(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Following up on his August tribute to R&B legend Junior Walker, jazz legend Don Byron brings his group of musician friends back to Club Helsinki Hudson for an encore performance featuring the music of Walker, Ray Charles, and other soul, funk and jazz artists, on Saturday, November 28, at 9pm.

Joining Byron is an all-star cast of New York City and Woodstock-based musical talent, including vocalist Dean Bowman, keyboardist Pete Levin, bassist Scott Petito, guitarist Matt Finck, and superstar drummer Zachary Alford, known for his work with David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, the B-52s, and Simi Stone.

Recording as Junior Walker & the All Stars, saxophonist Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr. led one of Motown’s signature acts in the mid-1960s, when the label still recorded gritty, funky R&B music like Walker’s Louis Jordan- and Illinois Jacquet-influenced gutbucket jump blues. Junior Walker & the All Stars’ best known hits were “Shotgun,” the oft-covered “(I’m a) Roadrunner,” (Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton, Jerry Garcia Band, James Taylor), “What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)” and “Pucker Up Buttercup.” Walker’s saxophone can also be heard on Foreigner’s 1981 hit single, “Urgent.”

The musically omnivorous Don Byron recorded “Do the Boomerang: The Music of Junior Walker” in 2006. Though rooted in jazz, Byron’s music is stylistically eclectic. He has worked in many different musical genres, ranging from klezmer and Yiddish novelty (Byron was a charter member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, with whom he performed for eight years) to German lieder, Afro-Cuban, Raymond Scott’s “cartoon jazz,” hard rock/metal, and rap. Byron primarily plays clarinet, but has also used bass clarinet and saxophones.

A member of the Black Rock Coalition, Byron has recorded with the late Allen Toussaint, Marc Ribot, Vernon Reid, Bill Frisell, Cassandra Wilson, Bobby Previte, and others. His compositional work has garnered him the Rome Prize Fellowship awarded by the American Academy in Rome in 2009, and he has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in composition several times.

 

For reservations in The Restaurant or in the club call 518.828.4800.

 

Club Helsinki Hudson
405 Columbia St.
Hudson, N.Y.
info@helsinkihudson.com
helsinkihudson.com
518.828.4800