PORT ANGELES — Peninsula College will welcome Dmitri Matheny, winner of NW Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year honors in last year’s Seattle Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Awards, to Maier Performance Hall at 7 p.m. Saturday.
He will be backed by the David P. Jones Trio.
Tickets will be available at the door of the hall on the Peninsula College campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd., Port Angeles, only. They are $12 for general admission and $5 for students with public school or college ID.
Matheny is celebrated for his warm tone, soaring lyricism and masterful technique on the flugelhorn, organizers said.
First introduced to jazz audiences in the 1990s as the protégé of Art Farmer, Matheny has matured into “one of the jazz world’s most talented horn players,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The show will include jazz classics by Duke Ellington and Count Basie; standards by Richard Rodgers, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mandel, Vernon Duke and Burt Bacharach; newer compositions by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Sam Rivers and Matheny himself.
Matheny has performed in the jazz arena with Larry Coryell, Amina Figarova, Tommy Flanagan, Wycliffe Gordon, John Handy, Billy Higgins, Red Holloway, Charles McPherson, James Moody, Sam Rivers, Max Roach, Sonny Simmons, Billy Taylor and Bobby Watson.
His discography lists over 120 compact discs on which he appears as a composer, arranger, producer, annotator or flugelhorn soloist. He has released eleven albums as a leader: “Red Reflections” (1995), “Penumbra” (1996), “Starlight Café” (1998), “Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (2000), “Nocturne” (2005), “The SnowCat” (2006), “Spiritu Sancto” (2007), “Best of Dmitri Matheny” (2008), “Grant & Matheny” (2010) and “Sagebrush Rebellion” (2014).
His latest CD, “Jazz Noir” (2016, BluePort Jazz) offers a fresh spin on crime jazz, film noir and timeless classics.
Award-winning
Matheny has received several prestigious music awards, including “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” in the 46th annual Down Beat International Critics Poll and “Best New Artist” honors (with Brad Mehldau, Ravi Coltrane and Stefon Harris) in the 1999 JazzTimes Readers Poll.
He is also a prolific composer and lyricist who has received premieres and commissions from Meet the Composer, St. Domenic’s Church, the Manhattan New Music Project, the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the Jazz Composers Orchestra and 20th Century Forum.
David P. Jones is the head of the music program at Peninsula College and has served as director of PC’s Jazz Ensemble since 2008.
Jones has performed with Bob Curnow, Mike Bisio, Brad Sheppik, Jazz Police, Craig Buhler and many other local jazz musicians. His trio with Ted Enderle and Terry Smith has backed Matheny, Mark Lewis, and John Stowell as well as performing several times in the Port Angeles area over the past few years.
For more information, contact Jones at djones@pencol.edu or call 360-417-6405.