BAAMS Presents: LIVE AT STUDIO 9, ALEX FOSTER and the BAAMS’ Faculty Band

March 16 is the third in a monthly series of live music concerts at Studio 9 from Richard Boulger and the BAAMS’ Faculty Band, this month featuring saxophonist Alex Foster, who has performed with the “Saturday Night Live” Band for over three decades, and is co-musical director of the Mingus Big Band in New York City.

Originally from Oakland, California, tenor and alto saxophonist Alex Foster has been part of many of the world’s most influential sounds. Foster has shared the stage with world-class performers including Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Freddie Hubbard, Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gil Evans, John Scofield, Charles Mingus, Elvin Jones, Thad Jones, Tito Puente, Michael Brecker, Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin, Aerosmith, Stevie Wonder, Dr. John, Paul Simon, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Eddie Van Halen, The Village People, Sister Sledge, Al Green, Johnny Mathis, Diana Ross, and many others. Foster has had his work with the Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and the Mingus Orchestra nominated for Grammy awards multiple times.

We’re delighted to continue this 2024 Monthly Series BAAMS PRESENTS: LIVE AT Studio 9 at the Porches’ Inn. Join us for a special evening of music, a benefit performance for BAAMS — the Berkshires’ Academy for Advanced Musical Studies — lead by Richard Boulger, trumpet and flugelhorn, with Alex Blake, bass, Dario Boente, piano and keyboards, and Tony Lewis, drums and percussion, along with featured guest David Gilmore.

BAAMS’ Founder and Executive Director Richard Boulger is a North Adams native who spent 20 years teaching and working as a recording artist in New York City where he also worked with many of New York’s underserved communities’ schools before returning home in 2020. In 2022, BAAMS established its academy building in the Heritage State Park, North Adams. Boulger was a longtime private student and protégé of Trumpet legends Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd, and has recorded with such luminaries as The Allman Brothers Band, Randy Brecker, John Hicks, Trombonist Steve Davis, R&B legend “Joe”, and has produced three highly-acclaimed recording projects as a leader.

Alex Blake’s revolutionary playing style and technique combines his unique, innovative strumming, rapid, lyrical notations and percussive slaps on his bass to create a unique and compelling sound. Some have called Blake “an entire rhythm section”. His work with Sun Ra Arkestra, Randy Weston, Freddie Hubbard, Celia Cruz, McCoy Tyner, Billy Cobham, and hundreds more, is the stuff of legend.

Grammy and Latin-Grammy winner Argentinian born pianist and composer Dario Boente, is equally at home performing romantic Argentine and jazz compositions on a grand piano, as he is programming world-beat electronica. In 1999, Dario moved to New York City and has since released ten albums and compilations as a leader, featuring well-known Jazz musicians such as five-time Grammy Award winner Antonio Sanchez on drums, guitarist Ronny Jordan, Latin Grammy winner composer and pianist Fernando Otero, harmonica player Gregoire Maret, flutist Jorge Pardo, and saxophonist Miguel Zenon, among others.

“Victor Jones is a new breed of outstanding drummer band-leaders — nothing Jones does is ever boring.” Time Out New York. Victor Jones, the Drums and Percussion director for BAAMS, is internationally recognized for his consistent, subtle, and stylistic drumming on stage and in the studio. Victor Jones is known as an innovator who is not afraid to bring together different styles and sounds. He has played on hundreds of recordings, played hundreds of live concerts and performed in clubs everywhere on this planet, often as a backing musician for a variety of well-known artists, including Lou Donaldson, Chaka Khan, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Stan Getz, and many others.

For the past several years, Jones has been recording and performing with his own group, Culture-Versy, effortlessly blending Hip Hop, Urban Soul, Modern Jazz, and Funk. Victor Jones is a leader who understands and plays with every facet of great American music and popular art forms.

Studio 9 is the perfect setting for this intimate concert, a performance and recording space Richard Boulger describes as “a musical instrument unto itself.” With gorgeous, pure acoustics competing only with the lovely views of the campus of the Porches’ Inn, and MASS MoCA in North Adams, directly across the river, audience members are always awed by the atmosphere.

Doors open: 6:30pm.

All proceeds will help support music education at BAAMS, which provides after-school and Saturday music study, as well as a summer jazz-band day camp for students ages 10-18, of all experience levels. BAAMS also contributes to the region’s cultural richness in celebration of music and the arts through its various events presented throughout the year. For more information, contact: 413-663-4424 or message to: [email protected].