Question: What Do Children With Disabilities, Rachmaninoff, Bill Evans, Cole Porter, The Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Jeff Bridges, The Middle East, The Star Spangled Banner, Odd Meters, And Award Winning Minnesota Poetry Have In Common?
Thu. Oct. 4, 9:00 pm, Artist’s Quarter, 408 St Peter Street, St. Paul, MN 55102, (651) 292-1359, http://artistsquarter.com/ $5 cover
Fri. Oct. 5, 5:00 - 7:30 pm, The Wine Café, 301 North Riverfront Drive, Mankato, MN 56001 507-345-1516, www.winecafebar.com/
Larry McDonough, piano and vocals
Richard Terrill, saxes and poetry
Special guest Carol Bergquist, flute
Both are family friend events. Children and music students are welcome.
Solitude includes unique interpretations of odd-metered originals based on melody fragments by children with disabilities, including my daughter Rosie; original poems by Minnesota Book Award winner and sax player Richard Terrill over variations on Rachmaninoff and Bill Evans; music from cinema; Broadway standards; international rhythms; and historical pieces.
Andrea Canter of JazzInk writes of Solitude, “In their decade-plus of musical collaboration, Larry McDonough and Richard Terrill have developed an artful empathy, played out in the gigs and recordings of the Larry McDonough Quartet and other ensembles. Pianist/vocalist/composer McDonough has generally assumed a leading role in these projects, with poet/saxophonist Terrill serving as a counterweight and harmonic partner. Solitude is their first project as an unadorned duo, the music stripped to its essence without external pulsetter and drive train. In such a spare sonic wonderland, the duo reconsider some past delights, mine gold in new arrangements and revel in new compositions. For Richard, music is poetry transformed in sound and rhythm; for Larry, melody is an auspicious starting point, time an endless playground. Together, theirs is a “solitude” that evolves when two minds become one heart.”
Larry McDonough Quartet (LMQ) DVD
Live at Minnesota Connection released
in April at Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant;
Simple Gifts CD (LMQ, released nationally
and internationally in 2008-09, charted #29
on the CMJ Jazz Chart and played on radio
throughout the world), My Favorite Things
CD (music for high school orchestra, concert
band and jazz ensembles), Tuscarora:
Short Stories for Jazz Piano CD (solo piano,
dedicated to the my late friend Senator Paul
Wellstone and benefitting Wellstone Action),
Live, Cooking at the Dakota CD (recorded
at the old Dakota), and Small Steps CD.
Larry McDonough is a St. Paul jazz pianist
and singer, performing around the world
and recording with his group the
Larry McDonough Quartet as well as
solo, and in duos and trios. He has
performed with legendary saxophonist
and composer Benny Golson, Trombonist
Fred Wesley, and trumpeter Duane Eubanks,
as well as a who’s who of local jazz artists,
and was inducted into the Minnesota Rock
Country Hall of Fame for his work in the
group Danny’s Reasons. He also is a Legal Aid lawyer and law professor, selected by William Mitchell College of Law as one of "100 Who Made a Difference" over the 100 year history of the school.
Sax player and Minnesota State University
Mankato English Professor Richard Terrill
received the 2004 Minnesota Book Award
for Poetry, for his poetry compilation
“Coming Late to Rachmaninoff” (University
of Tampa Press, 2003). He has been performing
with Larry McDonough since December 2001.
He also has performed with guitarist Jim
McGuire and with Chaz Draper's Uptown
Jazz Quartet. As a college student, Terrill
was a member of the award winning
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Jazz
Ensemble, and performed with later-to-be
Pat Metheny keyboardist Lyle Mays in the
Lyle Mays Quartet, winner of small group
honors at the Midwest College Jazz Festival.
He has also worked with pianist Geoff Keezer.
He teaches creative writing at Minnesota
Special guest flutist Carol Bergquist has
performed with members of the Minnesota
Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra,
and in local orchestras, including the Civic
Orchestra of Minneapolis, Mississippi Valley
Orchestra, and Allegro Sinfonia. In addition,
she has performed for at The Basilica of
Saint Mary for 29 years. She studied with
Cynthia Stokes, Adam Kuenzel, and Donald
Peck and has performed at master classes
at the Ordway Music Theater with Carol
Wincenc and DePaul University in Chicago
with Donald Peck. Bergquist will perform with
McDonough and Terrill on “Coming Late to
Rachmaninoff,” a piece for piano, sax, flute,
and poetry, based on and including Terrill’s
poem of the same name, and a jazz
interpretation of the Adagio Movement
from Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony in E Minor.
Contact Larry McDonough at:
Cell: 651-398-8053
