RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA: Hero Trio (USA)

Rudresh Mahanthappa – alto saxophone 

Phil Donkin – double bass

Tim Angulo – drums

With nine titles of the best alto saxophonist on the annual lists of DownBeat magazine critic's poll since 2011 and five consecutive Jazz Journalist Association awards (2009–2013), the American alto saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa (Trieste, 1971) is undoubtedly one of the premier voices of contemporary jazz. He grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and was educated at the University of North Texas, at Berkeley in Boston, and at Chicago's DePaul University, then he moved to New York. In the new millennium, he made his way to the top of the jazz Olympus, presenting music between the mainstream and the avant-garde in quartet and duo with pianist Vijay Iyer. He also achieved notable results in researching his Indian roots. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship (2007) and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2013). Since 2016, he has been the director of jazz at Princeton University's music department.

Rudresh Mahanthappa first performed at the 2015 Belgrade Jazz Festival, presenting Bird Calls, an album inspired by the music of Charlie Parker, which three months earlier had won him the triple crown in DownBeat magazine's annual critics' poll - for best album, best alto saxophonist and rising star composer.

The album Hero Trio is his sixteenth recording as leader/co-leader and the first with exclusively other people's compositions, the creators who inspired him the most. He combined the most influential, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, in one track. It also celebrates the jazz saxophone trio format, recreating the music played by Sonny Rollins, Lee Konitz, and Ornette Coleman, who all participated in our event at one point. The program also includes a track by Keith Jarrett, who performed at the first Newport in Belgrade with Miles Davis, as well as songs by Stevie Wonder and Johnny Cash, which Rudresh watched as a child in the Sesame Street TV show.