Jazz Room @ the Stage Door Theater

Overview

After much-acclaim and sold-out performances, Charlotte’s Jazz Arts Initiative’s (JAI) monthly series—The Jazz Room @ The Stage Door Theater – presents Grammy award-winning pianist Victor Atkins playing the music of the legendary Horace Silver. The Stage Door Theater is part of Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, at the corner of 5th and College in Uptown Charlotte.

“Victor "Red" Atkins' style of piano has been described as "infectious, unconventional, tasteful, and powerful" all at the same time. Hailing from Selma, Alabama, he began playing with NEA Jazz Master Delfeayo Marsalis in 1989 and was an integral part of the seminal, work "Pontius Pilate's Decision.” After receiving a B.A. from Berklee College of Music in Boston and an M.F.A. from the Manhattan School of Music, Victor has toured and performed with an impressive list of artists including Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Aaron Neville, Nnenna Freelon, Brian Blade, Lalah Hathaway, and Nicholas Payton. Professor Atkins also performs with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and is a sought-after arranger. He is also well-known for his work with the Grammy-winning, New Orleans-based Los Hombres Calientes, which produced an innovative brand of Latin jazz.”

 “Horace Silver was a pianist, composer and bandleader who was one of the most popular and influential jazz musicians of the 1950s and ’60s. After a high-profile apprenticeship with some of the biggest names in jazz, Mr. Silver began leading his own group in the mid-1950s and quickly became a big name himself, celebrated for his clever compositions and his infectious, bluesy playing. At a time when the refined, quiet and, to some, bloodless style known as cool jazz was all the rage, he was hailed as a leader of the back-to-basics movement that came to be called hard bop.” “Mr. Silver and the drummer Art Blakey formed a cooperative group, the Jazz Messengers, whose aggressive style helped define hard bop and whose lineup of trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums became the standard hard-bop instrumentation.”