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Classical Jazz
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CLASSICAL JAZZ
Manhattan Nights
James Campbell, clarinet
Gene DiNovi, piano
Dave Young, double bass
Classical Jazz is a musical experience that combines classical sophistication and elegant swing. It performs to standing ovations throughout Canada and Europe, in concert and with symphony orchestra.
James Campbell's introduction to the clarinet came from listening to his father's recordings, which centered on the great jazz artists Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and the big bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. His 1971 win of the Jeunesse Musicales Competition and subsequent explosion of classcal solo concerts led him away from jazz until 1984 when fate stepped in and he was asked to fill in for an ailing Benny Goodman on a chamber music tour with the legendary Amadeus String Quartet. Following this tour, he met pianist Gene DiNovi, a musician whose name Campbell remembered from the jackets of his father's record collection. DiNovi and Campbell formed Classical Jazz.
Gene DiNovi played his first gigs while in his early teens, in Brooklyn, where he grew up; by 1944, still only 15 years old, he was sitting in at the jazz clubs that lined 52nd street. His baptism of fire took place at the Spotlight, where Dizzy Gillespie, who kept tabs on the hot, young players in town, called DiNovi onto the stage one night.
In 1946 he went on the road with singer Anita O'Day, recorded with Lester Young and Artie Shaw, and eventually became pianist and arranger for Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich, and musical director for Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, and Dinah Shore.
Despite the 21-year gap in their ages, Gene DiNovi and James Campbell are more like brothers then father and son. DiNovi, at 71 Canada's senior statesman on jazz piano, puts it this way: "When I play jazz, Jim's the son. When he plays classical, I'm the son. When we play together, we're brothers." The exchange between the classical and jazz musicians led to some exciting music making as they found common ground.
Bass virtuoso Dave Young, who's logged many an hour with Oscar Peterson, joins Jim and Gene in concert, on a regular basis. In addition, Alain Trudel, trombone and Graham Campbell, electric guitar often perform with Classical Jazz.
CLASSICAL JAZZ has recorded two CDs for Marquis Classics: Manhattan Echoes and After Hours. Please go to James Campbell's discography for information on these recordings.
INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHIES
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James Campbell
James Campbell has followed his muse to five television specials, more than 40 recordings, over 30 works commissioned, a Juno Award, a Roy Thomson Hall Award, the 1989 Canada's Artist of the Year, and in 1997 Campbell received Canada's highest honor: the Order of Canada.
The subject of numerous features and cover stories in Clarinet Magazine (USA), Clarinet and Sax (UK), Piper Magazine (Japan) and Gramophone, James Campbell is also featured in the book Clarinet Virtuosi of Today, by British author and clarinet authority Pamela Weston.
Called by the Toronto Star Canada's pre-eminent clarinetist and wind soloist, James Campbell has performed in most of the world's major concert halls. Campbell has also collaborated and performed with many of the world's great musicians including the late Glenn Gould, Aaron Copland, Elly Ameling, Janos Starker, as well as the Borodin Trio, Penderecki, Amadeus, Guarneri, Fine Arts, Allegri, Manhattan, and Colorado String Quartets.
He has been a guest soloist with over 50 orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony, The National Radio-Television Orchestra of Spain, the Belgrade Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
Of Campbell's extensive discography many have won international acclaim. Most recently on Cala Records, are the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Allegri Quartet that was voted "Top Choice" by BBC Radio 3 and the world premiere recording of Brahms Sonata Op. 120 No. 1, orchestrated by Luciano Berio, with the London Symphony Orchestra. Another is the re-release of Debussy's Première Rhapsodie on Sony Classical with Glenn Gould.
James Campbell is artistic director of Festival of the Sound, and since 1989 has made Bloomington his base during the academic year as Professor of Music at the prestigious Music School of Indiana University. |
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Gene DiNovi
Pianist Gene DiNovi was born and raised in Brooklyn. His first major engagement came when, at the age of just 15, he was asked by Dizzy Gillespie to sit in with his band - the first of many memorable nights with Gillespie. The opportunity to play with Charlie Parker, on the road with singer Anita O'Day, and a recording with Lester Young soon followed. In the next few years, he was pianist and arranger for Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich and Boyd Rayburn, and he recorded with Artie Shaw. After the Big Band period, DiNovi became musical director for Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, and Dinah Shore, among others.
Moving to Los Angeles around 1960 drew DiNovi still further into the world of songwriting. He worked mostly for Desi-Lu Productions, producers of the Van Dyke, Danny Thomas and Andy Griffith shows, but also recorded everything from cartoons to the score for Dr.Zhivago.
