21 Blue at Arts Garage

Blues for the 21st century, 21 Blue, featuring Longineu Parsons & Ted Shumate, will take you from Louis Armstrong to Howlin’ Wolf to Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix and beyond.

This music is simultaneously a reduction of jazz, an expansion of blues, a blistering foray into funk, and a flirtation with jam-band rock. It is a synthesis of styles and a palate for improvisation that seamlessly strips away formal categories and takes dead aim at the heart of American music.

Longineu Parsons and Ted Shumate are accomplished jazz musicians, with highly evolved technique and star-studded resumes. They share a mastery of such diverse styles ad bop, Latin jazz, fusion, free jazz, and even contemporary classical music. Both are distinguished educators as well, Parsons at Florida A&M University and Shumate at Gulf Coast Community College. The journey that awaits you is the completion of a circle that began when they re-met at the funeral of another such explorer and the catalyst of this project, Nat Adderley....

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Blues for the 21st century, 21 Blue, featuring Longineu Parsons & Ted Shumate, will take you from Louis Armstrong to Howlin’ Wolf to Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix and beyond.

This music is simultaneously a reduction of jazz, an expansion of blues, a blistering foray into funk, and a flirtation with jam-band rock. It is a synthesis of styles and a palate for improvisation that seamlessly strips away formal categories and takes dead aim at the heart of American music.

Longineu Parsons and Ted Shumate are accomplished jazz musicians, with highly evolved technique and star-studded resumes. They share a mastery of such diverse styles ad bop, Latin jazz, fusion, free jazz, and even contemporary classical music. Both are distinguished educators as well, Parsons at Florida A&M University and Shumate at Gulf Coast Community College. The journey that awaits you is the completion of a circle that began when they re-met at the funeral of another such explorer and the catalyst of this project, Nat Adderley.
Longineu Parsons has been hailed by critics?internationally as being one of the world’s finest trumpet players.?He also performs on recorders, flute, percussion and is a vocalist.?Longineu performs classical and jazz on trumpet and his?compositions include orchestral works and chamber music as well?as jazz and world music.

Guitarist, composer, and recording artist Ted Shumate was born in Meridian, Mississippi. His earliest musical experiences were the gospel music of the Southern Baptist Church and native Delta Blues. At the age of four, his family moved to the musically rich state of Florida. The great migration of Cubans, South Americans, and other Caribbean nationals in the early 60s brought a wide variety of experiences to the young musician to absorb, and would later help shape his musical personality.

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