April 2, 2002 – Trumpeter Marcus Rabb with VI Art Ensemble will be making the music at this Sunday's Jazz Vespers concert — a tribute to legendary horn man Lee Morgan — at the St. Croix Reformed Church.
Rabb, who has performed with such jazz luminaries as Wynton Marsalis, Milt Jackson and Joe Henderson, has been teaching music and performing on St. Croix for five years. He grew up in Baltimore, where he studied piano and trumpet as a child and played the horn in local jazz bands while in high school — not unlike Lee Morgan.
Called by some "the quintessential hard bopper," Morgan was born in 1938 in Philadelphia and by the age of 18 was playing with the biggest names in the jazz business. That summer he sat in for two weeks with Art Blakey's Jazz Messsengers while they were in Philadelphia but he declined to sign the proffered contract. Instead, he was soon a sideman with Dizzy Gillespie, who gave him the nod to solo — brilliantly — in "A Night in Tunisia."
Morgan did join the Jazz Messengers later, then was replaced by Freddie Hubbard in 1961, then came back in 1964. Signed early on to the Blue Note label, he gained his greatest recording success with "The Sidewinder." His life ended prematurely in 1972, when his common-law wife shot him.
In 1961, Morgan said of his personal musical vision: "Miles Davis is a beautiful example of simplicity, but that's not what I want. I want to play all over the horn and have a big, beautiful sound."
At the height of his 16-year career, Morgan said, "I don't think I have a completely original style, though I do have an identity. An identity is when someone who knows jazz can say, 'That's Lee Morgan playing.'" He described his own "basic style" as being "composed of a strong Fats Navarro/Clifford Brown influence, and Miles and Dizzy, and then again a Bud [Powell] and Bird [Charlie Parker] thing. I think a definite style comes with living and experience and traveling until you play what you are, you play yourself on the horn."
Marcus Rabb will be paying tribute to that vision and identity with VI Art Ensemble on Sunday evening.
Rabb's musical education has included exposure to a broad variety of musical forms, both performing and composing. He attended Howard University on a full music scholarship, went on to earn his master of music degree from Howard and later was awarded a Lucy Moten Fellowship for study abroad. With it, he chose to study chamber music at the American Conservatory of Music in Fontainebleau, France. He currently teaches music privately and at Evelyn M. Williams Elementary School.
The VI Art Ensemble consists of founder and music director Fred Williams on bass, Benjamin Jacobs-el on piano, Dimitri "Pikey" Copeman on saxophone, David McKean on drums and Rene Encarnacion on percussion.
Williams, who formed VI Art Ensemble in 1995, got his first music education as a youngster from his father, Ohaldo Williams, St. Croix's stellar saxophonist. He studied music at Berklee College, North Carolina Central University and City College of New York — where he got his undergraduate degree. Then he went on to earn his master's in educational leadership from Winthrop University. He has performed and recorded with numerous New York jazz artists including Ornett Coleman, Leon Thomas and Pharoah Sanders and James "Blood" Ulmer. He recently completed work on a music textbook titled "Our Heritage," for the elementary level with a focus on Caribbean people and music.
Benjamin "Bennie" Jacobs-el, born in Brooklyn, played trombone with the prestigious Newport Youth Band — and then with The New York Jazz Septet, a spinoff of the Newport band. He enrolled at the Juilliard School in 1958 but three years later left to go on the road with Slide Hampton and Lloyd Price. Then he got a gig with the Coker Camble Band, the Motown backup group for such superstars as Stevie Wonder, The Supremes and The Temptations. It was while touring with Lionel Hampton's band in 1963 that he first set foot on St. Croix. He took up permanent residence on the island in 1974, and it was as a Crucian transplant that he made the transition from trombone to piano.
Dimitri "Pikey" Copeman," a self-taught saxophonist and founder of the Native Rhythm Band, got into jazz in his Central High School days. He has performed with Jamesie and the Happy Seven, Free Association, and Taco and the Playboys. His studio credits include work with Joe Paris and the Hot Shots Vol. 4 with King Derby, and the Zoop Zoop anthology with Paris; coming out soon is a CD with Rico and The All-Stars. A visual art educator by vocation, he teaches at Lew Muckle School and is an accomplished painter. He's also a published poet; his work appears in "Yellow Seed Is Blooming," an anthology of Virgin Islands poetry.
David McKean, a member of the group Rhythmix for the last seven years as well as a mainstay of VI Art Ensemble, came to St. Croix for the jazz festival in 1994 and decided to stay. He started playing drums professionally at the age of 15, attended the Army/Navy School of Music in Norfolk, Va., and played with the Army band in the state of Washington for two years. Then he toured the West Coast with Forecast and Suite 7 and work at LA Golden West Studio, recording music tracks for commercials. He has worked with Hank Crawford, been house drummer at Jimmy Smith's club in Los Angeles, and taught percussion with the Tacoma Symphony's Youth Development Program.
Rene Encarnacion is best known as a conga drummer/percussionist, although he also is an accomplished bass player. His first instrument was steelpan, and his first formal musical training was at St. Croix's Seventh Day Adventist School. ("Everyone else at school had guitars, so I decided to play bongos," he recalls.) Rene was the leader of Conjunto Topico de Santa Cruz for a decade and played with Sonora Santa Cruz with Ruben Santana and the legendary sax man Scypio. He worked with the late Tito Puente and has appeared with Jovani, regarded as the No. 1 conga player in Latin America. His work can be heard on The Mighty Sparrow's "Saltfish" album.
Jazz Vespers concerts, held on the first Sunday of each month in the Reformed Church sanctuary, are family-oriented programs in an environment that's alcohol-free and smoke-free. Admission is free, too, although an offering is taken. Following the performance, refreshments are served and young people, especially, are invited to engage the musicians in dialogue.
Upcoming Jazz Vespers concerts will feature drummer Dave McKean on May 5 and trumpeter Stan Joines on June 2. After taking a break in July, the series will move into its second season, featuring flutist Dianne Russell on Aug. 4, "Marcus Rabb with Strings" on Sept. 1 and pianist Otto James on Oct. 6.
Sunday's concert begins at 5:30 p.m. The church is in Estate La Reine on the hill above the Kingshill post office. For more information, call Willard Fields at 719-3672 or Pastor Rod Koopmans at 778-0520 or email to Jazz Vespers.
Publisher's note : Like the St. Croix Source now? Find out how you can love us twice as much — and show your support for the islands' free and independent news voice … click here.
