willie jones III quintet: “Our man higgins” featuring Jeremy pelt

saturday, september 28

TIME: 8:00pm-9:15pm

VENUE: Wagner Stage. MIDWAY PLAISANCE AT SOUTH WOODLAWN AVE.

“Our Man Higgins”

Our Man Higgins is a project created by drummer Willie Jones III to explore music to which master drummer Billy Higgins contributed during his remarkable career. (Higgins played on more than 700 recordings.) You can expect to hear tunes by Ornette Coleman, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, and others in this not-to-be-missed performance. In addition to his singular contributions to jazz performance, Higgins was a deeply committed community builder. In 1989, he founded The World Stage in Los Angeles to advance the position of African-American music, literature, and art. The World Stage continues to this day and remains an important cultural center for creative exploration and artistic development. The Hyde Park Jazz Festival is pleased to celebrate Billy Higgins, whose spirit connects so deeply to so many of Chicago’s icons of community-building and creative genius.

Willie Jones III

Willie Jones III is one of the world’s most celebrated drummers in modern jazz. In addition to leading his own quintet, Jones was the drummer in one of Roy Hargrove’s most famous quintets for eight years and one of two drummers in Hargrove’s powerhouse group, RH Factor. He has been featured in performances and on tour with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and in the ensembles of legendary and established jazz artists including Sonny Rollins, Ernestine Anderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Frank Wess, Bill Charlap, Michael Brecker, Herbie Hancock, and Hank Jones.

In 2000, Jones founded WJ3 Records. Between January 2020 and March 2021 alone, he self-produced and released four titles on WJ3 Records, a significant feat during the pandemic shutdown. In August of 2021, he headlined the Central Park SummerStage summer season with a performance entitled “Willie Jones III: Celebrating the Charlie Parker Centennial.” He has been consistently named in the Rising Star Drum and Rising Star Producer categories in DownBeat magazine's Annual Critics’ Polls.

Jones is also committed to music education. Since 2009, he has served as drum professor at Northwestern University and has led masterclasses and workshops for students around the world, both in person and online.

Born in Los Angeles, Jones was awarded a full scholarship to the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied under the tutelage of NEA Jazz Master Albert “Tootie” Heath. In 1992, Jones was a semifinalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Drum Competition. He can be heard on a host of recordings, including Wynton Marsalis’ Motherless Brooklyn Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Horace Silver’s Jazz Has a Sense of Humor (Impulse!), Kurt Elling’s Grammy-nominated Night Moves (Concord), Roy Hargrove's Moment to Moment (Verve), and Eric Reed's Stand (WJ3). He has also released a series of recordings as a leader, including Fallen Heroes (2021), My Point Is... (2017), Groundwork (2015), and The Willie Jones III Sextet Plays the Music of Max Roach Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola (2013), which received high praise both from jazz critics and in top-tier outlets such as The New York Times.

The musicians:

Jeremy Pelt — trumpet
Ralph Moore — tenor saxophone
David Williams — bass
Jeremy Manasia — piano
Willie Jones III — drums