Center City Jazz with Ernest Stuart & Rhenda Fearrington

Air Date: April 27, 2012

Trombonist Ernest Stuart, here pictured partying with The Roots on New Year's Eve, is also leading the party that is the Center City Jazz Festival in Philadelphia. (photo courtesy of Ernest Stuart)

Hour 1

How do you pull off a music festival with the historically under-performing money making genre that is jazz? “Patience,” says Center City Jazz Festival organizer and South Jersey native ERNEST STUART. The trombonist and music producer kept the promise he made to himself – to showcase the area’s talented musician pool that has a diminishing amount of venues to play – and through Kickstarter, the online fundraising platform, he’s raised enough money to host over 15 acts in a cluster of Center City clubs on a single day: tomorrow, Saturday, April 28th. We’ll listen to original compositions and arrangements of well-known tunes from Stuart’s debut CD, “Solitary Walker.” And we’ll also meet vocalist RHENDA FEARRINGTON. A longtime Philly singer who has backed up R&B artists Roberta Flack and Mtume, Fearrington just released her first CD, “This Moment’s Sweetness,” with contributions from Philly musicians including saxophonist Larry McKenna.

Listen to the mp3

Listen:
[audio: 042712_100630.mp3]

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