Some great jazz came to the Great Hill on the evening of Aug. 13, courtesy of Jazzmobile.
The Great Hill was Central Park’s Great Hill, with a free concert featuring performers like Chicago’s Tammy McCann, who treated everyone to Great Ladies in Jazz, her tribute to, as she puts it — Ella, Sarah, Dinah and Billie. She said she’s also doing some work in the studio.
“I have a new record that I’m working on called Do I Move You? That’s gonna be produced by John Clayton and Fareed Haque, it’s a real labor of love, music that I grew up on,” she said.
Last year at Jazzmobile Summerfest McCann performed a tribute to Mahalia Jackson in Marcus Garvey Park.
McCann is from Chicago, where she says they make their own kind of music.
“Chicago jazz, it’s kind of set apart from other jazz towns in the way that we present our jazz,” said McCann. “It has a different feel to it, a crispness to it, a jump joint kind of feel.”
Another featured performer was alto saxophonist Antonio Hart, who now leads the band of jazz legend Jimmy Heath.
“It was nice to play on the Hill again, cause I believe the last time I played was with the Jimmy Heath Big Band conducted by Master Heath, so this was the first time that we performed under my direction, so it was heartfelt, little bittersweet too,” said Hart.
Hart’s quartet was also featured. He was a protege of Heath, one of the founders of Jazzmobile, who died in January 2020 at 93.