At the Hatch Shell
Sunday, June 22
3 p.m. rain or shine
FREE

Soulful Strut -
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Joy is the message; music is the medium; and Grover Washington, Jr. is the undisputed master.

For some twenty-five years, Grover Washington has been among the most beloved instrumentalists in popular music. No saxophonist has managed to maintain the middle ground between jazz and rhythm-and-blues with greater style or grace. Ever since Washington stepped into the national spotlight in 1971 with his remarkable reading of Marvin Gaye's Inner City Blues, the saxophonist has been in the vanguard of popular sound.

Coming after All My Tomorrows, Washington's extravagantly praised venture into straight-ahead jazz form 1994, Soulful Strut is a surprise and a delight, a welcome return to the territory Washington pioneered, that fertile ground where lush melodies meet infectious rhythms.

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Bordertown introduces another theme that resonates throughout Soulful Strut. Washington's sense of place, a concept embracing both the local and universal. "We all live on the fringe," he explains. "We all live within the borders. That Bordertown might be Philly on the river, or it might be Camden across the river. The Bordertown might be Africa. The idea is that we're all on a precarious edge - the edge of creativity or chaos, the edge of danger or discovery."

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