MAINSTAY - Chuck Redd and Nate Najar's Birthday Tribute to Charlie Byrd
The Mainstay is pleased to announce a rescheduled date (postponed from last September) with jazz great vibraphonist Chuck Redd in a performance he has titled “A Birthday Tribute to Charlie Byrd” on Friday, February 10.
In the early days of the Mainstay, legendary guitarist Charlie Byrd, who filled large concert halls and played before royalty, was persuaded to perform at our modest 120 seat venue. Following that first concert, he kept returning with his famous musician friends (and a young drummer and vibes player named Chuck Redd).
Byrd was perhaps best known for his association with Brazilian music, especially abossa nova, and his collaborative work with sax legend Stan Getz. Their #1 Jazz Samba album remained on the charts for seventy weeks and brought bossa nova into the mainstream of North American music. Chuck Redd, whose credits include the Charlie Byrd Trio as well as the Mel Tormé All-Star Jazz Quintet, has career highlights of 30 international tours to Europe and Japan, and concert appearances at Carnegie Hall and on The Tonight Show.
Chuck will share the stage with guitarist Nate Najar, cited by music critic A. D. Amorosi as “the heir apparent to Charlie Byrd.” Years later, Najar would get the stamp of approval from no less than Byrd’s widow, the Mainstay’s very own Becky Byrd, who said, “There is no doubt that there is a piece of Charlie’s soul in Nate’s mind, heart and fingers.” Stand-up bass player Herman Burney will round out the trio.
Their Mainstay program will revisit Byrd’s landmark bossa nova works, as well as songs that Charlie loved by Gershwin, Ellington and Rodgers and Hart.