Louis Armstrong, the revolutionary trumpet player and entertainer, is one of the most recognizable icons of jazz. When musicians such as Earl Hines, Ella Fitzgerald and Jack Teagarden played duets with Armstrong, their careers took dramatic upswings. Grammy-nominated trumpeter Alphonso Horne and rising star pianist Chris Pattishall lead a program featuring the young soulful vocalist Brianna Thomas, reimagining some of the greatest duets in Armstrong’s career. This young all-star ensemble also includes trombonist Corey Wilcox, clarinetist Joe Goldberg, saxophonist Ricardo Pascal, bassist Raviv Markovitz and drummer
Bryan Carter. 

“Lee Morgan was a total genius,” is how trumpeter Terell Stafford puts it. “The trumpet was merely a vehicle to express who he was. There was rasp, there was grit, there was personality, there was sass. Exactly who he was as a person was inside of his sound and that’s what I love about it.” For the second half of this SMF original production, the Terell Stafford Quintet
celebrates the music of Morgan, an innovative hard bop trumpet player from Philadelphia,
whose life was cut short in his early 30s. Stafford’s quintet consists of Tim Warfield on
saxophone, Bruce Barth on piano, David Wong on bass and Billy Williams on drums.