Press Release
-for immediate release-
Media Contact: Graziella DiNuzzo Graziella.dinuzzo@gmail.com 609-680-7670
Tribute Concert Produced by Gloria DeFrancesco
“A Celebration of Life and Music”
Honoring the late Joey DeFrancesco
April 1, 2023
7 pm – 9 pm
Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts
Tribute Concert Produced by Gloria DeFrancesco
“A Celebration of Life and Music”
Honoring the late Joey DeFrancesco
April 1, 2023
7 pm – 9 pm
Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts
Featuring some of the musicians who have performed with Joey DeFrancesco:
Terell Stafford – trumpet
Lucas Brown, organ
Anwar Marshall, drums
Jerry Weldon, saxophone
Temple University Jazz Band
Philadelphia, PA….March 23, 2023…Mrs. Gloria DeFrancesco will present a tribute concert and celebration of her late husband, Joey DeFrancesco at the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts (PCC) on Saturday, April 1, 2023 from 7 pm to 9 pm. Joey DeFrancesco, best known for his fierce Hammond B-3 organ playing died on August 26, 2022.
The tribute concert will include some of the musicians who have performed with Joey throughout his career: Terell Stafford – trumpet; Lucas Brown, organ; Anwar Marshall, drums; Jerry Weldon, saxophone and the Temple University Jazz Band.
All proceeds will go to fund PCC Summer Music Camp. Click Here for tickets.
Mr. Lovett Hines, Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts was a mentor and a driving force in Joey DeFrancesco’s early music education which began when he was nine years old at the Settlement Music School and continued at the PCC.
In an interview with Nate Chinen for NPR, Lovett Hines reminisced, “He was a terror at the organ,” recalls Hines, who stayed in contact with DeFrancesco over the years. “You could maybe best him on trumpet or tenor, but once he sat down at the organ, it was all over.”
Joey DeFrancesco’s emergence in the 1980s marked the onset of a musical renaissance. Organ jazz had all but gone into hibernation from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s until DeFrancesco reignited the flame with his vintage Hammond organ and Leslie speaker cabinet. The son of “Papa” John DeFrancesco, an organist himself, the younger DeFrancesco remembers playing as early as four-years-old. Soon after, his father began bringing him to gigs in Philadelphia, sitting in with legendary players like Hank Mobley and Philly Joe Jones, who quickly recognized his talent and enthusiasm. With a natural gift for music, DeFrancesco also swiftly picked up on the trumpet after a touring stint with Miles Davis as one of the two youngest players ever recruited for any of Davis’ ensembles.
DeFrancesco has recorded and/or toured with his own groups as well as numerous renowned artists that include Ray Charles, Van Morrison, Diana Krall, Nancy Wilson, George Benson, James Moody, John Scofield, Bobby Hutcherson, Jimmy Cobb, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, David Sanborn and many more. The five time Grammy® Award-nominee, with more than 40 recordings as a leader under his belt, has received countless Jazz Journalist Association awards and other accolades worldwide, including being inducted into the inaugural Hammond Organ Hall of Fame in 2014, the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame in 2016 as well as topping the Critics Polls in DownBeat Magazine eleven times over the past fifteen years and the Readers Polls every year since 2005. DeFrancesco died at the age of 51 in August 2021.
About the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts
The Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts (PCC) is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 educational and cultural organization. Founded in 1966 by members of Musicians’ Protective Union Local #274, the American Federation of Musicians. Local #274 was chartered in 1935 as a separate Black union because Black musicians were denied membership in the racially segregated Local #77. Local #274 was the longest surviving independent Black Musicians’ Union in the United States. Members included jazz greats like John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Grover Washington, Jr., and Nina Simone, to name a few.
Artistic Director Lovett Hines established a world-class music education program at the PCC. Since 1985, youth and adults participate in a broad program of private instruction, master class, ensembles, summer jazz camp and performances led by expert musicians. Alumni of Mr. Hines’ program have included multi-Grammy winner Christian McBride, multi-Grammy nominated Orrin Evans and Joey DeFrancesco, Jaleel Shaw, Immanuel Wilkens, Joseph Block, Yessah Furaha-Ali, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Kamal Grey of the Roots, among others.