Sat. Nov. 8

 Folks are in high spirits as the annual "Steppin’ Out Gala," a benefit that support's Roxbury's Dimock Center, approaches. What is "Steppin' Out" and what is the Dimock? Ok, first the bash. It's takes place Saturday Nov. 8 and it's an eight-hour R&B/jazz oriented event that takes place at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel. It's staged to mimic Boston's legendary and historic jazz clubs of the '30’s through today, This year it features R&B songstress Lalah Hathaway as the headlining artist. Also: Boston-based smooth jazz saxophonist Andre Ward, R&B/pop star Amel Larrieux, Broadway Dreamgirls star Julia Nixon, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, band leader/tuba player Kendrick Oliver and his 20 piece New Life Orchestra, Jamaican reggae/jazz pianist Monty Alexander, jazz bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding, Columbian harpist Edmar Castaneda, Boston R&B vocalist Wannetta Jackson & Friends, Brazilian batería ensemble Samba Tremeterra, Gospel singer Larry Watson and the local gospel groups Reverend Clarence Powell & Divine Praise, the Harmonizing Stars of Boston, Roxbury’s historic pop/soul vocal group, The G Clefs, Latin titan Eguie Castrillo & His Orchestra, The Berklee City Music Allstars, Talent showcase winner Bill Champitto, Swiss jazz vocalist Gabriela Heer and the smooth jazz Rob Harrow Band. That's a whole lot of music. (Click the "read more" button for more detailed artist info.) Tickets: $200. It starts at 6 p.m. About 3000 people are expected to attend.
Now, what is The Dimock Center? It was originally founded in 1862 as the New England Hospital for Women and Children, The Dimock Center is nationally recognized as a model for the integrated delivery of comprehensive health and human services in an urban community. From its nine-acre campus in Roxbury and satellite locations throughout Boston, The Dimock Center provides vital services and programs to thousands of Boston City residents and families annually. The Center’s programs cover a range of services that include adult & pediatric medicine, eye & dental care, HIV/AIDS services, child & family development, behavioral health, and adult basic education.

Singer Lalah Hathaway is the daughter of Donny Hathaway, one of the most influential soul artists of the eighties, and she has a wonderful new Stax/Concord Records release entitled Self Portrait.  Although she has created a space for herself, it’s not surprising that Hathaway remains connected to her late, great father and his classic sound.   Hathaway has recorded collaborations with Marcus Miller, Meshell Ndegéocello and Mary J. Blige, among others, and she keeps her creativity nourished by taking to the global stage and contributing her voice to Daughters of Soul, a musical mélange founded by comrade, Sandra St. Victor, and featuring Nona Hendryx, Joyce Kennedy as well as Indira and Simone, daughters of Chaka Khan and Nina Simone, respectively. 

Urban chanteuse Amel Larrieux joins the Steppin’ Out celebration this year, holding court in the Young Professionals Club.  Of her 2004 CD, Bravebird, Rolling Stone magazine wrote, “Bravebird sounds like some brilliant rare-groove thing you’d find in a used record store.  Except it’s one of the most-off-the-hook new soul albums in years.”  Larrieux received a coveted Grammy® nomination for her work on Stanley Clarke’s “Where Is The Love.”

Smooth jazz saxophonist André Ward hails from Chicago.  He won a music-performing scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music.  Now based in Boston, he has played internationally and honed his chops in session work for artists such as Freddie Jackson.  After he was signed to Orpheus Music and released his debut solo album, Feelin' You, in October 2001, the title reached number four on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and also appeared on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.  His second album, Steppin' Up, released in March 2004, was similarly successful.

Berklee City Music All Stars is a 12-piece mixed genre band offering funk, reggae, R&B and other related music.  The group is composed of all-star scholarship students from the Boston area who participated in Berklee’s City Music outreach program.  Each of the musicians in this group also eventually received full scholarship to study full time at the college.

Bill Champitto, the winner of this year’s talent competition, is a Boston-based singer, songwriter, pianist, synthesist and Hammond B3 organist who plays and sings soulful, funkified jazz.  His first love is live performance but he has extensive studio experience as well.  His background includes playing rock and blues on the Hammnd B3 organ with a 9-piece band that played the waterfront in Troy, New York.  Bill’s new CD is entitled Water’s Edge.

