Previous events

BEBOP & BEYOND

We are doing a tribute to Charlie Parker @ Birdland in NYC. We play two shows each night from August 19 to August 21. Come hear some young musicians who take understanding bebop just as serious as playing their own music. We will play some classic bop material and some of my Nouveau Swing music.
The group includes myself on alto sax and new jazz stars Joe Dyson drums Nori Naraoka bass Dan Kaufman piano

$30.00

BEBOP & BEYOND

We are doing a tribute to Charlie Parker @ Birdland in NYC. We play two shows each night from August 19 to August 21. Come hear some young musicians who take understanding bebop just as serious as playing their own music. We will play some classic bop material and some of my Nouveau Swing music.
The group includes myself on alto sax and new jazz stars Joe Dyson drums Nori Naraoka bass Dan Kaufman piano

$30.00

BEBOP & BEYOND

We are doing a tribute to Charlie Parker @ Birdland in NYC. We play two shows each night from August 19 to August 21. Come hear some young musicians who take understanding bebop just as serious as playing their own music. We will play some classic bop material and some of my Nouveau Swing music.
The group includes myself on alto sax and new jazz stars Joe Dyson drums Nori Naraoka bass Dan Kaufman piano

$30.00

Jan17

keystone korner

keystone korner, 1350 Lancaster St,, Baltimore, MD

The band and I are playing at Baltimore's historic Keystone Korner Jan. 17-18. The program will include our take on many styles of swinging modern acoustic jazz. We will be playing nouveau swing, quantum jazz, jam band jazz and jazz spiced up by New Orleans cultural music. Come hear our Baltimore debut of my trap/jazz take on the biggest single ever "Old Town Road," by Lil Nas X. Some of the greatest musicians are digging the blend we came up with that is jazz with trap flavor. get tickets here: https://www.instantseats.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.event&eventID=6FD0B0FA-E894-0CBE-6DB820DC9E98A9E8&fbclid=IwAR1o-1qQ4L1fZpjAn6EMiZa43hfNHQsqQmwaXRzSm3QU3gYa9eFeysyE2kA

$20.00

Nov22

Oahu Jazz and Blues Festival

Turtle Bay Resort, 57-091 Kamehameha Highway, Kahuku, Hawaii

Join Turtle Bay Resort, HawaiiOnTV.com & Jazz Alley TVfor the First Annual Oahu Jazz & Blues Festival,Saturday November 22nd, 2014Oceanfront Under the Stars from 5-9PM Festival Events Going on All Weekend! Thursday Nov. 20th from 7-9pm - Jazz Fest Kickoff at "Surfer", The Bar at Turtle Bay ResortFriday Nov. 21st from 6-9pm - Jazz Fest Dinner & Meet the Artists at Turtle Bay ResortSaturday Nov. 22nd from 5-9pm - FESTIVAL DAY, Oceanfront at Turtle Bay ResortSunday Nov. 23rd from 10am - 1pm - Jazz Fest Brunch, with Special Guests at Turtle Bay Resort Featuring:Grammy Winner & Jazz Legend - Les McCannOver 50 Years of Musical Genius & Soul Jazz Style! Grammy Winner from Dazz Band and Kool & The Gang - Skip Martin Rock & Blues with a Latin Twist from New Orleans - The Iguanas! Grammy Nominated Jazz Sax Legend & Mardi Gras "Big Chief" - Donald Harrison"The King of Nouveau Swing" with hits that have charted in Billboard Magazine's Top Ten! Grammy & Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award Winner - John Cruz Grammy Nominated Saxophone Master - Javon JacksonSaxophonist in Art Blakey's Band, The Jazz Messengers. Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award Winner - Paula FugaThe Sweet Sound of Aloha! Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award Winner - Benny UyetakeExtreme Jazz Guitar Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award Winner - Brother Noland

General Admission $40.00 - VIP A

Apr30

Big Chierf Donald Harrison

The Historic Carver Theater, 2101 Orleans Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana

International Jazz Day at Carver Theater night concludes as Grammy-nominated and 2006 Jazziz "Person of the Year"  Donald Harrison Jr, is joined by Christian Scott,  a Grammy-nominated and two-time Edison Award-winning jazz trumpeter; The Bridge Trio, Joe Dyson, Max Moran, Detroit Brooks, Zaccai Curtis, Conun Papas, and The Congo Square Nation Afro - New Orleans Cultural Group for a 8:30 pm concert.  This concert is a benefit for the Southern University Alumni Scholarship Fund and The Guardians Institute Book program started in 2006 which has given over 40,000 books to the youth of New Orleans.  The cost of admission is only $20.  Donald grew up in a home environment saturated with the city's traditional music of brass bands, parades, modern jazz, R&B, funk, classical, world ethnic, and dance music. His connection to New Orleans roots were deepened by his father, a Big Chief in the African and Native American influenced culture of Afro-New Orleans culture. The culture is an offshoot culture of Congo Square, one of the only known places in North America where Africans openly participated in their culture in the 1700's and 1800's...

