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Showstopping jazz pianist and organist Bobby Floyd joins audience-favorite Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra on April 8 at 8 p.m. at the Center for the Arts for a night of swinging jazz. Coming from a long line of organists, Floyd has built a long and illustrious career, serving as the featured keyboardist with the legendary GRAMMY Award-winning Count Basie Orchestra, Ray Charles, Dr. John, Doc Severinsen, and his own Bobby Floyd Trio.
In addition to playing in his hometown with Ohio’s Columbus Jazz Orchestra, Columbus Symphony, and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Floyd has traveled the United States, performing as a featured soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic, Vancouver Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and many others. Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra Founder and Artistic Director, saxophonist, and professor in Mason’s Dewberry School of Music, Jim Carroll expands upon Floyd’s skills, stating, “Bobby’s improvisational skills and groove are among the world’s best and will be showcased with good old tunes from the big band era.”
In this specific concert, Lloyd will be playing a Hammond B3 organ that has been fully restored, modified, and donated to the Dewberry Family School of Music by Sally and Jim Bennett. The inscription on the instrument reads, “Gift of Sara Dorman Bennett: In Memory of Margaret McClain Dorman,” Carroll notes, “We are grateful beyond words.”
The concert will also feature keyboardist Paul Bratcher, music educator extraordinaire and director of the jazz program at Georgetown University, on a Hammond duet with Floyd. Other esteemed featured artists on the program include Charlie Young, Director of Jazz at Howard University and Director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the National Jazz Orchestra of the United States of America, and vocalist Dr. Darden Purcell, Director of Jazz Studies at Mason’s Dewberry Family School of Music.
Purchase your tickets now for the April 8 concert with the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra and Bobby Floyd. In the meantime, please enjoy a video of Bobby Floyd performing "The Man I Love" below.