Jazz Palette Music Promotion

Jazz Palette represents a select group of legendary jazz artists including: pianist Larry Willis, saxophonist Carl Grubbs and pianist/organist Charles Covington. These world-class artists are available for performances at concert halls, clubs, festivals; also clinics and workshops.
Website: http://www.jazzpalette.com

For bookings contact: Gail Marten at Jazz Palette Music Promotions, Columbia, MD 21046 USA
jazzpalette@gmail.com / 410-290-5638 

LARRY WILLIS: Pianist, composer, arranger Larry Willis has had an important and distinguished 50+ year career in jazz. Since making his recording debut of Jackie McLean's landmark 1965 album Right Now!, Harlem-born Willis has played everything from free jazz to fusion to rock (he was a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears in the 70's), while performing as a valued sideman with such jazz titans as Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey and Woody Shaw. That versatility is highlighted on Larry's High Note recording which found him once again in the company of bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Billy Drummond.
      Once identified with on-the-edge free music, keyboardist Larry Willis had a profitable flirtation with fusion in the '70s, then moved to hard bop in the '80s and '90s. Willis' playing has been frenetic, ambitious, and interesting, but during his jazz-rock and fusion days it was funky but greatly restrained and simplistic. A devotee of Herbie Hancock, Willis has found a good balance, with expertly constructed modal solos and also lyrical, relaxed statements. Willis graduated from the Manhattan School of Music in the early '60s, then played with Jackie McLean and Hugh Masekela. He recorded with Lee Morgan and McLean in the mid-'60s, and worked with Kai Winding, as well as recording with Robin Kenyatta in 1969.
     Willis turned to synthesizer and electric piano in the '70s, doing sessions with Cannonball Adderley, Earl May, Joe Henderson, Richard "Groove" Holmes, and Masekela again. He joined Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1972, recorded with Alphonse Mouzon in both 1972 and 1973, and did dates as a leader and freelance session musician. Willis also recorded and performed  with Stan Getz, Slide Hampton, Gloria Lynn, Miriam Makeba, Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Herb Alpert, Ryo Kawasaki and Sonny Fortune, David "Fathead" Newman and Carla Bley in the ‘70s and '80s. He toured and recorded with Nat Adderley in the '80s and joined Woody Shaw's quintet in 1986. He's done sessions as a leader for Groove Merchant, Steeplechase, Audioquest, Brunswick,  Mapleshade and High Note. 
     Willis has arranged and composed music, including the jazz standard “To Wisdom, The Prize,” orchestral compositions for the Symphony Orchestra at Florida Southern College, Roy Hargrove’s From Moment to Moment, as well as Willis’s own recording, Sanctuary.
     Larry Willis and Hugh Masekela reunited in 2012 as a piano-trumpet duo in the latest manifestation of a fruitful and enduring friendship to produce friends, a wide-ranging four-disc album recorded in South Africa. They toured together with shared billing. In 2018 Willis returned to South Africa to work on a recording project dedicated to Masekela. 
     Larry Willis has joined with Gary Bartz, Buster Williams and Al Foster, comprising the quartet Heads of State, four of the greatest jazz musicians working today. Willis also heads his own band Heavy Blue.

CARL GRUBBS: A jazz saxophonist with a distinguished career as a  performer, composer, music educator and recording artist, Mr. Grubbs has toured with his ensemble in major cities world wide. He received early extensive training from John Coltrane, who was married to his cousin, Naima. Through his family, he was close to many of the history-making musicians of the 1950s and 1960s.  With his brother, Earl, he formed The Visitors, a quintet that recorded four albums for the Muse record company in the early 1970’s. Mr. Grubbs is a former member of the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet. He has performed throughout the United States and internationally. His ensemble has performed in Bogota and Medellin, Columbia, SA and did an eight-city tour of Brazil. In addition to performances of his original music, Mr. Grubbs regularly performs tributes to John Coltrane and other jazz giants. Please visit his website for complete information: www.carlgrubbsjazz.com

CHARLES COVINGTON: Charles Covington has performed internationally in Europe and China and has made numerous TV and radio appearances. He was the featured performer for President Carter at the White House and with George Benson on The Tonight Show. Covington's impressive career includes celebrity performances with Sammy Davis, Jr., Eartha Kitt, Larry King, Henry Kissinger, Redd Foxx and Flip Wilson. He has also been in concert with Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons, Clark Terry, Milt Jackson, Eddie Harris, Zoot Simms, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, David "Fathead" Newman, J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Herbie Hancock, Hank Jones, Dorothy Donnegan, Shirley Horn, B.B. King and Chuck Berry.
    Mr. Covington has performed concerts at the White House, the Kennedy Center, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the Baltimore Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Montpelier Art Center,  the Eubie Blake Cultural Center and countless other venues outside the Baltimore area. Mr. Covington toured three years with George Benson, appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and recorded The Shape of Things to Come. He can also be heard on numerous other recordings with J.J. Johnson, Ethel Ennis, O’ Donel Levy, Nathan Page and other jazz artists. Mr. Covington was featured on the cover of Expo magazine as Jazz Musician of the Year in 1983.
     Jazz Pianist in Residence at the Kennedy Center, Mr. Covington is a world-renowned Hammond B-3 organ virtuoso and performs there on a regular basis. He served on the faculty at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory of Music from 1979 until 1999 and served recently as a full-time professor of music at Howard University in Washington, D.C.