The New York Times has called Edmar Castaneda, “A jazz harpist of imposing talent.”  Harpist, band leader and composer Edmar Castaneda was born in Bogota, Colombia where he started playing the Colombian harp at the early age of thirteen.  He has a unique style of playing harp.  Combining Latin jazz with traditional Colombian music, Edmar has carved a firm place in the international jazz scene.  A jazz harpist of imposing talent, he transforms the harp into a lead instrument to phenomenal effect.  Producing cross-rhythms like a drummer, smashing choral flourishes like a flamenco guitarist and collating bebop and Colombian music, he is practically a world unto himself.  His style is fascinatingly percussive and he plucks dynamic bass lines almost invisibly while picking out melodies with his right hand.  Now in his late 20s, Edmar moved to the United States in 1994 and was quickly recognized for his unmatched style and sound.

Eguie Castrillo is a high demand percussionist and an authority on the rhythms of the Caribbean countries of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago.  He grew up in the Cupey section of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was profoundly affected by the late great Tito Puente.  "After I saw him playing timbales, I knew what I wanted to be a timbalero."  At 11, he met Giovanni Hidalgo, who Castrillo believes is one of the best conga players anywhere.  The connection helped broaden Castrillo's musical horizons.  "I was lucky to grow up around him," Castrillo says.  "After we met, I started playing conga and bongos and even a little bit of bata drums."  After he moved to Miami, Castrillo spent 4 years in Arturo Sandoval’s band traveling around the world four times with many great musicians including Michael Brecker, Steve Winwood and Cachao Lopez.

Bassist/vocalist/composer Esperanza Spalding is a new star on the horizon with a compelling voice and unmatched virtuosity on the bass.  And she in fact, challenges and expands perceptions of jazz.  Esperanza, her debut on Heads Up International, was released worldwide on May 20, 2008. Armed with uncanny instrumental chops, a siren voice that spans three languages, and composing and arranging skills that weave together the best elements of the old-school with the progressive, this 23-year-old has crafted a debut album that takes a completely fresh and refreshing approach to jazz by incorporating the rich traditions of soul, pop, world music and so much more.

The G-Clefs are a highly flamboyant, well choreographed pop/soul vocal group who have the distinction of having had the first Boston area rock & roll record to chart nationally.  The release was their 1956 hit "Ka Ding Dong."  Consisting of four brothers, Teddy Scott, Chris Scott, guitarist Tim "Payme" Scott, and Ilanga Scott, along with their friend and neighbor Ray Gibson, the band formed in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb similar to New York's Harlem, thirty years before New Edition would bring Maurice Starr and Michael Jonzun's music to the world, The G-Clefs were the original pioneers of New England's music scene.

Gabriela Heer, who is from Lucerne, Switzerland, was on stage for the first time at the age of five with her family’s traditional Swiss yodel group.  She also sang in various choirs with musical palettes ranging from classical to gospel.  Later she appeared in a youth musical known as ‘The Radio Heroes’ and she also sang with an almost-famous funk group!  After a year at London¹s Vocaltech Music College, she started her professional studies in voice at the Music College in Lucerne in 2006.  She performed with groups such as Talking Loud, Soulvirus, Pink Bliss, the electro-urban group known as aromat and the a cappella group not2help.  Gabriela recently moved to Boston where she now has her own jazz duo which features Luzia von Wyl.

Julia Nixon is a new artist to Steppin’ Out and there has never been a better time than now for Boston music fans to discover this former Broadway Dreamgirl and award-winning artist. Her song stylings of authentic rhythm & blues have been her signature mark for more than two decades. An international performer as well as beloved local musical fixture in her adopted hometown of Washington, D.C., Nixon has stepped up to yet another level with the release of her long awaited debut solo album, Keepin’ On Track.

Kendrick Oliver and his New Life Orchestra’s music is inspiring, the band’s performances, captivating.  It is no wonder why audiences from young and old and jazz purists to progressives continue to sing the praises of the 20 young swinging players.  Whether it's the assurance and precision in which they play their instruments, the invigorating pulse of energy present in each performance, or the fact that the average age of the band is barely 28-years-old - "New Life's hard-swinging joy is undeniable . . . they deserve national fame, and lovely vocalist Monica Lynk (of the New Life Jazz Orchestra) is a star in the making.” declared the Boston Herald.

