Cliff Bell's

Album Release Show: Rodney Whitaker Quartet
2022-11-30 19:30 - 23:00, 2022-12-01 19:30 - 23:00 (America/Detroit)
Showtimes are at 7:30p & 9:30p for this performance.
(Doors open at 5pm for dinner/Seating begins at 6:15p for the first show & 9:00p for the second show)
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Internationally renowned bassist and Mack Avenue recording artist, Rodney Whitaker, currently holds the titles of Professor of Jazz Bass and Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan State University where he has built one of the leading jazz degree programs and performing faculty in the United States of America. He is considered one of the leading performers and teachers of the jazz double bass in the United States. Whitaker has performed and toured with over 100+ legendary performing jazz artists over the past 25+ years. Featured on more than 100+ recordings – from film to compact discs – Whitaker’s film scores, China, directed by Jeff Wray, was released on PBS Fall 2002 and Malaria and Malawi, released on PBS Fall 2010. Also, Whitaker has a DVD release featuring Michigan State University’s Jazz Department entitled, “Inside Jazz” and three new compact discs entitled, “Get Ready” & “Work To Do”—both on Mack Avenue Records and “Better Than Alright” by Michigan State University College of Music.

Please join us for phenomenal experiences and copacetic encounters during their Mid-West performances at Cliff Bell’s.
http://www.rodneywhitaker.com/

DeSean Jones
2022-11-30 19:30 - 2022-12-01 09:30, 2022-12-01 19:30 - 2022-12-02 09:30, 2022-12-02 19:30 - 2022-12-03 09:30, 2022-12-03 19:30 - 2022-12-04 09:30, 2022-12-04 19:30 - 2022-12-05 09:30, 2022-12-05 19:30 - 2022-12-06 09:30, 2022-12-06 19:30 - 2022-12-07 09:30, 2022-12-07 19:30 - 2022-12-08 09:30 and 15 more dates
De’Sean Jones is a Detroit based saxophonist, billboard charting recording artist and grammy nominated arranger. Over the past 20 years De’Sean has toured the world recording or performing with music Icons like Stevie Wonder, Faith Evans, along with a host of Detroit Legends; Marcus Belgrave, The Clark Sisters, Kierra Sheard and techno pioneer Mad Mike Banks of Underground Resistance.
As a bandleader & producer Jones has curated an eclectic approach that is widely viewed as progressive and undeniably rooted in the rich history of black culture. De’Sean actively pushes the boundaries of social consciousness through music in ways that are authentic, emotionally dynamic and intellectually stimulating.

All musical projects from De’Sean Jones can be accessed through his record label KNMDK Records.

Alex Harding & Organ Nation
2022-12-15 19:30 - 23:30
Showtimes are at 7:30p & 9:30p for this performance.
(Doors open at 5pm for dinner/Seating begins at 6:15p for the first show & 9:00p for the second show)
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Detroit-born baritone saxophonist Alex Harding first became active in jazz circles in his youth. Early on he studied with established jazz figures Yusef Lateef and Beans Bowles and was playing gigs with Donald Byrd and Wynton Marsalis before he was out of high school. Throughout the ’90s, 2000s, and 2010s, Harding toured, performed, and recorded without pause, collaborating with countless names in both jazz and pop circles that included everyone from the Marshall Allen-led Sun Ra Arkestra to work with David Lee Roth.
Harding was born in 1967 in Detroit, Michigan. After hearing Grover Washington, Jr. as a kid, he took up tenor saxophone, eventually switching over to baritone in high school. Though sax was his primary instrument, he would occasionally double on bass clarinet. He was already performing regularly around Detroit in his teenage years while studying with local jazz greats. By his early twenties he was performing internationally. He left Detroit for New York in the early ’90s, joining Julius Hemphill’s Saxophone Sextet and performing around town with Lester Bowie, Frank Lacy, Hamiet Bluiett’s Baritone Group, the Mingus Big Band, and many others. He also took part in shows and festival appearances with the Sun Ra Arkestra and the Roy Hargrove Big Band. He recorded multiple albums with longtime friend pianist Lucian Ban, including 2002’s Somethin’ Holy and a 2008 collaboration between the two friends and Romanian electronic musician Silent Strike entitled 3am. In the late 2000s he joined the Broadway production of FELA!!! both in New York and on tour. He eventually returned to Detroit, but stayed incredibly active in the studio and on the road. Harding and Ban reunited in 2019 for another collaborative album, Dark Blue.

James Carter Holiday Show
2022-12-16 19:30 - 23:30, 2022-12-17 19:30 - 23:30, 2022-12-18 19:30 - 23:30
Showtimes are at 7:30p & 9:30p for this performance.
(Doors open at 5pm for dinner/Seating begins at 6:15p for the first show & 9:00p for the second show)
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James Carter brings his energetic musical experience to Cliff Bell’s to bring the spirit of the holidays and jazz with this special show. Mr. Carter will bring a special guest artist to perform with his esteemed trio to present a show you will want to be here for.
“You have to be totally comfortable wherever,” Carter says. “I feel that music equals life, that’s the way my teacher always taught me. You just can’t go through life and experience it fully with a set of blinders on. I think there’s tremendous beauty in cross-pollinations of music and influences.”
In many ways, weaving together divergent impulses is at the heart of Carter’s music. Like the late tenor sax titan Ben Webster, he’s given to furious, high-velocity solos, but is just as likely to wax sentimental, using his big, bruising tone to tenderly caress a comely melody. In 2000, he released two albums simultaneously that amounted to an anti-manifesto, a proclamation that everything is fair game.
The organ combo reigned for several decades as jazz’s meat-and-potatoes mainstay, a populist vehicle for blues-drenched blowing. In the hands of James Carter, one of jazz’s most sophisticated improvisers, the organ trio is no less meaty and satisfying. But his virtuosic saxophone chops elevate the organ combo to a rarefied realm defined by delectable soul, a gourmet repertoire, and consistently inspired group interplay.
Featuring the lithe and muscular keyboard work of Detroit’s rising B3 star Gerard Gibbs and the propulsive drum support of Motor City trap master Alex White, the multigenerational James Carter Organ Trio is now in its seventeenth year.

More information HERE!

The Oliver Mayman Quartet
2022-12-22 19:30 - 23:00
Showtimes are at 7:30p & 9:30p for this performance.
(Doors open at 5pm for dinner/Seating begins at 6:15p for the first show & 9:00p for the second show)
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An Ann Arbor, Michigan, native and current student at Philadelphia’s Temple University, Oliver Mayman is a vibraphonist, pianist, educator, and composer. Beginning drums at age 9 and piano at age 13, the vibraphone was an inevitable discovery as a teenager — the instrument essentially fusing the mechanics of drumming with the harmonic capabilities of the piano. By bringing his array of pianist influences such as Ethan Iverson, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, and McCoy Tyner and applying their concepts to the vibraphone, he truly treats the instrument as a piano, comfortable in every setting from solo to big band. He has performed across Michigan and Pennsylvania, from clubs like the Blue Llama and Chris’ Jazz Cafe to events attracting hundreds of thousands like the Detroit Jazz Festival. He also has extensive teaching experience, teaching privately for vibraphone, drums, piano, and music theory, in addition to being on faculty at vibesworkshop.com, the largest online vibraphone community in the world.
