The Red Poppy Art House warmly welcomes the George Brooks Trio featuring pianist Osam Ezzeldin and bassist Kai Eckhardt, presented through Jazz in the Neighborhood’s new monthly series at the Red Poppy.
George Brooks is a saxophonist and composer, acclaimed for successfully bridging the worlds of jazz and Indian classical music. He founded the seminal groups grounded in Indian music: Summit with Zakir Hussain, Bombay Jazz with Ronu Majumdar and Larry Coryell, the Raga Bop Trio with Steve Smith and Prasanna and Elements with Gwyneth Wentink and Kala Ramnath.
Raised in Germany and Liberia, Kai Eckhardt came to the USA in 1980 to study at the Berklee College of Music. Upon graduating Kai garnered world-wide recognition performing with the John McLaughlin Trio. The trio, consisting of Kai, John and Indian percussion phenomenon, Trilok Gurtu, recorded “Live at the Royal Festival Hall.” Kai, touring the world with McLaughlin’s trio and later with Trilok Gurtu’s outstanding ensembles, developed a remarkable facility with African and Indian rhythmic cycles. He combined these global rhythms with his love of funk and developed a unique slapping style simultaneously reminiscent of African kora and James Brown.
Osam Ezzeldin was born in Cairo, Egypt and grew up immersed in the music of North Africa. At the age of 18 he heard his first recording of jazz and his life immediately transformed. Osam embarked on a journey of self-directed jazz study and began a rapid rise to excellence, soon becoming indispensable to leading jazz musicians of North Africa. Osam’s love of the genre brought him to the US at the age of 21. His prodigious abilities at the keyboard soon brought him to the attention of the local musicians and he quickly became immersed in the professional world of Texas jazz, blues and R&B. Osam’s unique ability to blend contemporary jazz vocabulary with Arabic, Indian and Caribbean influences has led to performances with many luminaries of world music including Indian maestros Zakir Hussain, Niladri Kumar and Kala Ramnath and Turkish multi-instrumentalist Orhan Osman and the Turkophony Allstars, Uzbek percussionist Abbos Kasimov, as well as jazz stars Giovanni Hidalgo, Billy Cobham, Chuck Rainey, Kai Eckhardt and Dave Weckl.
Featuring:
George Brooks – saxophone
Kai Eckhardt – bass
Osam Ezzeldin – piano
More on Jazz in the Neighborhood:
The mission of
Jazz in the Neighborhood is to celebrate and invigorate the Bay Area’s rich, musical jazz heritage by creating more opportunities for established local musicians to perform, mentor aspiring players, and share this great American art form with the community. Through collaboration with school music programs and adult big bands, the project enables top-caliber artists to push creative boundaries while helping developing musicians “learn on the bandstand” according to the great jazz tradition. Performances in neighborhood
venues not only showcase the wealth of local talent, but also create regular destinations for people to enjoy rich cultural and social experiences where they live.
