Rahsaan Barber / Rahsaan Barber and Everyday Magic

Rahsaan Barber / Rahsaan Barber and Everyday Magic
 Chapel Hill, NC
Grant amount: $15,000

About the Artist

Rahsaan Barber and Everyday Magic has toured extensively throughout the South and Midwest since the celebrated 2011 release of the ensemble’s self-titled album, Everyday Magic. The band’s 2022 touring calendar featured performances at Live at Lucille’s (Knoxville), The Nashville Jazz Workshop, The Jazz Kitchen (Indianapolis), Middle C Jazz Club (Charlotte), Sharp Nine Jazz Gallery (Durham), Barking Legs Theater (Chattanooga), The City Winery (Nashville) and The Green Room at Crosstown (Memphis). The band has also appeared at numerous festivals throughout the South in the dozen years of time spent together, and also completed educational touring work, most recently as the guest ensemble for UNC-Wilmington’s 2018 JazzFest. Bandleader and composer Rahsaan Barber has become a nationally celebrated performer and educator, making good on the expectations one would have of a saxophonist who debuted in Downbeat magazine’s Critics’ Poll for Rising Star Tenor Saxophonists nearly a decade ago, in August of 2013. Barber has become a sought-after bandleader and collaborator with recent performances at Carnegie Hall, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, alongside such musicians as Branford Marsalis, Tito Puente, Jr., Brian Blade, and Victor Wooten. Currently, Barber is completing his third year as Professor of Jazz Studies and Saxophone at The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and has also reached “ABD,” or “all but dissertation” status in his progress towards earning a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The University of Memphis. These pursuits have not served as distractions to Barber’s commitment to jazz performance at the highest levels, but, rather, have strengthened both his artistic acumen and the community of artistic colleagues in his orbit. Chief collaborators amongst these artists are the members of Everyday Magic, starting with Rahsaan’s lifelong collaborator and twin brother, trombonist Roland Barber, whose resume includes performances with Jazz at Lincoln Center, Stefon Harris, Aretha Franklin. The newest member of Everyday Magic is dynamic trumpeter/educator Pharez Whitted, a staple in the Chicago scene as both Jazz Director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and one of the most powerful and prolific trumpeters of his generation. The band’s rhythm section is led by Rahsaan’s long-time collaborator, pianist (and protege of Geri Allen) Matt Endahl. Drummer Joshua Hunt and bassist Kevin Beardsley round out the rhythm section, contributing a musicality and versatility that allows the band to draw on influences and inspirations ranging from ancient tribal conceptions to modern idioms which span the globe in origin.