New York State Senator Pete Harckham commemorated the 25th anniversary of Jazz Appreciation Month today by honoring three Senate District 40 residents—cellist Akua Dixon and guitarist John Scofield, both Katonah residents, and drummer-vocalist Tony Jefferson, a Peekskill resident—for their jazz artistry and contributions to the music and culture of the state. The three jazz artists were joined by family members and friends at a special ceremony here at the Katonah Village Library, where they received a Senate Proclamation from Harckham. Bedford Town Supervisor Ellen Calves welcomed the audience to the event.
To see a video of the Jazz Appreciation Month celebration, click here.
“It’s great that we have so many noteworthy jazz artists here in the 40th Senate District,” said Harckham. “Jazz embraces tradition and innovation, finds strength in diverse voices, and allows for both individualistic expression and collective unity. I am privileged to honor these three local jazz musicians, composers and educators for their incredible contributions to our culture, which have benefited us all over the years.”
Harckham noted that jazz originated in New Orleans and became popular in Chicago. But since the mid-1920s, the beginning of the Jazz Age, New York City has been the jazz capital of the world, with many jazz artists were calling the Hudson Valley home.
“Our communities are that much richer for having these artists among us,” Harckham added.
About the honorees:
AKUA DIXON
Trailblazing cellist, composer and educator Akua Dixon, a Katonah resident once referred to as being “amongst the treasures of contemporary jazz,” is a native New Yorker, raised with one foot in Harlem and the other in the Bronx. She began playing the cello in 4th grade and continued her classical music studies at the High School of Performing Arts and on cello with Benar Heifetz at the Manhattan School of Music before playing in the pit bands of the Apollo, Broadway theaters and musical showcases downtown, backing the likes of James Brown, Diana Ross and Tony Bennett.
Dixon was 24 and playing with the Symphony of the New World when it premiered a new work by Duke Ellington at Philharmonic Hall, with the maestro performing along with the ensemble—a career-changing moment. Simultaneously, Dixon also became part of a successful effort to gain opportunities and open up auditions for Black musicians in the city, working with the Congress of Racial Equality and other organizations. She was a co-founding member of the 30-piece orchestra called the String Reunion and the Max Roach Double Quartet while also working with her own string quartet on albums by Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae, Don Cherry, Betty Carter and many other artists. She eventually launched her Quartette Indigo, a string ensemble that included her older sister Gayle Dixon on violin.
Beginning in the 1990s Dixon sought to enhance the musical education of young people as well. She was a Musical Ambassador to the New York City schools through Carnegie Hall Education and had a similar role with Jazz at Lincoln Center before developing the Hip Hop Blues Project, which composed original works for students in New York and New Jersey each year. Later, she taught in the music department at Bard College. Dixon continued her work as a freelance musical artist, writing string arrangements and playing on the five-time Grammy Award-winning album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-nominated A Rose is Still a Rose while also playing cello in the Dance Theatre of Harlem Orchestra and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Orchestra, where she also conducted and notated the 1995 Judith Jamison ballet Riverside.
Dixon has released three albums of her own as a leader, including 2017’s acclaimed Akua’s Dance, and has appeared on over 80 other recordings as well. She is the recipient of the 1998 African American Classical Music Award from Spelman College, a National Endowment for the Arts grant that enabled her to make an archival recording, Afrika! Afrika!, for solo cello and string orchestra, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant, which she used to workshop and present a reading of another work, The Opera of Marie Laveau, in 1989. A more recent project called We the People speaks to the themes of justice, equality and hope. Last year, Dixon was among the first cohort of awardees of the Mellon Foundation and the Jazz Foundation of America’s Jazz Legacies Award. She remains a vital creative force in the music world.
At the Jazz Appreciation Month ceremony, Dixon said, “After so many years playing music, the most interesting thing is you have to have a dream—something special and unique—that will help you claw through life until you can accomplish something important and people can understand your point of view. To be rewarded for that is special. Thank you so much!”
TONY JEFFERSON
Tony Jefferson, a busy, irrepressible first-call jazz drummer and multi-instrumentalist and a longtime Peekskill resident, is the rare musician to add a whole new dimension to his artistry in mid-career. And that’s what Jefferson did back in 2011 when he stepped out from behind his drum kit to showcase his formidable talent as a jazz singer. Indeed, his singing has drawn comparisons to the stylish vocals of Nat ‘King’ Cole.
