BMG Releases Berklee Student Recording
In late October, BMG Jazz Foundations and Berklee College of Music announced the release of "Summa Cum Jazz," the first disc of student music Berklee has ever released with a major record label. The disc is available now, exclusively to the quarter-million members of the BMG Jazz Club.Created through a partnership between BMG and Berklee, the proceeds from Summa Cum Jazz will provide four $5,000 scholarships to continuing Berklee students majoring in performance studies with an emphasis on jazz. Summa Cum Jazz is one of four discs produced by BMG Jazz Foundations, created to support jazz education and showcase new talent.
Executive Vice President Gary Burton executive-produced the disc, which features 13 cuts by eight current, working student groups. The music runs from the big-band-meets-gospel sounds of Kendrick Oliver's New Life Orchestra, to the Latin-influenced piano trio Disastrio, to the Avishai Cohen Quintet. Cohen recently placed third overall in the Thelonious Monk International Trumpet Competition.
New Life Orchestra and Disastrio performed at a CD release party held at Berklee on October 30. The concert and reception were attended by a large crowd of people from the community, several journalists, and Berklee students, faculty and staff. A jazz writer from United Press International who attended the CD release party wrote a story on the new recording.
Ron Sacks, Vice President of A&R Development for BMG Direct, noted, "I knew I'd hear great playing when I first listened to the mixes, but I didn't expect the students' compositions and arrangements to display such a high level of maturity and originality. We're thrilled with the results."
"This is the first time I've seen such an ideal cooperation between a record company and an institution of higher education," said Gary Burton. "The project offers a desirable product for BMG, great experience and exposure for the students on the album, and scholarship funds for the college to distribute to promising students. I'm proud that the college is a partner in such a noble undertaking, where everyone benefits."
Summa Cum Jazz was produced and engineered by, respectively, then Music Production and Engineering Chair Bill Scheniman, known beyond the college for his work with Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, and Diana Ross; and by Associate Professor Carl Beatty, whose credits include albums for Bill Evans, Elvin Jones, Aretha Franklin, and the B-52s.
The Summa Cum Jazz lineup is: Kendrick Oliver and The New Life Jazz Orchestra, including vocalist Monica Lynk; Three Cohens In A Fountain; the Avishai Cohen Quintet; vocalist Chiara Civello; the Disastrio; trumpeter Jeremy Pelt; the Quintet of pianist Toru Dodo; and the Jason Goldman Jazz Orchestra.
[  Print-friendly Version ]
| 
