WAYNESBORO — Buttonwood Nature Center presents its 33rd annual Jazz Festival on from 5 to 7 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 25, at The Wharf, a park-like property at 10141 Wharf Road.
The concert is offered free to the public. Rain location is Waynesboro Area Middle School.
Re-named the Buttonwood Jazz Festival, the concert features 2024 Grammy Award-winner Nicole Zuraitis (vocals), Don Braden (saxophone and flute), Dan Pugach (drums) and Luques Curtis (bass). Returning this year is perennial favorite, Paul Bollenback (guitar).
Zuraitis is a New York-based bandleader, jazz singer-songwriter, pianist and arranger. She won the 2024 Grammy Award for best vocal jazz album for “How Love Begins,” co-produced with eight-time Grammy-winner Christian McBride; the album features all original music. In 2021, Zuraitis won the prestigious American Traditions Vocal Competition gold medal, and in 2019, her arrangement of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene, “co-written with drummer Dan Pugach, was nominated for a Grammy.
As a recording artist, Zuraitis has released six albums as leader. Besides leading her quartet, she is the premier vocalist for the Birdland Big Band and frequently headlines NYC jazz clubs like Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center, Birdland, the Blue Note, the Carlyle and 54 Below. Zuraitis has appeared as a featured soloist with the Savannah Philharmonic, Asheville Symphony and Macon Pops and has supported iconic singers like Melanie, Morgan James, Darren Criss and Livingston Taylor on piano and vocals.
Zuraitis has collaborated with an extensive list of renowned artists, including Christian McBride, David Cook, Gilad Hekselman, Veronica Swift, Benny Benack, Stephen Feifke, Cyrille Aimee, Antonio Sanchez, Dave Stryker, Omar Hakim, Rachel Z, Helen Sung and Bernard Purdie. She is also an educator and current vocal faculty member at NYU, SUNY Purchase and the Litchfield Jazz Camp.
Don Braden is a world-class saxophonist, flutist, composer and educator whose jazz career has spanned more than 40 years. He has toured the world with jazz greats Betty Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Haynes, Herbie Hancock and the Hancock Institute, among many others, and has performed in venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, Saturday Night Live, Harvard University (where he studied engineering as an undergrad), and countless jazz festivals and clubs. He has played on more than 100 CDs as a sideman and has produced 24 as a leader, the most recent being his critically-acclaimed “Earth Wind and Wonder” Volume 2, and “In the Spirit of Herbie Hancock & Chemistry,” both co-led with bassist Joris Teepe.
Paul Bollenback started his music career in 1981 and has performed as a sideman with a wide range of jazz luminaries, including artists as diverse as Stanley Turrentine, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Steve Gadd, Gary Bartz, David “Fathead” Newman, Terri-Lyne Carrington, Joe Locke, Jack McDuff, James Moody, Jim Snidero, Charlie Byrd, Herb Ellis, Paul Bley, Geoffrey Keezer, Mike LeDonne, Carol Sloane, Gary Thomas, Grady Tate and in the group East Meets Jazz with the renowned tabla virtuoso Sandip Burman, to name a few.
He is known for his versatility and for an influential 20-year stint with jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco. Bollenback has performed on more than 100 recordings as a sideman, and has released eight CDs as a leader. And since the late ‘90s he also has been involved in jazz education duties at Columbia University, Queens College and The New School.
Drummer Dan Pugach is a Grammy Award–nominated drummer and composer, a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Jazz Composer Award, a winner of the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission as part of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop and a Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program participant at the Kennedy Center (where he worked with Curtis Fuller, Nathan Davis and George Cables). He was the featured drummer on the 2024 Grammy Award–winning album “How Love Begins,” co-produced by Zuraitis and Christian McBride.
Luques Curtis (bass) was formally trained on piano and percussion before learning to play the bass. He studied at the Greater Hartford Academy of Performing Arts, Artist Collective and Guakia with Dave Santoro, Volcan Orham, Nat Reeves, Paul Brown and others. While still in high school, he also studied the Afro-Caribbean genre with bass greats Andy Gonzalez and Joe Santiago. Curtis earned a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied with John Lockwood and Ron Mahdi. He also worked with Gary Burton, Ralph Peterson, Donald Harrison, Christian Scott and Francisco Mela. Curtis has performed worldwide with Eddie Palmieri, Stefon Harris, Ralph Peterson, Christian Scott, Sean Jones, Orrin Evans, Christian Sands and others. With his brother, Zaccai, he co-owns a record label and has five releases under “Curtis Brothers.” As a sideman, Curtis has participated in over 100 recordings.
Launched in 1992 and presented every year since, the Buttonwood Jazz Festival was previously held at Renfrew Park and has featured a long list of jazz legends, including David “Fathead” Newman, Randy Brecker, Bud Shank, Houston Person, Gary Bartz, Karrin Allison, Lew Tabackin, Joey DeFranceso, Arturo O’Farrill, Big Chief Donald Harrison, Frank Morgan, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Rene Marie, Vincent Herring, Ingrid Jensen, Eric Alexander, Joe Locke, Steve Wilson and Paul Bollenback. In 2020, when live audience capacity was limited, the concert was live streamed around the world.
Roll Time food truck will be on site and BYOB is permitted. Free parking is available on the property. Those attending are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets, and picnics are welcome. Cold water will be provided for all attendees.
Underwriting support for this event is by premier sponsor, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Further sponsors include RentInWaynesboro.com, Hamilton Family Foundation on behalf of Hamilton Nissan, Beverly McFarland, in memory of Tom McFarland, and Franklin County Visitors Bureau.
Additional support comes from Buttonwood’s Today’s Horizon Fund contributors: The Nora Roberts Foundation, Marge Kiersz and the family of the late Carolyn Terry Eddy, including daughters, Connie Fleagle and Kim Larkin. Facility support is provided courtesy of Jeff and Nancy Mace.
