CNY Jazz will bring the 2023 Black History Month Cabaret with Althea Rene and Jeanette Harris to Syracuse on Sunday February 26th.
The roof of the Marriott Syracuse Downtown’s Finger Lakes Ballroom will host a 5:00 p.m. concert performance. This event will also include honoring the 2023 Pioneer Public Service Award to George Kilpatrick, media pioneer and community affairs activist.
Established in 1998, CNY Jazz Central provides scholastic and public jazz programs for the Upstate New York. Their annual performances are more than 150 to a total annual audience of 50,000. Besides their shows of all kinds at their Jazz Central theater in downtown Syracuse, they present handful festivals and concerts including the Northeast Jazz & Wine Fest and Jazz in the City; the CNY Jazz Cabaret Series, a busy arts-in-education service, the SummerJazz Workshop, the Jazz at Timber Banks and Jazz On Tap Series, and other events in summer.
Detroit-born flutist Althea Rene, is known as a Motown music legacy, daughter of Dezie McCullers of the original Funk Brothers. She gained musical inspiration from her father and released her hit CD titled “In the Flow” in May 2013 collaborating with Grammy award-winning producer Michael Broening.
California-native saxophonist Jeanette Harris is an instrumentalist and songwriter who played saxophone and piano from grade school to high schoo. She won numerous awards and accolades, which led to her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance in Berklee College of Music in Boston. Furthermore, she has co-written hits with Norman Brown and Gerald Albright, with international touring experience with the legendary Teena Marie. Both artists log many thousands of miles annually, appearing in festivals and clubs worldwide.
Dubbed the “Queens of Soul Jazz”, the combination of Althea Rene and Jeanette Harris is a rare all-female smooth jazz double bill. They are a different take on collaboration and do not only perform together as artist. It is not their first collaboration and they have performed “We Are One” in 2019.
“This by far the most groundbreaking duo we’ve ever presented to honor Black History Month and the powerful legacy of Black America’s music. Rene and Harris are pioneers in every way as jazz instrumentalists, singers, and songwriters, inspiring a new generation who thought it couldn’t be done. They’re already stars, and will become superstars in soul jazz for the 21st century. Come see history in the making for yourself.”
Larry Luttinger
The other event is the awarding this year’s Pioneer Public Service Award to George Kilpatrick who is the radio and television host for iHeart Radio and WCNY. He is widely known across Upstate New York as the “progressive voice” of regional media, tireless community advocate, spokesperson for Syracuse Community Health Jazz in the City public health concert series, and founder of Syracuse’s Juneteenth celebration.
CNY Jazz supporters Bill and Nancy Byrne have again graciously underwritten the buffet for the event, offered at no extra cost to all attendees.
The concert will be hold at Marriott Syracuse Downtown, 100 E Onondaga St, Syracuse on Sunday February 26th. Doors open at 4:00 p.m. and the show starts at 5:00 p.m. $35 advance sale tickets include a free buffet and are now available, $40 at the door at here. Parking is available in the garage directly to the southeast of the hotel. Patrons are cautioned that the former Hotel Syracuse garage no longer connects to the hotel via the overhead walkway.
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