2008 Berkeley & L.A. Jazz Festivals Welcomes The Return Of R&B Balladeer Will Downing!!
2008 Berkeley and
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R&B Balladeer Will Downing returns to the west coast (first appearance in two years!) and the concert stage after long fight with life threatening neuro-muscular disease polymyositis
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Berkeley & l.a. jazz festival
STARRING:
WILL DOWNING - KENNY G – ANGIE STONE –
BRIAN CULBERTON – THE ESCOVEDO FAMILY
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS:
MAYSA OF INCOGNITO - NAJEE (BERKELEY FESTIVAL ONLY)–
Two of the most hotly anticipated and star-studded West Coast summer music events are the Berkeley Jazz Festival (Sunday July 20, 2008 at the UC Berkeley Greek Theatre) and the L.A. Jazz Festival (Saturday July 26, 2008 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles).
This year those all-day shows will be graced with the return of singer supreme Will Downing, “The Prince of Sophisticated Soul”. Downing has spent the last two years in a arduously slow recuperating process for the muscle disorder Polymyositis which has kept him from concert stages for over two years. His dedication to music, however, encouraged him to complete the album he started before his body was overtaken which resulted in 2007’s After Tonight, the thirteenth of his career and certainly among his most poignant and powerful. Will’s triumphant performances in
What makes these concert dates even more poignant for Downing is that this will be one of the first opportunities where he has been able to perform any of the songs from his new CD LIVE. Downing has been unable to perform on a concert stage for almost two years. The entire CD – After Tonight was recorded during the serious stages of his illness where Downing did ALL of the recording from his hospital bed or wheelchair! When you listen to After Tonight, you are listening to music created and recorded by a man coming to terms with and battling a rare and severely debilitating condition known as Polymyositis.
Polymyositis is a chronic muscle disease - an inflammation of the muscle fibers - the cause of which is not known. It results in weakness that can be severe with equally maddening, random and inexplicable periods of flares and remissions.
Touching on what is perhaps the greatest gift that has come from his challenges with Polymyositis, Will Downing witnesses, “I’ve learned that God plays a bigger role in my existence than I ever realized. This was a difficult project to record, but every time I felt down – mentally or physically – I looked to Him for inspiration.”
BERKELY JAZZ FESTIVAL
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Doors open: 11am
Showtime: 12Noon - until
Location: The Berkeley Greek Theater –
& the Escovedo Family
With Special Guests – Maysa & Najee
Doors open: 2pm
Showtime: 3pm – 11pm
Location: The Greek Theater / Griffin Park –
& the Escovedo Family
With Special Guests – Lalah Hathaway & Mike Phillips
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