In the early 1970's, while on tour with Carmen McRae, DiNovi decided to settle in Toronto where he developed a large audience through the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio and television networks. DiNovi is a born raconteur who seems to know ever song every written, and most of the people who wrote them. To anyone who heard DiNovi discuss the great songwriters on CBC Radio's Morningside, or to those who watched him chat with Hollywoood's legendary composers on TV Ontario's The Music Room in the early 90s, the Smithsonian's interest comes as no surprise. In 1997 representatives from the Smithsonian spent two days in Toronto, culling hours of stories from DiNovi for the Institute's Oral Jazz History program.
In 1990, DiNovi had the opportunity to return to his jazz roots. The opportunity came with an invitation to play at the Ontario Pavilion at Expo 1990 in Osaka, Japan. This led to engagements throughout Japan, which in turn led to his first jazz trio recording Precious Moment for Century Records, which was made in Yokohama.
DiNovi's recording for the Candid label, Renaissance of a Jazz Master, was named one of the top jazz recordings of the year by the Toronto Star. Recent CD projects include The Scandinavian Suite No. 1, recently re-mastered, originally produced and recorded in 1958, and the popular Live at the Montreal Bistro Toronto, featuring the Gene DiNovi Trio.
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David Young
Bassist Dave Young is a national treasure in his native Canada, with an impressively rich and diverse musical past. He is educated as both a jazz and classical player. Young's warm tone, his agility, flawless intonation, and ability to swing have ensured him a permanent place in the address books of such jazzmen as Oscar Peterson, Clark Terry, Zoot Simms, Joe Williams, Oliver Jones, Rob McConnell, Kenny Burrell, Hank Jones, Nat Adderley, and James Moody.
A native of Winnipeg, his early years included time with one of that city's adopted sons, guitar legend Lenny Breau. Young played in Breau's quartet from 1961-66. A CD was recently issued documenting a stint with Breau at Toronto's Bourbon St. Club in 1983.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Dave gained the reputation as "bassist of choice" for many illustrious jazz musicians visiting Toronto. Fellow Canadians in whose groups Dave was an integral member (in studio, live and on tour) include Don Thompson, Ranee Lee, Gene DiNovi, and Moe Koffman. Dave Young's association with Oscar Peterson spanned over two decades with tours of Japan, the United States and Canada and numerous recordings.
David Young has received several Jazz Report Awards including "Musician of the Year" in 1997, "Acoustic Bassist of the Year" in 1996 & 1997, and also in 1996 "Jazz Album of the Year".
SAMPLE PROGRAM
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Vernon Duke Autumn in New York
Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers Manhattan
Duke Ellington Take the A Train
Stephen Sondheim Anyone Can Whistle
Dizzy Gillespie Night in Tunisia
Hoagy Carmichael Stardust
Ernest Seitz The World is Waiting for the Sunrise
Leonard Bernstein Somewhere, Tonight
George Gershwin (arr DiNovi) A Gershwin Gala
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PRESS
AMAZON.COM
(Stuart Broomer)
EDITORIAL REVIEW
Manhattan Echoes (Marquis Classics)
Pianist Gene DiNovi has a rich background in jazz, beginning with early work with Charlie Parker in the 1940s and subsequent sessions with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. Decades as a studio musician and accompanist to singers like Lena Horne and Carmen McRae, as well as a long residence in Toronto, may have kept his name out of the American jazz spotlight, but he still possesses rare talents, like a limpid touch that magnifies a ballad's harmony or the critical placement of a note for maximum rhythmic impact. He's joined here by James Campbell, a clarinetist best known for his work in the classical realm, and bassist Dave Young, who's logged many an hour with the great Oscar Peterson. DiNovi's early associations and Campbell's original inspirations dovetail here. "Goodbye" and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" invoke Benny Goodman, and Campbell plays Artie Shaw's original solo on "Stardust." Campbell's sound is alternately sibilantly liquid and dryly woody. It adds to the inner glow of this music, much of it directly inspired by the Manhattan of DiNovi's youth. The emphasis is on ballads imbued with a late-night ambience, like Stephen Sondheim's "Anyone Can Whistle" or DiNovi's own "Sweet Song of the Night," but the pianist can still swing with abandon on "Jitterbug Waltz" or dig deeply into the blues on "Tune for Andy." It's all gently but firmly propelled by Young's big-toned bass. Floating ethereally between jazz and chamber music, this is intimate and relaxed work that sets and meets some very high standards.
Classical Jazz brought the house down!
ORCHESTRA LONDON (Canada)
Classical Jazz has created an unexpected but natural musical magic that is not only unique, but also unesoterically entertaining. BARRIE EXAMINER (Canada)
The duo shone in DiNovi's arrangement of Ellington's In a Sentimental Mood, Sophisticated Lady and A-Train.a fabulous evening of music. HAMILTON SPECTATOR (Canada)
A fine display of virtuosity and musicianship. EVENING TIMES GLOBE (Canada)
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