Cultural Events
Jazz Quartet Tours Uzbekistan (06/18/2009)
The Brian Horton Quartet played a series of jazz concerts and conducted master music classes during their tour of Tashkent, Samarkand and Guliston in June.
The quartet from Durham, North Carolina, has a sound rooted in blues and jazz sounds as they explore multi-cultural rhythms and improvisation. Saxophonist and composer Brian Horton, drummer Jaimeo Brown, bass player Ameen Saleem and pianist Ernest Turner have played with jazz greats like Branford Marsalis to American popular music icons Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana.
Their tour of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Azerbaijan was part of the Rhythm Road Music Abroad Program, which is organized by Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and the U.S. State Department.
The Brian Horton Quartet started the Uzbekistan leg of their tour June 13 with a concert at the Turkiston Palace in Tashkent. On June 14, they played with local musicians at the Jazz Club in the Tashkent Photography House, which regularly hosts jazz concerts on Sundays. That evening, they played at U.S. Ambassador Richard Norland’s residence, teaming up with singers and performers of traditional Uzbek music for a memorable performance.
On June 15, the Quartet led master music classes at the Niyaziy Tashkent State Music College and at the Uspenskiy Republican Academic Specialized Music Lyceum.
They traveled to Samarkand on June 16 for a performance at the Samarkand Art and Music College, and on June 17 they played at the Guliston Drama Theater supported by the Istiqbolli Avlod non-governmental organization in Guliston.
“Touring is my passion, and we jumped at the opportunity to participate in this year’s Rhythm Road tour,” Horton said after arriving in Tashkent. “We’re always looking for a new ear” with which to hear new music and share theirs with others, he said.
Brown, in particular, said he was looking forward to learning some traditional Uzbek music, which was completely new to him, with the goal of incorporating it into his own percussion work.
The Rhythm Road program sends bands that play American roots music such as jazz, blues, bluegrass and country music on overseas tours. In the last three years, groups have toured 89 countries from Brazil to the Republic of Congo and the Pacific Island nation of Fiji.
The program descends from the Jazz Ambassadors program, which started in the 1950s and included tours by such jazz legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck.
Alina Romanowski, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Professional and Cultural Exchanges, said the connections made by touring musicians and the countries they visit emphasize nations’ similarities while celebrating their differences.
“Cultural diplomacy allows artists and audiences to share in a common experience that reaches beyond differences in culture, religion, language and generations, and to connect as people without borders,” she said. “That is what The Rhythm Road is all about.”