Soundcheck

Illinois Jacquet (Lincoln Center 2004)

Renee Fleming and Illinois Jacquet Perform Jazz Standards

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Illinois Jacquet, known throughout the jazz world for his roof-raising style on the tenor saxophone, died of a heart attack last month at the age of 81. In tribute, Soundcheck features an encore broadcast of his December 2003 performance in the WNYC studio with soprano Renee Fleming and pianist Larry Ham. This was the first and only time that these major American artists performed together although it was not their first meeting. While attending the State University of New York at Potsdam, Fleming and Ham performed a regular weekend gig with a jazz trio in a local, off-campus pub. When Jacquet was invited to conduct an on-campus master class, he was won over by Fleming’s performance. While there were long-gestated plans for a commercial recording project, this broadcast documents a one-of-a-kind collaboration.

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