Russ Johnson's Headlands

press release: Concerts of fresh original music, in a great listening room, with no cover charge.  That’s what fans will find at the UW Memorial Union’s beautifully renovated Frederic March Play Circle on four Friday evenings this Fall, as the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium, Madison Music Collective, and Wisconsin Union Theater present the fifth season of “InDIGenous Jazz,” a series of free concerts showcasing music composed and performed by local and regional jazz musicians.  Each concert begins at 7:30 PM, and will include two sets of music and a brief Q&A with each evening’s featured performers.

September 30: Russ Johnson’s Headlands Quartet.  Trumpeter Russ Johnson, Director of Jazz Studies at UW-Parkside, is part of Madison’s “extended jazz family,” often performing here with UW-Madison Jazz Studies Director Johannes Wallmann.  Johnson spent 23 years as an important member of New York City’s jazz community, and has worked with such top-flight jazz musicians as Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell and Steve Swallow.  Appearing on over 75 recordings, his most recent CDs gained rave reviews in DownBeat magazine.  Along with a set of newly-composed Johnson tunes, the quartet will perform his new extended work: a suite commissioned by Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival and premiered there last Fall.  Other quartet members include some of Chicago’s finest jazz players: pianist Rob Clearfield, bassist Matt Ulery, and drummer Jon Deitmeyer.