A historic jazz lineup with roots reaching into the heyday of bebop will take the stage at the Caton Castle in Baltimore on Sunday when trombonist Curtis Fuller appears with a quartet of peerless peers.
Joining Fuller on stage will be Louis Hayes on drums, saxophonist Buck Hill, Steve Novesel on bass and pianist Larry Willis. The gig, which is nearly sold out, was put together by Michael Binsky, a Baltimorean and former merchant marine who has devoted his life to the support of jazz and its practitioners.
» When: 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday
» Venue: The Caton Castle, 20 South Caton Ave., Baltimore
» Tickets: $30
» Info: 443-413-7659
Trombonist Fuller — who recorded the album “Blue Train” in 1957 with the immortal John Coltrane — is scheduled to appear at the Kennedy Center on Saturday with Benny Golson in honor of the tenor saxophonist’s 80th birthday.
Reached at his home in New York last week, drummer Hayes said Baltimore had always been a good town for jazz — he mentioned the Left Bank Jazz Society in particular — and mourned the passing at age 70 last month of trumpet master Freddie Hubbard.
[Jazz lost another giant Tuesday with the death of 75-year-old saxophonist and flutist David “Fathead” Newman. Binsky brought Newman to Baltimore last March.]
“Every album that you make is historic,” said Hayes, who debuted on Harold Silver’s “Six Pieces of Silver” in 1956 and a half-century later released “Maximum Firepower” on the Savant label.
“How historic,” Hayes said, “depends on who is listening.”
As for the man he knew as Freddie, Hayes said of his late friend and sometimes bandmate, “When Freddie arrived in New York [a half-generation after Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie], he raised the instrument higher than anyone else. … He continued to make that impression in a very serious way for the next 30 years.”
