SOLD OUT!! COLTRANE: Curtis Lundy / LeNard Rutledge/ Montez Coleman

This concert is SOLD OUT.

 Curtis Lundy is an American double bass player, composer, producer, choir director and arranger. Lundy is best known for his work as part of jazz vocalist Betty Carter's band, through whose ranks several eventually renowned musicians passed.

Lundy has also played on other jazz artists' recordings, including albums by John Hicks, Bobby Watson, the Steve Nelson Quintet and Johnny Griffin. In the late 1980s, he briefly stepped out of the background and issued Just Be Yourself (1988). A decade later, with Justin Time Records, he released Against All Odds (1999) and Purpose (2002). Both albums feature pianists John Hicks and Anthony Wonsey. 
Lundy's arrangement of "Walk With Me", recorded by the ARC Gospel Choir, was sampled by rapper Kanye West and became the Grammy Award-winning hit "Jesus Walks".

Curtis Lundy is the brother of jazz vocalist Carmen Lundy.

 Downbeat Critics Poll Winner and Grammy Award-winning tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery is one of the Jazz world’s most talented rising stars and in-demand sidemen. He has been mostly associated with The Mingus Big Band and with trumpet master Tom Harrell after securing one of the most coveted gigs in jazz: a frontline position in Harrell’s working quintet in 2006. For the past decade Escoffery has toured the globe with the trumpeter, recorded seven CDs with The Tom Harrell Quintet and co-produced four of those releases. Over the years he has recorded and performed internationally with a who’s who in Jazz including Ron Carter, Ben Riley, Abdulah Ibrahim, Eric Reed, Carl Allen, Al Foster, Billy Hart, Eddie Henderson, Rufus Reid, Wallace Roney and Herbie Hancock  to name a few. He  is a founding member of a collaborative group called Black Art Jazz Collective received 4.5 stars in the October, 2016 issue of Downbeat Magazine.

 LeNard Rutledge, born and raised in Miami, Florida, where there are only a handful of truly great jazz vocalists, is usually compared, aptly, to the legendary Lou Rawls. Like Rawls, Rutledge's classy elegance is often permeated by the raw passion of his church choir work. In fact Rutledge still sings with the choir at The Church of The Incarnation. Rutledge began not as a vocalist but as a percussionist, playing in the marching and concert band at Miami Central Senior High, and later making his income while attending Saint Augustine's University in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He began his vocal career in 1997, when he was asked to join the famed Melton Mustafa Orchestra after returning to Miami. LeNard was the featured vocalist for Melton Mustafa for seven years. In 2002, Rutledge was introduced to the music director of The Van Dyke Café's, Don Wilner, who immediately recognized Rutledge's talent and began giving him regular performance dates. LeNard has shared the stage with a number of highly respectable jazz artist such as: Wycliffe Gordon, Kenny Drew Jr., Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kirk Whalum, Marion Meadows and the late George Duke. 

Montez Coleman 

St. Louis native, Montez Coleman has now been a significant force on the jazz scene of New York for many years. Coleman is known for his work with guitarist Russel Mallone and trumpeter Roy Hargrove in who's band he played for many years.Coleman brings a joyful versatilty and undeniable good spirit to everything he does - and in the most musical way.