Sharel Cassity

Review:

This is the hundred and sixth in a series of special Jazz on the Tube reviews of live stream performances.

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Sharel Cassity was classically trained, placed third in the Disney International Piano Concerto Competition at 18 and had a classical saxophone scholarship at North Texas State University but has made her career playing jazz alto-sax.

She graduated from the New School and Juilliard and has worked with the Dizzy Gillespie Latin Experience, Nicholas Payton, Cyrus Chestnut’s Brubeck Quartet, the Jimmy Heath Big Band, Diva (2007-14), Roy Hargrove, Lewis Nash, Joe Chambers, Darcy James Argue and others.

Pianist Richard Johnson grew up in Canfield, Ohio, played trumpet and valve trombone in high school, graduated from Berklee and the Boston Conservatory of Music, and during 2000-03 was a member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

He has also worked with Russell Malone, Delfeayo Marsalis, Bobby Watson, Wayne Shorter, Arturo Sandoval, and as an educator.

Cassity (on alto, tenor and soprano) and Johnson perform a set of inventive duets on their LiveStream from July 16, 2020, alternating jazz standards (including some Thelonious Monk) with originals that fall into the modern mainstream of jazz, pushing themselves while always swinging; they both excel in this format.

– Scott Yanow