North Country resident and Grammy award-winning trumpet player Taylor Haskins will open the Seventeenth Annual Westport Community Concerts in the Ballard Park Performance Pavilion on July 4th at 7:00 pm. Taylor Haskins will perform music from American Dream, his latest release on Sunnyside Records which was heralded by several critics, and the forthcoming Sunnyside release Fuzzy Logic. For this concert Taylor will be performing with area talents Robinson Morse (bass), Peter Krag (piano), and Gabe Jarret (drums).

Trumpeter Taylor Haskins – whose career as a sideman includes work with Dave Holland’s Big Band, Richard Bona, and Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos – explores all of the colors, contours and complexities of this country’s most famous metaphor on American Dream, a daring and diverse twelve-track CD. Haskins is superbly supported on the recording by guitarist Ben Monder, bassist Ben Street, and drummer Jeff Hirshfield. American Dream is Taylor Haskins’ soliloquy for the idealized America; a personal statement of reconciling expectations with reality.

Dizzy Gillespie + Bill Frisell = Taylor Haskins

Taylor Haskins is being hailed as one of the most original new voices on the trumpet today. Downbeat magazine has declared him one of ’25 Trumpets for the Future’, stating that Taylor displays “a probing, adroit lyricism and a gift for complex, imaginative composition.” To date Taylor has released four recordings as a leader, in addition to appearing as a sideman on dozens of albums and winning a Grammy™ award in 2005 for performing on bassist Dave Holland’s album ‘Overtime’. In 2010 Taylor released American Dream to much critical acclaim. It has been hailed as a “smart and engaging sonic commentary” by JazzTimes magazine. Downbeat magazine called it “ambitious” and “imaginative”. All Music Guide remarked that it sounded like “what might have happened had Dizzy Gillespie met Bill Frisell.

“In a crossover style between contemporary jazz and Americana, trumpeter Taylor Haskins offers a balancing act between the two genres that might suggest what would have happened had Dizzy Gillespie met Bill Frisell. While the old west is more of a ghost image in this music, plaintive blues and held tension are also utilized as Haskins’ trumpet swims upstream while Monder’s guitar acts as an observant sentinel. Not as eerie or obsequious as one might suspect, ‘American Dream’ offers a genuinely updated perspective to cowboy tales brought into an improvisation-based new era.” (All Music Guide)

Westport Community Concert Series

This is the first concert of eight in the summer series for 2013. The Westport Community Concert Series is held every Thursday night at the beautiful grassy amphitheatre overlooking Lake Champlain, known as the Ballard Park Performance Pavilion. The performances begin a little after 7pm. Bring a blanket/lawn chairs and a picnic. The rain site is across Main Street/Route 22 in the acoustically amazing historic chapel of the Westport Heritage House.

Concert lineup is as follows; 7/11 Stephen Gratto and Sons – A Fun children’s participatory performance, 7/18 “Big Spike” A sizzling Bluegrass band, 7/25 “Rose and the Nightingale” A Chamber Ensemble with a Pop/Folk/ Vocal Twist – completely unique (Thanks to Taylor Haskins for bringing them up from NYC for us), 8/1 Meadowmount- Three of their best student quartets, 8/8 “Tempest” Celtic Rock, from California passing through Westport again on their East Coast Tour, with special guest Irish Step/Crossover Jazz Dancer Griffin Wilkins, 8/15, Hugh Pool, Delta Blues and Slide Guitar and 8/22, Michael Chorney & “Holler General” from Burlington with Special Guest Taylor Haskins.

For More Information about Taylor Haskins

• www.taylorhaskins.com
• www.sunnysiderecords.com