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Virginia Mayhew

Saxophonist-composer-arranger Virginia Mayhew has been an active participant in the New York jazz scene since 1987. A native of San Francisco, Virginia came to New York to enroll in the New School's Jazz Performance program, and was awarded its Zoot Sims Memorial Scholarship.

In the course of her career, Virginia has worked with such renowned artists as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Cab Calloway, Frank Zappa, James Brown, Norman Simmons, Al Grey, Junior Mance, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Doc Cheatam, Joe Williams, Leon Parker, Clark Terry, Terry Gibbs, Kenny Barron, Chico O'Farrill, Dena DeRose, Ingrid Jensen, Claudio Roditi, and many others.

Virginia has appeared in most of the City's jazz venues, including the Blue Note, the Village Vanguard, the Village Gate, Sweet Basil, Sweet Rhythm, Birdland, Carnegie Hall, the Jazz Standard, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall, as well as performing throughout the United States, Europe, the Newly Independent States, the Caribbean, Bermuda, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

Virginia has performed at many jazz festivals as a leader, including the Monterey Jazz Festival, JVC Jazz Festival, Floating Jazz Festival, Verizon Jazz Festival, Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, East Coast Jazz Festival, Panasonic Jazz Festival, Guinness Cork (Ireland) Jazz Festival, Verizon Music Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Melbourne Jazz Festival, Llangollen International Music Festival, Jazz At Sea, and other smaller festivals.

Virginia has traveled twice as a representative of the United States as a Jazz Ambassador. The first tour (2001 to the Newly Independent States, formerly the USSR…Kazakhstan, Moldova, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine) featured the music of Louis Armb, and the second (2003 to Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, Viet Nam, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh) demonstrating the Latin and Brazilian influence on Jazz Music.

In addition, Virginia has established her credentials in the field of jazz education, both as a teacher of private students, as faculty at numerous jazz camps, (including Stanford Jazz Workshop, Monterey Jazz Festival summer camp, and Jazz Camp in Pescadero, CA), and as an experienced clinician and Artist-In-Residence, (including Univ. of Mass, Univ. of Louisville, Bloomington Univ. and others). She has traveled around the U.S.A. working as an adjudicator, teaching master classes, and working with school ensembles large and small. She teaches at the Greenwich Music House, a 100-year-old community music center, where she is the director and founder of the Greenwich House Jazz Workshop. Her own quartet performed at the 2002 IAJE Conference to rave reviews.

For several years, Virginia worked with veteran trombonist Al Grey. She is featured on his 1992 release, FAB (Capri), and contributed several arrangements to his 1995 CD, "Centerpiece" (Telarc). Her arrangements were also performed during the "Battle Royale: Trombones and Alto Saxophones" concert, which was part of Jazz At Lincoln Center.

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew Quartet: Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years

Read "Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth date of pianist, composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams, the Virginia Mayhew Quartet pays homage to one of the most unheralded, yet most important jazz figures of all time on Mary Lou Williams--The Next 100 Years. Presenting new arrangements of eight Williams compositions and two original blues charts, Mayhew directs a formidable quartet of veteran players and special guest, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon to make for a powerful quintet sound on several tracks.

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew Quartet: Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years

Read "Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Saxophonist Virginia Mayhew is a rare forward-looking jazz artist who doesn't mind looking back. She leads the Duke Ellington Legacy, responsible for the superb Thank You Uncle Edward (Renma Recordings, 2007) and Single Pedal of a Rose (Renma Recordings, 2012). Now she honors Mary Lou Williams (1910-1983) in this tribute to the groundbreaking pianist/composer/arranger's one hundredth birthday. Williams could be considered underrated, but there are efforts to remedy that: pianist Geri Allen recorded a quartet version of a ...

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew: A Simple Thank You

Read "A Simple Thank You" reviewed by Ken Dryden


Virginia Mayhew has been a part of the New York City jazz scene since 1987 when the San Francisco native enrolled in the New School's Jazz Performance program and was awarded its Zoot Sims Memorial Scholarship. The tenor saxophonist played with a variety of bandleaders including Earl “Fatha" Hines, Al Grey, Junior Mance, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Joe Williams, Clark Terry, Terry Gibbs, Kenny Barron and Claudio Roditi, as well as being a key soloist in the all-female big band Diva.

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew Septet: A Simple Thank You

Read "A Simple Thank You" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


It has always been a pleasure to see saxophonist Virginia Mayhew in performance and enjoy her original compositions, which present solid material which she plays with warmth, grace and the best that mainstream jazz can offer on both tenor and soprano sax.

Mayhew had to face a definite speed bump in her musical career when breast cancer developed and this project was put on hold. Thankfully, all is well now and she has a finely-tuned album to show ...

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew: A Simple Thank You

Read "A Simple Thank You" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


The soul of an artist reverberates through the music. Virginia Mayhew (tenor and soprano saxophones) fills her playing with warmth, tenderness and an unmitigated passion. Her recordings have marked these traits, making them a veritable joy. She continues the trend here, with an expanded line-up that gives the music a greater dimension. It's the first septet she has worked with, and the whole band plays with and off each other, demonstrating remarkable empathy.

The music comprises new tunes as well ...

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew Septet: A Simple Thank You

Read "A Simple Thank You" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


This is about the coolest cover art you'll ever see on a CD: Saxophonist Virginia Mayhew in blue tones, as bald as an egg (cancer treatments), in partial profile, eyes closed, in an apparent state of repose. She looks like a sleek android discovered in arctic ice. Cool as hell.The music on Mayhew's fifth CD, A Simple Thank You, is every bit as cool as the cover art. There's nothing android-ish about Mayhew's step into arranging, writing and ...

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Album Review

Virginia Mayhew: Sandan Shuffle

Read "Sandan Shuffle" reviewed by Terrell Kent Holmes


Convention bores Virginia Mayhew. So it's no surprise that Sandan Shuffle, her fourth release as a leader, doesn't merely embrace the unconventional, but seizes it in a bear hug. Right at the top, the blues-inspired title track is played seven to the bar, not eight and Mayhew's tenor grooves like mad. Her sax smiles throughout an inventive Calypso arrangement of “Let's Fall In Love, with Kenny Wessel laying down cool guitar lines. Bassist Harvie S contributes the ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Mary Lou Williams:...

Renma Recordings
2012

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Mary Lou Williams -...

Renma Recordings
2012

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A Simple Thank You

Renma Recordings
2008

buy

Sandan Shuffle

Renma Recordings
2006

buy

Phantoms

Remma
2003

buy

No Walls

Foxhaven Records
2001

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