategy of arrhythmic drum sequences that kept the fires burning brightly with his uproarious attack. At one point Futterman joined the horn players with his curved soprano saxophone, and the wellspring of musical ideas continued to flow. All musicians were pushed to extreme levels on this set that was a rewarding tribute to the free spirit inherent in each of them. The acoustics in the big tent were not perfect, the sound system was somewhat unbalanced, and the time of the performance should not have been conducive to igniting the creative juices. Jordan and the IAQ rose above this and gave a strong performance that hopefully made converts out of some in the festive crowd. - ONE Final Note

You Don't Know What Love Is

Year: 2005

Style: Straight-Ahead / Classic

Musicians: Marlon Jordan (trumpet); Stephanie Jordan (vocals); Kent Jordan (piccolo); Edward “Kidd” Jordan (saxophone); Alvin Batiste (clarinet); Mark Chatters (trumpet); Mark Chatters (trumpet); Maynard Chatters (trombone); Darrell Lavigne (piano); David Pulphus (bass); Troy Davis (drums); Jonathan Bloom (percussion); Rachel Jordan, Amy Thiaville (violin); Dimitri Bychko (cello)

Review: After Marlon Jordan made a splash in the jazz recording industry when he was only 17—the age at which he signed a contract with Columbia Record, thereafter recordings a series of three albums over the four years between 1988 and 1992. Plus, he gained much acclaim as a member of Jazz Futures sponsored by George Wein, a group in which Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride, Antonio Hart, Benny Green and Mark Whitfield played as well. But after a subsequent recording on Arabesque, Marlon’s Mode, Jordan appeared to disappear, and his appearances mostly were limited to his home town of New Orleans.
Now, not only Marlon Jordan, but also The Jordans, have come out full force to make up for lost time on how most recent album, You Don’t Know What Love Is. Jordan’s, or the Jordans’, CD leverages the opportunity to record on Louisiana Red Hot Records by including not only the immediate Jordan family on it, but also the extended family as well. For, like the Marsalises, the Paytons or the Nevilles, the Jordans are one of New Orleans’ musical dynasties in which numerous family members excel in creating their own distinctive styles of music, despite the common family heritages. First, there’s the matriarch, Edvidge (Chatters) Jordan.

Edvidge Jordan (piano) > Edward “Kidd” Jordan (avant-garde saxophone) > Kent Jordan (flute) + Marlon Jordan (trumpet) + Stephanie Jordan (vocals) + Rachel Jordan (classical violin)

Plus, Edvidge is the sister of trombonist Maynard Chatters, who is the father of trumpeter Mark Chatters, and she is the sister-in-law of clarinetist Alvin Batiste, who married Edith Chatters. And Edvidge is the aunt of percussionist Jonathan Bloom.

The point of that discussion of genealogy is that all of the musicians named in the previous two paragraphs appear on You Don’t Know What Love Is, though the continuity of the recording is Marlon’s forceful presence on trumpet.

Despite the family connections, getting together all of the related musicians of You Don’t Know What Love Is wasn’t as easy a task as would be expected. First of all, Kidd Jordan was reluctant to participate in the recording, perhaps perceiving that his free jazz style isn’t the same as that of other family members. But Marlon perceptively starts the CD with “My Favorite Things,” nudging his father toward an aggressive solo throughout much of the track by starting it on open trumpet with intimations of metrical freedom. Similarly, Marlon’s sister Stephanie Jordan had aspired to be a singer, but never performed publicly until 1991, when sister Rachel dared her to go on stage in Washington D.C. to sing "I'll Remember April" with Kent. Stephanie’s secret singing ability suddenly was apparent, and she has sung ever since. Now, Marlon has included Stephanie as a co-feature on You Don’t Know What Love Is.

Alternating between trumpet leads on, for example, “All Blues” (which includes Baptiste on clarinet) and Stephanie’s infectious singing on tunes like “Joey,” the CD contains sufficient variety to maintain interest throughout—proof of the varied talents of the Jordan/Chatters families as each member contributes toward the whole. In addition, Marlon’s trumpeting, chameleon-like, assumes the colors of the music he plays, from the mutes Miles Davis’ references of “All Blues” to the reverberating lushness of “Flamingo,” made successful by Marlon’s wide open tone supported by strings.

Now, after years of his absence from recording activity, Marlon Jordan has released the album that he has been thinking about for at least a decade: a production that allows each of his family members to participate as a document of their talents…and for that reason one that’s as valuable to the Jordan/Chatters family members as a family portrait would be.



- Jazz Review.com

“New Orleans Comes To Cape May”

The Cape May Jazz Festival presented by Bank of America is very proud to announce its fall festival lineup New Orleans Comes to Cape May November 10, 11, and 12. Cape May ignites with 30 some musicians emanating from New Orleans slated to hit the bandstands at the many venues on Beach Drive in beautiful Cape May, New Jersey. In addition to the salute to New Orleans the upcoming festival includes phenomenal trumpeter Chuck Mangione as well as the lush baritone sounds of vocalist extraordinaire Kevin Mahogany who will perform a tribute to the legendary Johnny Hartmann.

