KG Omulo, Terri Lyne Carrington & Christian McBride Play the Playboy Jazz Festival

KG Omulo is a singer, songwriter and pioneer of Afro-Urban music. He grew up in Nairobi and listened to “a little bit of everything — I'm talking eastern, western, all the legends that came out of Africa back in the day.” He also listened to Bob Marley and a bit of the Beatles. Singing in both English and Swahili lyrics, Omulo regularly packs American clubs and sells out arenas in his native Kenya.

His music can be darkly ironic when he sings of politics or celebratory and sensual. His solo debut record “Ayah Ye! Moving Train” came out in January and in it he calls on the spirit of Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Omulo will appear at the Playboy Jazz Festival, Sunday, June 17 at the Hollywood Bowl with a band that includes some of Central Florida’s finest brass and string practitioners, who have collectively worked with Sam Rivers, Ray Charles, T-Pain, Mofrot, The Legendary JC’s, Junkie Rush, AM Conspiracy and Shak Nasti.

Grammy-Award winning jazz drummer, composer, record producer and entrepreneur, Terri Lyne Carrington has played with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and many more.

After 20 years of extensive touring with jazz luminaries, she returned to her hometown where she was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Terri Lyne also received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2003. Terri Lyne had studied at Berklee under a full scholarship and then in 1983 moved to New York City where for 5 years she was very much in demand, working with James Moody, Lester Bowie, Pharoah Sanders, and others. In the late ‘80s she relocated to Los Angeles, where she gained recognition working as the house drummer for the Arsenio Hall Show and then again in the late ‘90s as the drummer on the Quincy Jones late night TV show, VIBE, hosted by Sinbad.

The Mosaic Project, released in 2011 was her fifth album overall and features a number of singers including Esperanza Spaulding, Diane Reeves and Cassandra Wilson. It won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Christian McBride is jazz bassist whose father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists. They served as McBride's early mentors. McBride was born in Philadelphia born and at 17 moved to New York City to study classical bass at Julliard. Early on in his studies he was snatched up by alto saxophonist Bobby Watson and went on to play with some of the very best artists in jazz like Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson. Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny to name a few. He has also played with and has arranged for R & B artists including Isaac Hayes, Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan and the ultimate Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown.

In the pop/ rock realm, McBribe collaborated with such great as Sting, Carly Simon and Don Henley and he has also lent his expertise to hip-hop artists such as the Roots and Queen Latifiah. McBride is also a tireless spokesman for music and the arts and was named Artistic Director the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Summer Sessions in 2000 and the co-director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem in 2005. In 2006, he became the “creative chair in jazz” with the L.A Philharmonic, taking over from Diane Reeves. In 1998, McBride composed a four-movement suite called “The Movement, Revisited” dedicated to major figures in the civil rights movement and in 2008 he re-wrote and expanded the suite which was performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Since 2000, McBride has led The Christian McBride Band, which was described by award-winning writer Alan Leeds as “one of the most intoxicating and least predictable bands on the scene today.” His most recent album is “The Good Feeling” released in 2011. The Christian McBride Big Band plays the Playboy Jazz Festival on Saturday, June 16th at the Hollywood Bowl.

GUESTS KG Omulo, singer, songwriter from Kenya. Omulo has lived and worked in the U.S since he was 20. His debut album “Ayah Ye! Moving Train” came out in January, 2012. KG Omulo is appearing at the Playboy Jazz Festival, Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, June 17, between 3:00-11:00 P.M.

Terri Lyne Carrington, jazz drummer, composer, record producer and entrepreneur. In 2011 she released The Mosaic Project, her fifth album overall, which featured a number of singers. It won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Carrington is appearing at the Playboy Jazz Festival, Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, June 17, between 3:00-11:00 P.M.

Christian McBride, Philadelphia born jazz bassist, composer, arrangers, curator and music administrator.