Acclaim and musical opportunities for vocal powerhouse Larry Watson have expanded over the years solely by audience word-of-mouth.  Career highlights include a 1993 Playboy Jazz Festival appearance at the Hollywood bowl with the late, legendary Dorothy Donegan, and a more recent appearance with Al Green and Jean Carne.  He worked closely with Sarah Caldwell on two of her productions and sang the role of one of the Jazz Singers in the Bernstein Mass.  Watson sang on the PBS special, The American Experience: The Fisk Jubilee Singers, performed at The Boston Globe Jazz and Blues Festival, was seen in a Pennsylvania PBS special, Seeing is Believing: Violence and Children, on the Discovery Channel's, Killed By The Klan and in C-SPAN'S coverage of the Saturday School program's Thurgood Marshall Dedication at Harvard Law School with Justice Stephen Breyer and Mrs. Thurgood Marshall.
By grafting the traditions of American jazz to his authentic Jamaican roots, pianist Monty Alexander has spent a lifetime exploring the rich depths of musical and cultural diversity.  In a career that spans more than four decades, he has performed and recorded with artists from every corner of the musical universe: Frank Sinatra, Ray Brown, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Ernest Ranglin, Barbara Hendricks, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare and many more.  Alexander maintains a busy schedule playing in the U.S. and worldwide, in venues ranging from jazz clubs to concert halls.  His career has included performances in Paris, Vienna, Bern, and Monte Carlo; and at jazz festivals from South Africa to Montreux Switzerland, and Australia.  His musical collaborations span multiple genres and styles.  Such projects have been as varied as assisting Natalie Cole in her tribute album to her father, Nat "King" Cole in 1991 (that album, Unforgettable, won seven Grammy® awards), performing George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue under the direction of Bobby McFerrin at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and recording the piano track for the film score of Clint Eastwood’s “Bird,” a movie about the life of jazz great Charlie Parker.
Rev. Clarence Powell and Divine Praise have been singing the praise of God together for the past 10 years. Born and raised in the church, Rev. Powell began singing at the age of 4 years old.  Clarence Powell is more than just a great singer.  He's also a dreamer, and a man with the patience, faith and love of his Lord and his work to make those dreams come true.  The title of his Axiom Records debut is Made It After All.  Backed by a tight five-piece band led by Marshall Quarels, and a 12-voice choir, Clarence is given the chance to truly soar, and soar he does.  Divine Praise is a compilation of talented and gifted singers from his church, New Life Restoration Temple and other local ministries in the city who profess Christ and live out the message of His glorious gospel through their lives and His music.

Born in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, Rob Harrow is a self-taught musician who has been playing the saxophone for nearly two decades. Rob's musical journey began when as a young man while on his paper route he found a Cannonball Adderly record someone was throwing away.  By his early teens Rob was playing the trumpet in various bands but later switched to playing the alto, soprano and tenor saxophones. Rob's musical influences are from a wide range of artists such as: Grover Washington Jr., Najee, Walter Beasley, Gerald Albright, Courney Pine, Miles Davis, Kirk Whalum, Art Porter and Sonny Rollins.  This year, this Boston based composer and arranger's dream became a reality with the release of his debut album It's In Your Hands.  An RWM Production, this smooth jazz album has a bit of reggae and R&B thrown in with a gospel twist!

Samba Tremeterra is an authentic and wildly entertaining Brazilian samba troupe that presents an exhilarating rhythmic experience with its male drummers and beautiful female dancers in sequins and feathers!  Deraldo Ferreira, founder and director of the Brazilian Cultural Center of New England, is also the founder and leader of the Samba Tremeterra batería.  For the past 20 years, he has run the Brazilian Cultural Center while teaching capoeira at the center and at local schools and colleges.  Additionally, he continues to be committed to his lifelong love of music.  Deraldo has been a drummer since early childhood, and has taught samba drumming since the mid 1990s.

Drummer, composer, producer and clinician Terri Lyne Carrington, has had an extensive touring career for more than 20 years, with luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Al Jarreau, Stan Getz, David Sanborn, Joe Sample, Cassandra Wilson, Clark Terry, Dianne Reeves and many others.  She recently came back to her hometown of Boston where she was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music.  She also received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2003.  In 1989, Carrington released a Grammy® nominated debut CD entitled Real Life Story, which featured Carlos Santana, Grover Washington Jr., Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Patrice Rushen, Gerald Albright, John Scofield, Robert Irving III, Greg Osby, Don Alias and Hiram Bullock.  At Steppin’ Out, her new spirited quintet will feature Aruan Ortiz on piano, Tim Miller on guitar, Alex Han on sax and Hogyu Hwan on bass.

An accomplished Boston-based artist, singer Wannetta Jackson thrills audiences with her renditions of well known rhythm and blues, jazz and popular songs.  Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wannetta started singing with her church choir at the age of 5, and by the age of 14, she was performing with a 40 member professional group. 

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