Ambrose Akinmusire: Porter

Twenty years into his professional career, Oakland-reared trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire pays tribute to the heroes of his youth — the legendary Bay Area musicians who mentored and shaped him. “Porter” — named for the late Robert Porter, his first jazz trumpet teacher — is an ambitious new work for 30-piece orchestra and a superb quartet including piano master Gerald Clayton, bassist Marcus Shelby, and the phenomenal Oakland-born drummer Savannah Harris.
As a youth, Akinmusire was taken under the wing of “Mr. Porter,” as he calls him, along with jazz innovators like drummer Donald Bailey, saxophonists Sonny Simmons and Bishop Norman Williams, trumpeter Khalil Shaheed, bassist Herbie Lewis, and pianist Ed Kelly. They became father figures, friends, and musical guides to Akinmusire, who learned the ropes while playing with them. He has since come under the wing of international jazz figures like Wayne Shorter and Jack DeJohnette. But Akinmusire sets his departed Bay Area mentors on equal footing. With “Porter,” he seeks to “activate” them, he says, so that their genius flows anew – straight through his young quartet and out into the SFJAZZ audience.