Concert is presented in Conjunction with the Exhibition
Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York
February 9 – July 4, 2011
The Metropolitan Museum's First App Is Created for the Exhibition
Steve Miller of the legendary Steve Miller Band is joined by three of the jazz world's most renowned guitarists, Jim Hall, Howard Alden, and Bucky Pizzarelli, for "Steve Miller & Friends: Celebrating the Jazz Guitar," a concert at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, February 12, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. The concert is presented in conjunction with the Met exhibition Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York, February 9 – July 4, 2011.
Steve Miller was great friends with the luthier James D'Aquisto (1935-1995), whose arch- top guitars were prized by great jazz artists. In honor of D'Aquisto, one of the featured artists in the Met exhibition, Miller, joined by Hall and Alden, will perform an evening of jazz in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
In an interview with Steve Miller about James D'Aquisto that is featured in one of the Museum's podcasts for the exhibition, Miller describes getting his "first "D'Aquisto: "I went out to his shop to see him and to see my guitar. ... And I looked at it and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and I picked it up and strummed it. And it was drying, it wasn't quite ready to go. But it was there that I got my first D'Aquisto in my hands. And instantly I could tell that it was a very, very, very, very special instrument. It was extremely light. The tolerances had been taken farther than most guitar makers would ever do. You know, when you start building an archtop guitar, you get this wood, you start carving it, you start steaming things, you start bending stuff. You get a lot of time invested in it. And as a luthier, then you chicken out. You kind of go, 'Well, I gotta, ooh, I don't want to bend it anymore.' Jimmy just went right through all that, way beyond that, to where you were just…His guitars almost felt like, if you tapped it, if you went [taps finger] on it, it might blow up. You know? And so, it had all this coiled energy inside it. And the voicing—as soon as I played that guitar, I looked at Jimmy and I said, 'Thank you, you've given me a new voice.'"
Tickets, priced at $55, are available by calling the Concerts & Lectures Department at 212-570-3949, or visiting www.metmuseum.org/tickets, where updated schedules and programs are also available. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.
An app, the Museum's first, has been conceived to complement and augment the exhibition. Through collaborations with musicians and experts, the app brings to life the guitar makers' creative process and celebrates the enduring relevance of these instruments. It features Museum-commissioned musical performances expressly designed for this exhibition, artist interviews, and rarely seen archival video footage. This dynamic multimedia guide to the exhibition, which has been developed by the Metropolitan Museum's Digital Media Department, can be downloaded free from iTunes. It will also be available for rental on iTouch devices in the Museum's galleries ($7, $6 for Members, $5 for children under 12).
Many of the app's multimedia features, including longer excerpts of the performances and commentary—will be available in an extensive Guitar Heroes feature on the Museum's website at www.metmuseum.org.
Among the legends of the guitar world whose voices and performances can be heard in the app and the extended web feature are Chet Atkins, George Benson, Grant Green, Bob Grillo, Jim Hall, Mary Kaye, Mark Knopfler, Woody Mann, Steve Miller, Jeffrey Mironov, Barry Mitterhoff, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Django Reinhardt.
One of rock music's all-time greats, Steve Miller fronts the Steve Miller Band, which has sold more than 30 million records in a career spanning more than 40 years. His trademark blues-rock sound made him one of the key artists in classic rock radio. His band plays sold-out shows every year across the country. In June 2010, Miller released a new album, Bingo!, on his own Space Cowboy Records – the disc has been nominated for a Blues Music Award in the "Best Rock Blues Album" category – and undertook a summer U.S. tour and a tour of Europe in the fall. www.stevemillerband.com
Three New York master luthiers, renowned for their hand-carved stringed instruments—particularly their archtop guitars, which have been sought after by many of the most important guitarists of the last century—will be the subject of Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 9 through July 4, 2011. Featuring the extraordinary guitars of John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto, and John Monteleone, this unprecedented exhibition of approximately 80 musical instruments will focus on the work of these modern-day master craftsmen and their roots in a long tradition of stringed instrument-making that has thrived for more than 400 years and that was first brought to New York from Italy around the turn of the 20th century.
The exhibition is made possible in part by Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Chilton, Jr.
The exhibition is organized by Jayson Kerr Dobney, Associate Curator and Administrator in the Department of Musical Instruments at the Metropolitan Museum.
The multimedia tour is made possible by The Jonathan & Faye Kellerman Foundation.
The Audio Guide program is made possible by Bloomberg.
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January 25, 2011
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