Dominick Farinacci Band - FREE SHOW!!

March 30, 2010

DOMINICK FARINACCI (trumpet) DAN KAUFMAN (piano) HAMILTON PRICE (bass) KEVIN KANNER (drums)

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Dominick Farinacci, a 25-year-old graduate of The Juilliard School, will release his highly anticipated debut U.S. album, Lovers, Tales & Dances, on February 24th, 2009 on E1 Music.  The album features some of the greatest players in jazz, including Kenny Barron, James Genus, Marc Johnson, Lewis Nash, Jamey Haddad, Joe Lovano, and Joe Locke. The record also features guest vocalist Hilary Kole, and orchestral arrangements by Rich DeRosa.  Lovers, Tales & Dances was produced by the legendary Russ Titelman.

Dominick has won various awards over the years in the United States and in Japan.  Having previously recorded six albums as a leader on Japan's M&I label, he received Gold Disc awards for two of those recordings from Swing Journal Magazine: Say It and Besame Mucho.  In 2003 he received the International New Star Award in Japan, an honor previously awarded to Diana Krall and Christian McBride. Many of his Japanese releases have placed #1 on the Swing Journal Jazz Charts.  In the United States, Dominick was the recipient of the ITG Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition in 2003. Over the years he has performed and/or recorded with many high-profile jazz artists such as Joe Lovano, Wynton Marsalis, Ira Sullivan, Mulgrew Miller, Carl Allen, Jason Miles, and Joe LaBarbera.

Dominick is from Cleveland, Ohio, and began playing trumpet in sixth grade at age eleven.  When asked why he picked the trumpet to play, Dominick said, “I really wanted to play drums like my uncle, who was a professional drummer in Cleveland.  So my aunt bought me a set of drums and my uncle assembled them for me, but I failed the drum auditions for the band!  And the director said he really needed trumpet players, and asked if I would give that instrument a try.”  Shortly after he began playing trumpet, Dominick started to listen to many trumpet players, including Louis Armstrong and Harry James.  “I remember hearing a recording of Louis Armstrong playing A Kiss to Build a Dream On and wanting to sound just like him.  Harry James’ You Made Me Love You had a similar effect on me, so I learned their interpretations by ear, and tried to make my sound like their sound.”

He joined a Saturday music program at Tri-C Community College in Cleveland, which taught him more about playing in big bands, small groups, improvisation, and music theory.  He put a band together with some of his friends and mentors in Cleveland and began dropping off demo recordings to local club owners.  By eighth grade he had a few steady gigs around town with his own band, and listeners soon became aware of his abilities.  “Playing gigs around town allowed me to start hanging out with many of the older musicians—some of whom were my teachers in the Saturday program—and they started to see that I was really serious about playing.”

Soon, Dominick was working five to six nights a week in the local jazz clubs with his own group, and as a sideman with some of the older musicians in town.  As word spread of his talent, he auditioned for the High School Grammy Awards All-Star Big Band in California, and was accepted.  Here he met other young musicians from around the country who had similar musical passions, and had an opportunity to play at the Grammy Awards After-party.  He was selected to participate in this prestigious band for three consecutive years.  He also attended the Berklee College of Music Summer Jazz Program, and was offered a full-tuition scholarship to attend Berklee after he graduated from high school.  At age 16 he received the prestigious Yamaha Young Performing Artist Award, which provided him an opportunity to play a solo piece at the University of Illinois for a crowd of more than 2,000 people.  He was also selected to perform with the Monterey High School All-star Big Band on a summer tour throughout Japan in 1999.

At 17, Dominick performed at the Tri-C Jazzfest in Cleveland, opening for Wynton Marsalis and his big band.  Wynton was informed by one of his band members about Dominick’s playing, and he invited Dominick backstage to play for him after his concert.  Wynton was very supportive of Dominick, and a few months later, invited him to New York to perform as a special guest with him on a live PBS broadcast, Live From Lincoln Center: A Tribute to Louis Armstrong.  It was during this time that Dominick heard about a brand new jazz program that was being initiated at The Juilliard School.  He auditioned for the program and was accepted on a full four year scholarship, and was one of only eighteen musicians selected worldwide to be in the inaugural class of the Juilliard Jazz Program.

In September 2001, Dominick moved to New York to attend Juilliard.  Within the first two months of school, Wynton invited Dominick to be featured in a concert at Lincoln Center; a tribute to two of his favorite trumpet players, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan: Night of the Cookers.  Here Dominick met the producer of the event, Todd Barkan, who really loved his playing.  In March 2002, Dominick received a phone call from Todd with an offer to record as a leader for the Japanese label, M&I Records.  In April 2002 he recorded his debut record for Japan, Manhattan Dreams, which featured pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Chip Jackson, and drummer Joe Farnsworth…and he would go on to record a total of six records for M&I.  So, by the time he graduated from Juilliard, he had received the two aforementioned Gold Disc Awards, the International New Star Award, had won first place in the ITG Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition, and had traveled to Japan to promote his records eight separate times.

Upon graduating from Juilliard, Dominick signed with The Jazz Tree, a well-known management company in New York City whose roster of past clients over the years has included Diana Krall, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Freddie Hubbard and J.J. Johnson, among distinguished others.  In 2006 Dominick was featured at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. on Dee Dee Bridgewater’s JazzSet for NPR, as well as at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival.  He was a member of Miles to Miles, a band led by Jason Miles, and was featured on various recordings Jason produced: What’s Going On: A Tribute to Marvin Gaye, and 2 Grover With Love: a Tribute to Grover Washington Jr.  He also performed and recorded with saxophonist Joe Lovano in 2007.  In 2008 Dominick debuted his own band at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the Detroit International Jazz Festival, and the Tri-C JazzFest.  He toured Korea and Japan with a Juilliard faculty and alumni quintet, and signed his first major USA recording contract with E1 Music.

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