Valery Ponomarev Big Band July 8, 2008

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Mr. Ponomarev worked with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers for 4 years. With the Messengers, performed at major concert halls, clubs, and festivals all over the world, recorded eleven record albums. Also made numerous television appearances with the Messengers in Europe, Japan, and Brazil. In the United States has made television appearances on "To Tell The Truth", on PBS network, National Geographic Today and on CNN.

Clifford Brown Memorial Concert, Wilmington, Delaware, 1991: featuring the music of the legendary Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quintet with Max Roach (leader) on drums, Harold Land, tenor sax, George Morrow, bass, Sam Dockery, piano, and Valery Ponomarev, trumpet.

First time Mr. Ponomarev returned to Russia in 1990 after a 17 year absence to participate in the First International Jazz Festival in Moscow along with many of the world's greatest jazz superstars. Since then Mr. Ponomarev regularly travels to Russia with American musicians, Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Bobbie Watson, James Sid Simmons, Bradford Leali, Vincent Lewis, Byron & Robert Landham, Sean McGloin, Evelyn Blakey, joining local stars for concerts and tours of the major cities in Siberia, Moscow and St Petersburg.
As a solo artist, Mr. Ponomarev has completed two tours of Australia, China and numerous European tours, including a special tour with Harold Land featuring the music of Clifford Brown. He was also featured as a European superstar at the Charlie Parker in Paris Festival.

Valery has also played concerts with Benny Golson, featuring Mr. Golson's music.

Mr. Ponomarev is a current member of the memorial Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers band led by Mr. Golson.

Mr. Ponomarev is frequently heard as a sideman in live performances and recordings.

Featured in the movie "Frozen In Amber" a documentary about the contributions of Russian ex-patriots to art and the performing arts in the USA.
Messenger from Russia a documentary by independent producer Jason Scadron about Valery Ponomarevs life was aired on the National Geographic Today channel for the first time in March 2002 and most recently in January 30th & 31st 2003.

Included in many publications including: Oxford University Press, the Grove Encyclopedia of Music, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD by Richard Cook & Brian Morton, All Music Guide to Jazz, Hard Bop Academy by Alan Goldsher, Top Brass by Bob Bernotas, Trumpet Kings by Scott Yanow and many other.

AS A LEADER

Valery Ponomarev's group Universal Language performs in concerts, festivals, clubs, schools, and colleges. Valery's most recent recording, The Messenger, featuring Jimmy Cobb, drums; Martin Zenker, bass, James Sid Simmons, piano, Michael Karn, tenor sax, Valery Ponomarev - trumpet, was released on Reservoir Music Records in 2001 (RSR CD 166).
A Star For You, featuring Bob Berg, tenor sax; James Sid Simmons, piano; Ken Walker, bass; and Billy Hart, drums, was released on Reservoir Music in late 1997 [RSR CD 150].
The group's previous CD [vj006] was recorded live in Denver with Valery (trumpet), Francesco Bearsetti on tenor sax; Sid Simmons, piano; Kenny Walker, bass; Ben Riley, drums.
Universal Language has another four releases on the Reservoir record label:
A live recording at Sweet Basil's in NYC, recorded in July of 1993, Live At Sweet Basil's [Reservoir RSR CD 131] features Valery on trumpet and his quintet Universal Language: Victor Jones (drums), Peter Washington (bass), John Hicks (piano), Don Braden (tenor sax).
Profile [RSR CD 120] (December 1991) features Valery, Victor Jones (drums), Essiet Okun Essiet (bass), Kenny Barron (piano), and Joe Henderson (tenor sax).
Trip To Moscow (December 1988) [RSR CD 107], features Valery and Ralph Moore, with Larry Willis (piano), Dennis Irwin (bass), and Victor Jones (drums).
The group's first recording, Means of Identification was released in April 1987 [RSR CD 101], featuring Valery, Ralph Moore (tenor sax), Hideki Takao (piano), Dennis Irwin (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums).

AS A SIDEMAN

Worked in clubs, tours, festivals, and concerts with: Joe Morello quintet, Frank Foster concert band, Joe Farrell, Pepper Adams quintet, Paquito D'Rivera, Jack Mcduff, Harold Land, Lou Donaldson, Walter Bishop, Charles Mingus "Epitaph", Lionel Hampton orchestra (solo chair), Mercer Ellington orchestra, Paul Ellington orchestra, Warne Marsh, and the Lee Konitz nonet to name a few.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Panelist at International Jazz Educators Convention in New York, 1998, along with
Wayne Shorter, Arturo Sandoval, Cassandra Wilson: "Jazz Around The World."

