Restore Your Soul: George Duke in Concert

January 31, 2008
At
Berklee Performance Center

The Sovereign Bank Music Series at Berklee continues with a man who has made soulful contributions in almost every genre of music: five-time Grammy-winner and synth pioneer George Duke.  Restore Your Soul: George Duke in Concert takes place on Thursday, January 31, at 8:15 p.m., at the Berklee Performance Center(BPC), 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston.  Tickets $30 and $22.50 for seniors, and on sale at the BPC box office, through Ticketmaster 617-931-2000, and at ticketmaster.com.  Call 617-747-2261 or visit berkleebpc.com for more information.  The BPC is wheelchair accessible. 

Starting out in jazz with Jean-Luc Ponty and Cannonball Adderly, he gravitated to r&b, pop, and funk, eventuallyproducing, recording, and performing with Larry Graham, Miles Davis, Shuggie Otis, Michael Jackson, George Clinton, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Zappa, Earth, Wind & Fire, and frequent collaborator Stanley Clarke, among many others.  Production credits include # 1 and Top 10 hits by A Taste of Honey, Jeffrey Osborne, and Deniece Williams.  His 1992 album Snapshot spent five weeks on the jazz chart at # 1.  Younger generations know his music from samples in songs by Daft Punk, Common, and Mylo. 

At Berklee, Duke will perform his own music, selecting from a discography of more than 30 albums, including his latest, In a Mellow Tone.  He’ll also present a history of soul music, covering classic tunes with a stellar band of Berklee faculty musicians and vocalists including Walter Beasley,Terri Lyne Carrington, David Gilmore, Winston Maccow, Ricardo Monzon, George Russell, and Lenny Stallworth; and vocalists Gabrielle Goodman,  Karen Bell, Armsted Christian, Jeannie Gagne, Kudisan Kai, Donna McElroy, and Jeff Ramsey.    

The show is produced by Bill Banfield, and sponsored by Africana Studies/ Black Music Programming as part of the Year in Soul Music Traditions performance and lecture series (berklee.edu/africanastudies).

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