American jazz musician Joey DeFrancesco is one of few true Hammond B-3 virtuosos. His tenth consecutive release for the High Note, the album Wonderful! Wonderful!, has come out in June this year.
The new album was recorded in a trio setting, with guitar hero Larry Coryell and legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb. The album has eight songs, among which Duke Ellington’s Solitude, Wonderful! Wonderful! by pop singer Johnny Mathis, Benny Golson’s Five Spot After Dark, as well as the standards Love Letters and Old Folks.
Virtuoso technique and natural passion for playing characterize this artist, who is very appreciated by fellow musicians for revitalizing the role of the jazz organ since it almost disappeared after the golden decades of the 1960′s and 1970′s.
For ten years in a row, he has been the winner of Down Beat magazine’s readers’ and critics’ poll for best organist. He was twice nominated for the Grammy: in 2004 for the album Falling in Love and in 2010 for Never Can Say Goodbye.
He took his first serious musical steps in the late 1980′s as a 17-year old on tour with Miles Davis. Today he also performs as a trumpeter and vocalist.
He is a member of the Miles Smiles ensemble with former Miles associates: guitarist Larry Coryell, trumpeter Wallace Roney, saxophonist Rick Margitza, bassist Darryl Jones and drummer Omar Hakim, all of whom he will perform with at the Jazz Fest on 1 November.