From the Jazz Alliance International:
- A Tribute to Fats Navarro, a trumpet
player extravaganza benefit concert, will be held at The Jazz Standard in
New York City on Tuesday, September 24 at 8:00 PM. A virtual who¹s who of
jazz trumpeters set to perform include Jon Faddis (Artistic Director for the
event), Randy Brecker, Cecil Bridgewater, Tom Harrell, Sean Jones, Brian
Lynch, Jimmy Owens, Jeremy Pelt, Claudio Roditi, Jim Rotondi, Don Sickler,
Lew Soloff, and Clark Terry with an all-star rhythm section assembled by JAI
Board Member, Geri Allen.
Tickets are $55 and seating is limited. For ticket information, contact The
Jazz Standard at (212) 576-2232. This concert, which will benefit a newly
established scholarship in honor of the legendary Bebop trumpeter, is part
of a day-long celebration of Fats Navarro and his contribution to the
evolution of jazz. Proceeds will benefit the Theodore “Fats” Navarro
Scholarship, to be awarded to outstanding Cuban student musicians to attend
the Skidmore College and Manhattan School of Music Summer Jazz Institutes.
The impetus for the event will be the dedication of a headstone at the Rose
Hill Cemetery (Routes 1 & 9) in Linden, New Jersey, where Mr. Navarro was
buried in 1950. The dedication will take place on September 24, 2002, at
11:00 AM, the 79th anniversary of Fats Navarro’s birth.
According to JAI Board Member and Linden, NJ native, Glen Barros (Concord
Records), “Linden Mayor John T. Gregorio and his office have been extremely
enthusiastic and cooperative to ensure that the city gives this event the
recognition and dignity it deserves.”
The dedication of the headstone is the realization of a longstanding goal of
Linda Navarro, Fats’ daughter. The project began when Stuart Varden, a
lover of Fats’ music for over 40 years, discovered in 1997 that very little
information about Fats could be found on the Web. He decided to create a
Web page in tribute to him. When Mr. Varden went to photograph the
headstone for the web page, he discovered that the grave was unmarked. He
offered his services through the official Web site to help raise funds.
When he received an email from Linda Navarro expressing her interest in
providing an appropriate marker, the two joined forces to raise the money.
They were eventually joined by Theo Rehak who maintains an archive of
Navarro images started in 1966, called L’Archive Navarro. Mr. Rehak is
currently writing a biography on Fats with Danish trumpeter/scholar Leif Bo
Petersen. Through the web site, the team raised over $3,000 for the
headstone with twenty-six contributors from five countries donating from $5
to $500.
Theodore Navarro was born in Key West, Florida on September 24, 1923. His
heritage was African, Cuban and Chinese. He began playing trumpet at the
age of 13, joining Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy in 1943. Upon Dizzy
Gillespie’s recommendation, Billy Eckstine hired him in 1945 with whose band
he played for 18 months. He was nicknamed “Fat Girl” (the title of one of
his records) or “Fats”.
Writing in his Encyclopedia of Jazz, Leonard Feather stated that most of the
musicians associated with the Bop era of the 1940s ranked Fats with Dizzy
Gillespie and Miles Davis as one of the gifted and original stylists in the
development of jazz. According to Stuart Varden, “When Navarro died on July
7, 1950 in New York City, Andy Kirk asked funeral director Leroy Butler to
purchase an appropriate grave site in the NYC area. Andy was like a father
to Fats and paid for all the funeral expenses. The Rose Hill Cemetery in
Linden, New Jersey was an old established cemetery and had a section with a
prominent history of African-American internments. It is also the place
where the Lindbergh baby is buried.”
Earlier this year, Maxine Gordon approached Blue Note President and JAI
Board Chairman Bruce Lundvall to assist with the project, at which time the
Jazz Alliance International decided to establish the Fats Navarro
Scholarship. The decision to assist Cuban music students was to both
recognize the exceptional talent coming out of Cuba and pay tribute to Fats
Cuban heritage. According to JAI President Chuck Iwanusa, “Through this
scholarship initiative, we hope to provide a living tribute to one of the
legendary contributors to our national American treasure.”
The Jazz Alliance International is dedicated to expanding the audience and
visibility of Jazz. Over the past year, the Jazz Alliance International
raised $44,000 for the Jazz Foundation of America’s Musicians’ Emergency
Fund as well as producing Made In America: An all-star benefit concert
honoring the heroes and victims of September 11 that raised over $260,000
for lower income residents effected by the tragedy.