This year's Umbria Jazz festival
on July 7-16 will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the
births of jazz greats Thelonius Monk, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy
Gillespie.
Tributes to the three jazz icons will include performances by
Simona Molinari, pianists Kenny Barron, Cyrus Chestnut, Benny
Green, Dado Moroni and Eric Reed, the Lydian Sound Orchestra
directed by Riccardo Brazzale and trumpet player Fabrizio Bosso.
Neapolitan singer and song-writer Simona Molinari will pay
homage to Fitzgerald, the most celebrated jazz singer, with a
performance - 'Lovin' Ella' - during which she will sing songs
and recount stories about the life of the artist who has most
inspired her work.
Barron, Chestnut, Green, Moroni and Reed will perform music
by pianist and composer Thelonius Monk at the Morlacchi Theater
in Perugia.
The Lydian Sound Orchestra will also pay tribute to Monk,
once described as "one of the true greats of all time" and "a
real musical thinker" by another jazz great, saxophonist and
composer John Coltrane.
Gillespie, the trumpet player whose role as a founding father
of modern jazz made him a major figure in 20th-century American
music, will be celebrated by trumpet player Fabrizio Bosso along
with pianist and composer Paolo Silvestri at the Arena Santa
Giuliana.
Italian and Polish trumpet players Enrico Rava and Tomasz
Stanko will also perform.
photo: Simona Molinari and Mauro Ottolini
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