Hess and Sabatella will perform a free CD-release concert on Saturday, February 2, at St. Cajetan's on the Auraria campus, with bassist Ken Walker, drummer Tim Sullivan and trumpeter Ron Miles (whose 2002 CD with guitarist Bill Frisell, Heaven, earned top honors from dozens of national jazz critics).
In 2000, Hess won the prestigious Julius Hemphill Award for Jazz Composition, and he continues to draw from a wide range of idioms. "I feel that the 21st-century player can use the entire history of jazz as his primer," he says, "...from Louis Armstrong through and past the post-modern Knitting Factory players."