Among music legends, Nile Rodgers is truly exceptional. He amplifies his legacy as a multiple GRAMMY-winning composer, producer, arranger and guitarist by constantly traversing new musical terrain and successfully expanding the boundaries of popular music. As the co-founder of CHIC and the newly elected Chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Rodgers pioneered a musical language that generated chart-topping hits like “Le Freak,” (the biggest selling single in the history of Atlantic Records!) and sparked the advent of hip-hop with “Good Times.” Nile Rodgers transcends all styles of music across every generation with a body of work that’s garnered him inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.   Read more

This special performance is a coming together of two magnificent Jamaicans and friends who have known each other a very long time to celebrate music and dance at the CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival! Featuring Garth Fagan’s “No Evidence of Failure” performed in two selections from Monty Alexander’s Harlem-Kingston Express Live: “King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown” and “No Woman No Cry”. “No Evidence of Failure “celebrates the variations, changing contours and depth of love possible between two people in a long term, loving & caring relationship. In addition, hear a world premiere by Norwood Pennewell and a selection from Monty Alexander Wareika Hill (Rastamonk Vibrations).   Read more

Spyro Gyra are contemporary jazz icons now observing their 45th year as a band. Spyro Gyra is an unlikely story of a group with humble beginnings in Buffalo, NY that has continued to reach an international audience over 40 years, resulting in sales of over 10 million albums and having played over five thousand shows on five continents. They have accomplished this due to a forward looking approach combined with the work ethic of an underdog, always challenging themselves to do something new while never resting on past success. It has proven to be a recipe for longevity for this jazz group while music has gone in and out of styles in ever shorter cycles.   Read more