It’s no wonder that multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson, who plays and collects rare and unusual gear (the theremin, the sarrusaphone, the octavin, the bass marimba, the seven-foot contrabass sax), performs in a white lab coat, and releases records with futuristic sci-fi covers on his “ScienSonic Laboratories” label, is known as the “Mad Scientist of Jazz.” But for all his otherworldliness, he is also, as his 2019 record Tenormore reminded us, one of the most accomplished tenor saxophonists on the planet. (JazzTimes magazine deemed that album the best new release of the year, and Robinson once took second place, behind Sonny Rollins, in a DownBeat critics’ poll. The tenor, he says, is his “home base.”) Over the course of a long career, Robinson has played or recorded with everyone from Lionel Hampton to the Sun Ra Arkestra. And even if, as befits a sound scientist, he loves to experiment, he also “still love[s] to play beautiful melodies, old tunes, ballads. I never want to be so far out that I can’t play ‘Stardust.’”
The son of a piano teacher and a National Geographic book editor (and jazz record collector), Robinson grew up in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in Virginia. As a high-schooler, he won the Louis Armstrong and Best Soloist awards from the National Association of Jazz Educators. And no sooner had he graduated from the Berklee College of Music than he immediately joined its staff, becoming the college’s youngest faculty member at age 22.
Forty years later there are more than 275 recordings in Robinson’s discography, including four Grammy winners and twenty discs as a leader. He’s been awarded multiple National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and in 2001 he served as a US State Department “Jazz Ambassador,” touring Africa while playing the early work of Louis Armstrong. (A master of almost every reed instrument known to humanity, Robinson is also a crack trumpeter.)
The Scott Robinson Quartet has been performing a mix of original music and distinctive interpretations of standards for roughly seven years now. Robinson was heard here in Arcata as a member of Ryan Keberle’s Catharsis in 2018, while pianist Helen Sung led her own quartet in 2016, and Martin Wind’s most recent appearance was with longtime collaborator Matt Wilson in 2017. Dennis Mackrel was the last drummer of the Count Basie Orchestra to be personally hired by Basie himself; since then he has filled the drum chair for countless other legends, from Hank Jones to McCoy Tyner to Carla Bley to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Before the pandemic he served as chief conductor of the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
In-person tickets are $20 General Admission and $15 Students and Seniors. (Livestream tickets are $10, and livestream ticket-buyers will be emailed a private YouTube link the day of the show.) PLEASE NOTE: Advance Tickets are required for in-person admission to this show. The Arcata Playhouse will also adhere to strict protocols: no ticket holder will be admitted without a securely fitting mask and proof of up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination, and the venue will be limited to partial capacity (100 people).
Sponsors
Our return to live, in-person performances is happening above all because of the steadfast support of RJA members and sponsors past and present, and because of the creativity and determination of our venue partner, the Arcata Playhouse. Special thanks to Bug Press and to Jane Crosbie, Bob & Amy Doran, and Karole Ely.