A New Rochelle native, Jefferson started on the snare drum in his fourth-grade music class and received his own drum kit when he was 13, about the same time he became interested in jazz. During his high school years he was already hanging out with the jazz musicians backstage at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, and one memory that he particularly relishes is meeting the tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon. After briefly attending Purchase College, Jefferson left school to pursue music full time. A scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston helped further his education and until the lure of steady work on the bandstand again interrupted his studies.
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jefferson began to work steadily and record with Kenny Drew Jr., a renowned jazz pianist. He eventually moved to Peekskill to better advance his jazz career, later receiving invaluable mentoring from saxophonist-keyboardist Eddie Harris and guitarist John Abercrombie. Before long Jefferson was backing up jazz legends like trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Frank Wess and organist Dr. Lonnie Smith plus many Hudson Valley jazz artists. In 1992, Jefferson placed third in the Thelonious Monk International Drum Competition. He is known—and valued for—his hard swinging, impeccable timing and a remarkable sense of musicality. Always a curious student of music, Jefferson even started playing the clarinet and alto saxophone while in his thirties.
Jefferson got early encouragement as a singer from legendary vocalist Sheila Jordan, bassist Cameron Brown and pianist-vocalist Dena DeRose. Following a period of serious study and lessons, he released his acclaimed album Tony Jefferson Sings! in 2011. A veteran of the Jazz Ambassador Tours and Jazz for Young People Program through Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jefferson also was a founding member of the Westchester Jazz Orchestra. He continues to work as a popular jazz clinician and music educator, teaching workshops and master classes around the world. Always remarkably busy in the jazz world, Jefferson has also exhibited his fine art and drawings at local galleries.
In his remarks at the awards ceremony, Jefferson said, “I am lucky to have a life filled with jazz that I can share with musicians both here in the United States and abroad. I more than appreciate jazz—I love jazz.”
JOHN SCOFIELD
One-of-a-kind jazz guitarist John Scofield, a three-time Grammy Award winner and acclaimed as one of the music world’s most heralded improvisers, is an artist who finds new challenges across limitless boundaries. He first made a name for himself playing with cool jazz architects Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan before working with other jazz greats like Billy Cobham, George Duke, Gary Burton and Charles Mingus. Most notably, John was a half-dozen albums into his solo career when he joined Miles Davis’s band in 1982, staying with the trumpeter for the next three-and-a-half years and then resuming his solo career.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, and raised in Wilton, Connecticut, John took up the guitar at age 11, when he was already enthralled by jazz, blues and rock bands like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Blues Project, Cream and the Jeff Beck Group. He studied in Boston at the Berklee College of Music (which later conferred him an honorary doctorate) before launching his professional career; his first solo album was released in 1978. Over the years he has recorded and toured with a number of different bands and with other jazz luminaries like Joe Lovano, Steve Swallow, Wayne Shorter, Eddie Harris, Jack DeJohnette and even with fellow guitarist Pat Metheny. All in all, John has appeared on more than 100 albums throughout his career, including nearly 50 as a leader or co-leader, some with his Blue Matter Band and group called Bass Desires.
In the mid-1990s, John moved into a musical direction that incorporated funk and soul-jazz into his sound, crafting extended improvisations that earned him wide approval by the jam band community. He also started a substantive collaboration with British contemporary music composer Mark-Anthony Turnage that resulted in two albums. John’s restless creative drive has found him working alongside the trio Medeski, Martin and Wood, bassist Dave Holland, organist Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart. In 2005, John won even greater jam band plaudits by his occasional bandstand guest spots with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and Friends. A feature length documentary of life and art was released in 2002, and he has taught at NYO as an adjunct professor. In 2010 John was awarded the Ordre des Artes et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. His most recent album is a duo recording with Holland called Memories of Home. At the end of the month he is set to embark on a 12-country tour of Europe.
During his remarks Scofield thanked his wife Susan for helping to pilot his music career, and added, “I’m honored to receive this award and to be recognized in Katonah. We’ve lived here for 34 years, raised our kids here, and it’s wonderful to b part of this community. I can’t believe I get to live here, in paradise, all from making a living playing guitar.”
