This event has been cancelled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Ticket holders may request a refund or credit, or transfer their ticket to a tax deductible donation or membership by emailing hello@hudsonhall.org or by phone at (518) 822-1438. For further updates and announcements, please join our mailing list

A Catskill Jazz Factory Production

Three World Premieres

Series Pass: $100 

Hudson Hall teams up with “regional arts think-tank” and “formidable jazz incubator” Catskill Jazz Factory in a world premiere centennial celebration of Charlie “Bird” Parker. BIRD FLIGHT features three distinct takes on the music of Bird, led by a trio of bands at the forefront of the contemporary jazz scene. Join us in honoring a legacy of unparalleled creativity, originality and masterful improvisation.

MILES OF BIRD
Keyon Harrold Band
Saturday, April 4, 2020, 7pm
Tickets: $30, $45

Miles Davis once said, “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker.” It was 1944 when the eighteen-year-old Miles Davis first heard modern jazz — the music that changed his life — when Charlie Parker played in St. Louis in Billy Eckstine’s band. This moment inspired Davis to move to New York City “where the action was” and follow his idol.

Modern master trumpeter Keyon Harrold, known for his GRAMMY-Award winning performance in Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead and featured in Rolling Stone magazine as one of “10 New Artists You Need to Know Now,” pays homage to the infamous and monumental musical relationship between Davis and Bird. The evening draws inspiration from live and studio recordings of the Reboppers, the Miles Davis All Stars, and from Miles’ time with the Charlie Parker Quintet.

FREEBIRD
Walking Distance
with Jason Moran
Saturday, May 9, 2020, 7pm
Tickets: $30, $45

“Walking Distance—the charmingly cheeky and technically adept combination of alto saxophonist Caleb Curtis, tenor saxophonist Kenny Pexton, bassist Adam Coté, and drummer Shawn Baltazar—is freeing Charlie Parker’s music from the shackles of its comfort zone.” – JazzTimes

Double sax quartet Walking Distance mutates the music of Charlie Parker by smashing, stretching, and deconstructing his virtuosic melodies, creating music that is wholly new and modern. Powered by acclaimed pianist Jason Moran, Walking Distance’s latest release, Freebird (Sunnyside) liberates Parker’s repertoire from the predictable and transforms it into music that is bursting with vitality, humor and imagination.

LIVE BIRD
Patrick Bartley Quintet
Saturday, May 30, 7pm
Tickets: $30, $45

Experience a purely Parker night that encapsulates the frenetic, unstoppable energy of Bird’s most iconic live sessions and performances. GRAMMY-nominated saxophonist, composer and bandleader Patrick Bartley Jr. (featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR’s Jazz Nights in America) honors one of his greatest musical inspirations in this reimagining of Bird’s most extraordinary live shows, drawing from Savoy, Town Hall, and Carnegie Hall recordings among others, and reinterpreting classics like “Night in Tunisia”, “Salt Peanuts”, and “Groovin’ High” along the way.

BirdFlight is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.