$20.00

Oct10

Celebrating Art Blakey

Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA

Ralph Peterson - Drums Bill Pierce - Tenor Sax Brian Lynch - Trumpet Donald Harrison - Alto Sax Reggie Workman - Bass

The Big Chief Donald Harrison Quartet at The Jazz Forum 10/27 and 10/28 

THE JAZZ FORUM 

presents:

The Big Chief Donald Harrison Quartet with Nori Naraoka bass, Brian Richburg drums, and Dan Kaufman piano

Friday Oct. 27 7:00 PM performance tickets: 

https://www.instantseats.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=buy.event&eventID=92822E36-AD4B-A0B2-0C27CD4BCE2716C3

Friday Oct. 28 9:30 PM performance tickets: 

https://www.instantseats.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=buy.event&eventID=92822CB5-966A-7078-550C53A5F75B684E

Saturday Oct. 28 7:00 PM performance tickets: 

https://www.instantseats.com/index.cfm?fuse

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Smooth Jazz Top 100  

Donald Harrison enters the smoothjazz.net top 100 with the “The Magic Touch,” smooth jazz single. The song features Chuck Loeb, Chris Botti, Michael White, and McKinley Williams. It is the first installment of his multi-genre singles release which feature the same song played in nine different genres. Look for the nouveau swing, post-bop, reggae, tropical-salsa, second-line, bossa nova, blues, and trap jazz hip-hop versions soon. 

Top 100 | sjnetwork (smoothjazznetwork.com)

Liner Notes for Donald Harrison's upcoming recording, "The Eclectic Jazz Revolution of Unity 

Meta-Morpheus: Donald Harrison’s Eclectic Jazz Revolution of Unity

 

By Greg Thomas

            

Donald Harrison’s musical universe is vast, populated with planets called “genres”—orbits of stylistic convention. Jazz is his sun, the blues his moon, with soul and funk the earthy undertone of his universe, yet, as you’ll hear, his planetary reach extends into far regions, musical galaxies.

 

Imagine a wheel within a wheel centered by a black hub. The straight lines extending from the hub to the edges of…

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Donald Harrison - Ron Carter - Billy Cobham 

On sale September 6

For their second Half Note issue, the power trio of Donald Harrison, Ron Carter, and Billy Cobham declare themselves spokesmen for a kind of exploratory improvisation and interplay known only to seasoned jazz professionals. Staunch individualists all, they come together with a unified voice of alto, bass and drums - at once steeped in jazz's richly variegated traditions yet forward-thinking in the cause of new creative expression. The group play here is all about a stylized call and…

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Big Chief Donald Sr. 

My father, Big Chief Donald always talked about how great jazz musicians were. He never put them down which made me understand to respect them. He would have never talked bad about Louis Armstrong and never would have let me tallk bad about Louis Armstrong. My father also never put down any other Mardi Gras Indians which also taught me to respect other human beings. I think him for the wisdom he imparted that gave me humility and showed me to honor those who are great.

Composes piece for LPO 

Donald Harrison wrote his first piece for the LPO before Katrina. Now Harrison is begining an orchestral piece written from the inside perspectives of being a Big Chief in the culture of New Orleans, playing with modern jazz greats, playing in the brass bands of New Orleans as a youth. Donald Harrison is the only modern jazz musician that has participated in The Mardi Gras Indian culture of New Orleans. He started as the little Chief of the Creole Wild West in 1963 at the age of 2 years-old. Harrison…

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Donald Harrison transitions Mardi Gras Indian tradtion back to Congo Square with Afro New Orleans culture. 

Donald Harrison transitions Mardi Gras Indian tradtion back to Congo Square with Afro New Orleans culture. - October 11, 2010

Donald Harrison is The Big Chief of The Congo Square Nation and his mission is to keep alive secret aspects of Congo Square not known conciously by most Mardi Gras Indians. Harrison has named his faction Afro New Orleans Culture because now is the time to put the focus on the individuals that keep New Orleans root culture alive. The truth is there are many factions of Mardi Gras…

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Treme 

Donald Harrison wears many hats on David Simon's new HBO series Treme. Harrison was contacted early on before production began and asked to be a consultant. He helped in developing characters based on his life in modern jazz music and New Orleans culture. The show developed 2 characters based on Harrison being a jazz musician with a father that is a Big Chief in the culture of New Orleans. The father, Altert Lambreaux is played by Clark Peters. The son, Delmond Lambreaux is played by Rob Brown. Harrison…

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