Friday November 10th the New Orleans All-Star Jazz Band featuring Dr. Michael White, clarinet, Christian Scott, trumpet, and Juanita Brooks, vocals, will perform 2 sets in Convention Hall 8pm and 10pm. Just a Dixie Land band they are not. The multi- talented Dr. Michael White is known for effortlessly blending the traditional sounds of New Orleans into the mix of modern soulful accessible jazz. Reserved seating is available. Vocalist Stephanie Jordan, an up-and-coming superstar, will shine alongside her brother, trumpeter Marlon Jordan. Their performance takes place in Aleathea’s Restaurant at the Inn of Cape May at 8:30pm and 11pm with the 8:30pm show being a Jazz Dinner with reservations required. Jordan is the singer songstress not to be missed this evening who recently brought the house down at a fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina at the Lincoln Center and has critics already comparing her to such living legends as Cassandra Wilson and Dianne Reeves.

Jeanie Bryson, daughter of Dizzy Gillespie, will surely captivate your mind, body and soul singing alongside her husband guitarist Coly Mellett for 3 sets in the Café Promenade at the Montreal Inn. The Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble, Philadelphia’s acclaimed Afro-original-beats jazz band, will have you out of your seat inside Carney’s Main Room for 3 upbeat sets 9pm-1am. Next door in Carney’s Other Room Ms. Carrie Jackson will sway you through her heartfelt, sultry renditions of songbook jazz standards.
The incredible Kevin Mahogany will be performing a tribute to the late great Johnny Hartmann inside the Grand Hotel for two shows 9pm and 11pm. The Puzzlebox Experiment takes the stage within one of Cape May’s premiere music spots, the Boiler Room in beautiful Congress Hall. Remaining true to the flavor of this festival something new to its top notch jazz and blues itinerary from the Big Easy comes Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers in Cabanas for 3 sets 9pm-1am.

Saturday afternoon, November 11th the Festival moves into 2nd gear beginning at 10 am with it’s renowned Complimentary Workshops. A Memorial Service in Convention Hall will be held at 11am for Brian Trainor, a man beyond description and world renowned musician who has deeply touched all involved and in attendance at previous jazz festivals. The Cape May All Star Band will perform in tribute to our sadly missed friend and mentor.

Edgardo Cintron and his Azuca Band featuring trumpeter Winston Byrd hits Aleathea’s Restaurant located in the Inn of Cape May from 12:30-3:30pm. Mr. Frank Bey, the legendary bluesman himself with the Swing City Blues Band, will perform in Cabanas 1pm -4pm. Two Jams will be taking place inside Carney’s Main Room and the Other Room 12n – 4pm. This is where funk meets jazz and audience participation creates the true definition of improvisation. A CD signing party with complimentary wine tasting by Barefoot Wines is offered from 5pm-6pm.

The Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Masters featuring Kidd Jordan, sax, Alvin Batiste, clarinet, and Germaine Bazzle, vocals, will be in Convention Hall for 2 shows at 8pm and 10 pm. These New Orleans musicians and educators will show you what New Orleans is all about. Reserved seating is available for this event.

Trumpeter Chuck Mangione performs in the Theatre at Lower Regional High School with reserved seating available. It’ll make you “Feel So Good”! Tim Eyermann and the East Coast Offering will rock the bandstand in the Boiler Room for 3 sets Saturday night as will the Steve Kroon Latin Jazz Band in Carney’s Main Room. The west coast sensational bassist Brian Bromberg is featured in Carney’s Other Room while next door the infamous bad boy of blues guitarist Clarence Spady invades Cabanas. The phenomenal vocalist Rebecca Parris will perform in Aleathea’s Restaurant, Inn of Cape May, 2 shows at 8:30pm and 11pm, accompanied by the one and only piano great George Mesterhazy, composer, sideman and beloved friend of the late great Shirley Horn. The 8:30pm show a Jazz Dinner Show with reservations required. Just down Beach Drive in the Grand Hotel New Orleans trumpeter Maurice Brown with sax man Derek Douget will perform 3 sets 9pm-1am as will deep, warm baritone vocalist Lou Watson at the Café Promenade. Sunday Barbara D. Mills will present her blues and gospel show from 1pm-4pm in Cabanas while 2 simultaneous jams ins - Cape May Jazz Festival

By Sue Strachan sstrachan@nola.com,
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Jazz aficionados were in for a treat when they went to the Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp benefit. Hosted by the New Orleans Arts and Cultural Host Committee, the party location was also of note: the home of event co-chairs Dawn and Chip Forstall. He's the attorney known for his business commercials showcasing local musicians such Irma Thomas.

And supporting future musicians was the aim of this scholarship dinner on May 31, which raises funds to send young musicians to the summer jazz camp. To showcase the talent in New Orleans who teaches these children, the first band to perform was the jazz camp faculty band: Victor Atkins, piano; Brian Quezergue, bass; Herman Lebeau, drums; Jonathan Bloom, percussion; Calvin Johnson, saxophone; Roderick Paulin, saxophone; Maynard Chatters, trombone; Marlon Jordan, trumpet; Germaine Bazzle, vocals; and Kevin Gullage, a jazz camp student who played the piano for a few songs.

This event also honored was saxophonist Edward "Kidd" Jordan with the fourth Louis Armstrong Jazz Pioneer Award. Along with an award presentation, a video was shown of past Jazz Camp students acknowledging Jordan's importance to New Orleans music and music education, along with how he has influenced their lives. Jordan's wife, Evidge Chatters Jordan was in the audience, and his children and with other musicians formed the second band for the night: Rachel Jordan, violin; Marlon Jordan, trumpet; Stephanie Jordan, vocals; Jonathan Bloom, percussion (Jordan's nephew); Victor Atkins, piano; Chris Severin, bass; and Herman Lebeau, drums. - The Times-Picayune