HERRING / DUDLI

Soul Jazz Septet feat. Joey Curreri

Vincent Herring, as (USA)

Joey Curreri, tp (USA)

Gregor Storf, ts, dm (A)

John Arman, g (GB, A)

Urs Hager, p (D, A)

Clemens Gigacher, b, (A)

Joris Dudli, dm (CH, USA)

This special project is a harmonious blend of the European working band of American star saxophonist Vincent Herring and his longtime partner Joris Dudli. Also included are the young talent Joey Curreri from Los Angeles and talented up-and-coming artists from the Austrian jazz scene. They recently recorded material that will be available at their upcoming tour in October. There, they play funky arrangements of rousing soul-jazz classics and catchy original compositions. For many years, Herring and Dudli have delighted audiences with various projects such as "Earth Jazz" and "Soul Chemistry." They consistently deliver melodic compositions paired with an adventurous playing style, thus making a strong musical statement.

Vincent Herring is a saxophone virtuoso with a uniquely intense and powerful voice. In the early 1980s, he first toured Europe and the USA with Lionel Hampton's Big Band and worked with Nat Adderley for nine years. Over time he has collaborated and/or recorded with Cedar Walton, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Hayes, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, the Horace Silver Quintet, Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, the Mingus Big Band, Kenny Barron and Nancy Wilson.

Joey Curreri has performed around the US and internationally. In 2023, he performed with jazz piano legend Makoto Ozone at Orchard Concert Hall in Tokyo. He also toured with Delfeayo Marsalis and Bobby Broom as a member of the Hancock Peer to Peer All Star Sextet. In 2021, Joey won 2nd place at the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition. The next year, he was the inaugural winner of the JEN Dave Brubeck Composition Award and Scholarshp. In high school, Joey was a National Youngarts Finalist as well as the LA Jazz Society’s New Talent Award Winner in 2018.

“Get the Dudli…” said Joe Zawinul after Joris stepped in for the “Zawinul Syndicate” in 2002. Although this statement should have put an end to a long list of “played with so-and-so”, here are a few more facts: Joris was a permanent member of the Vienna Art Orchestra and the Art Farmer Quintet from 1979 to 1985. After moving to the USA in 1986, he played and recorded with many of the world’s greatest jazz musicians: Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Johnny Griffin, Mullgrew Miller, Clifford Jordan, Joe Lovano, Joe Henderson, Harold Mabern, Ralph Moore, Sonny Fortune and many more. His long-term collaboration with altoist Vincent Herring received 4 stars for the album SOUL CHEMISTRY in the prestigious magazine Downbeat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgBKVdCiyd8

Press Reviews

Vincent Herring’s Something Else among the highlights at North Sea Jazz 2024

By contrast, listening to Vincent Herring’s jazz-funk band "Something Else was like sliding your feet into a comfy pair of slippers at the end of a hard day. Mingus Big Band alumnus Dave Kikoski (piano) shone in the Joe Zawinul role, as did drummer Joris Dudli, drafted in at very short notice Peter Jones, 16. July 2024

The “Joris Dudli Sextet” caused great enthusiasm in the Wirkstatt (Amstetten).

“From the beginning, the formation with the gifted musicians knew how to create an incredibly vibrant atmosphere and maintain it until the end. And all of this always with wonderful tonal balance and an enormous wealth of colors. The individual pieces, including some by the renowned drummer Joris Dudli, were cleverly strung together and the great wealth of mood and contrast created a tremendous event.”                                                      Leopold Kogler, September 16, 2022

Vincent Herring exploded into Ronnie Scotts for the first of a two-night stand at Soho's jazz temple

The set featured two lesser-known Freddie Hubbard gems, Hard Times, a soul classic popularized by Ray Charles and Bayonne Vibe, a refreshing original by the band's drummer, Joris Dudli. In addition to the leader's powerful and blinding alto sax. The highlight for me was Bayonne Vibe a harmonically rich medium funk looper that brought echoes of mid 1970s Herbie Hancock and The Crusaders themes. A stunning arrangement of Hubbard's Suite Sioux with a brief but bracing double time swing section in each chorus. Herring's mastery of fleet fingered runs coupled with his propulsive melodic vocabulary was impressive and engaging indeed. Frank Griffith, London Jazz News 2018

“His chops (Vincent Herring) are as imposing as ever… in his phrasing, the breath between notes, the sly statements and expressive nuance of how he sings through his sax… You can feel his sense of conviction and exhilaration  Jazz Wise

Saxophonist Vincent Herring has long been a featured star guest and he delivers quick-fire lines with an ebullient flare that is all his own. Soul jazz is an invigorating brew of slurred lines, gospel trills and crackle-and-ping drums. Here it was filtered through a modernist repertoire of originals and off-the-beaten-track covers by four musicians who hit their stride during the 1980s resurgence of acoustic modern jazz. But although each musician is steeped in modern jazz tradition — the band’s combined credits are as long as your arm —the lead players are strong characters with original turns of phrase.

Jazz blockbuster in the town hall - Saxophonist Vincent Herring and “Soul Chemistry” inspire

JEVER. A queue from the town hall around half of the church square and a town hall hall crowded with 140 people with jazz in the style of the record label “Blue Note”: The quintet “Soul Chemistry” by alto saxophonist Vincent Herring (New York City) and drummer Joris Dudli (Switzerland ) took the breath away from the enthusiastic listeners, some of whom had traveled from far away. The old town of Jever, which is otherwise deserted in the evenings, showed its magnetic potential on this Wednesday evening. The band, made up of jazz greats from different continents working in partnership with each other, developed a rousing, two-hour potpourri of compositions by all band members and just a few jazz standards. Although they are firmly rooted in the formative music of the 1960s, the “soul chemists” continue to cross boundaries and create something new together. This is the real, rebellious legacy of this music and the core of jazz. A standing ovation full of gratitude concluded an evening whose wonderful music, human spirit and interwoven messages will not soon be forgotten. It was no coincidence that the politically alert Herring presented the anthem of hope “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” as an encore. Hartmut Peters, 2024