Teaching and lecturing (Master Classes in improvisation, ensembles, performance, jazz theory and history):

Annual Summer Workshop at the Vermont Jazz Center, Putney, Vermont.

Conservatory of Groningen, Holland.

New Jersey Center for Performing Arts

The New School, New York City. L.I. University, New York City.

Taught at:

International Art of Jazz, Inc., 5 Saywood Lane, Stony Brook, NY 11790

Festival of Music, Inc., Jazz program, 80 Westervelt Avenue, Tenafly, NJ 07670.

Private instruction, clinics and lectures.



COMPOSITIONS

Mr. Ponomarev has written over 20 compositions which have been recorded. His compositions Envoy, Dialogue, and Take Care (from "Means of Identification") are published in combo format, available from Second Floor Music, 130 West 28th Street, New York, NY 10001.

EDUCATION

Moscow Art School.
Moscow Music College.
Bachelor of Arts, State University of New York, Empire State College.
Completed Don Sebesky's advanced composing & arranging course.

Mr. Ponomarev fluently speaks Russian and English.
He also speaks good Italian.

Valery Ponomarevs book, On The Flip Side Of Sound was written both in English and Russian. It was published by "AGRAF" publishing house and came out in Moscow, Russia in January 2003.
Its being prepared for publication in English language in America.

COMMENTS IN THE PRESS

Consider Valery Ponomarev, the Russian migr trumpeter who immediately preceded Wynton Marsalis in the Jazz Messengers. Abandoning the land of giant steppes for the Harvard of hard bop should have made Ponomarev something of a celebrity . . .. [On Trip To Moscow] Ponomarev is writing relaxed lines with inviting twists that are straight out of the Blakey/Silver axis. He is also blowing with a wide, cozy sound and ideas that . . . never outstrip his technique."
The Boston Phoenix

. . . a major new soloist . . . from the Soviet Union. Listening to Valery Ponomarev on a blindfold-test basis, you could not possibly distinguish him from one of the more inspired and authentic of America's great black trumpeters in the driving, hard-bop jazz genre that is his chosen idiom." Leonard Feather, Los Angeles Times

. . . he's the most biting trumpet player Art Blakey has had since Lee Morgan."
Tim Price, Reading, PA News

"But the most provocative soloist in the group is Valery Ponomarev, a Russian trumpeter who combines bristling attack with dazzling execution and a very neat, compact, controlled development of his solos."
John S. Wilson, The New York Times

"The star of the show is the amazing Ponomarev, With a gritty yet clean sound a neo-bop style, the trumpeter suggests the approach of his idol, the immortal Clifford Brown."
Chuck Berg, Lawrence Journal-World

"Ponomarev is a force to be respected . . . his musicianship, long evident as a trumpeter, extends to composition and arranging as well."
Stuart Troup, Newsday

"On the ballad I Remember Clifford, Ponomarev adds both guts and a sense of grandeur to the classic melody, stretching out long languid lines, then spewing tongue-twisting notes and shaping them into graceful phrases."
Stephen Israel, The Times Herald Record

. . . an outstanding young trumpeter . . . who has mastered a classically straight-ahead, Clifford Brown-inspired style distinguished as much by the pin-point accuracy and logic of his ideas as by its unwavering beat."
Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle

"And Valery moves all over the music with a multitude of cadenzas each more brilliant." Nighthawk,
The Gazette, Montreal

"Ponomarev plays powerfully, with a staccato brilliance and burnished tone modeled upon his trumpet heroes-Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, and Fats Navarro."
Hollie I. West, The Washington Post

"Russia's contribution to the jazz world is an unassuming chap named Valery Ponomarev who blows trumpet like a man possessed and who can write with the best of them."
Maria Klemen, Aquarian

"Ponomarev is a fine, bright-toned trumpeter of considerable ability whose misfortune was to be succeeded in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers by the younger son of Ellis Marsalis. As a result, Valery's subsequent activities have attracted less attention than they might have deserved. A symptom of this is that it has taken so long for his band, Universal Language, to make this, its recording debut [on 'Means Of Identification']."
Chris Sheridan

"Ponomarev's bristling originals have a jaunty martial kick . . . ["Means Of Identification" is] an exhilarating hard-bop outing."
George Kanzler, The Newark Star-Ledger

"Ponomarev is now a solid hard bopper and he more that holds his own in the stalwart company of Henderson, Barron and the rhythm section. His tone is crisp, clean and has a welcome coating of mellow smoothness on slow numbers. His inventive phrases and bright, melodic attack mark him out as an original trumpet stylist . . . Ponomarev's glowing choruses on Time make this the jewel in the album's crown, although the entire CD is full of bristling, biting mainstream jazz."
Derek Ansell, Jazz Times

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