Dubbed “a pioneering force in contemporary jazz,” Stefon Harris and Blackout are excited to return to Iowa City to headline the 34th annual Iowa City Jazz Festival.
Harris, a New Jersey-based vibraphonist, is a musician, educator, app developer, and thought leader.
Like many artists, Harris chose to dedicate his life to music when he was just a little boy.
“Every morning, with joy and excitement in my heart, I rushed to the piano to learn and to express what was on my heart,” he said.
Having such a passion for music led him to pursue studies in classical music — it wasn’t until college that he was exposed to jazz music.
“It’s the most liberated form of music on Earth,” Harris said. “It’s a really special art form that could have only been born in the United States.”
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For Harris, jazz is a powerful platform to sing about the truth and what is happening in the hearts and minds of fellow community members.
“It’s the greatest art form in the sense that the primary requirement is authenticity,” he said. “There’s a fantastic lesson about empathy, about diversity of thought, about the power of us coming together to create beauty that’s embedded in the DNA of jazz.”
Alongside his band, Blackout, Harris has released eleven albums as a leader and been nominated for four Grammy awards: Best Jazz Instrumental Solo for “There Is No Greater Love” in 2000; Best Jazz Instrumental Album for “Kindred” in 2002; Best Jazz Instrumental Album for “The Grand Unification Theory” in 2004; and Best Contemporary Jazz Album for “Urbanus” in 2010.
In addition to his Grammy award nominations, The Los Angeles Times named Harris “one of the most important artists in jazz,” and he received the prestigious Doris Duke Artist award in 2018 and the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center in 2003.
The Jazz Journalist Association has also named Harris as Best Mallet Player eight times.
Harris is currently on staff as artistic advisor of jazz education at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and is a tenured associate professor of music at Rutgers University — Newark.
Although he stays busy with performing and teaching, Harris is also the creator of the app Harmony Cloud, which helps musicians at all levels enhance their understanding of harmony, further develop their feelings about music, and explore the world of improvisation.
Channeling his education and jazz careers, Harris combines skills used from both to serve as a thought leader, delivering empowering messages to Fortune 50 companies using jazz as a metaphor.
In 2012, Harris delivered a TED Talk, “There Are No Mistakes on the Bandstand,” which has received over three-quarters of a million views, teaching his audience that “many actions are perceived as mistakes only because we don’t react to them appropriately.”
Harris said his career has allowed his art to have an influence on who he is as a human being.
“Art—and jazz in particular—has taught me to be a better listener in general, so that’s the favorite part for me,” he said. “But there’s nothing like the sense of growth that one receives from being an artist.”
Harris said the audience can expect to have a good time because he and his band always do.
“Everything is from our heart—we play with joy, compassion, and fire, and we’re really like a family, everyone on the bandstand,” he said. “We’ve all known each other for many years, and it’s almost like a family reunion every time we get to get together and celebrate.”
When Harris is not working, performing, or traveling, he likes to play a good game of pool or chess.
Stefon Harris and the Blackout are set to perform on the Strauss Community Stage at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 5.