University of Akron jazz co-director Chris Coles and the other jazz cats on faculty at UA will perform his “Nine Lives” project as headliners at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival Saturday.
The project was created as a multimedia tribute to the victims of the 2015 mass church shooting in Charleston, S.C., where a white supremacist killed nine Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church. “Nine Lives,” which involves jazz, dance and animation, reflects on social justice, racial inequality and gun violence.
The work, which premiered in 2019, originally was funded by a 2017 Knight Arts Akron Challenge Grant as well as grants from the GAR Foundation and Cleveland Foundation.
Now, it will be performed featuring trumpeter Sean Jones, the new 2024-25 visiting artist in residence for UA’s jazz program, at 10 p.m. Saturday at Pittsburgh’s August Wilson Cultural Center, 980 Liberty Ave. Jones also produced the “Nine Lives” studio recording.
“Nine Lives” band members will be new UA jazz faculty member Zaire Darden, drums; Jordan McBride, bass; UA jazz program co-director Theron Brown, piano; Patrick Graney, percussion; Chris Anderson, trombone; Tommy Lehman, trumpet; Nathan-Paul Davis, alto sax; and Coles, tenor sax/bandleader/composer.