Pair of Noted Jazz Musicians Will Share Their Talent
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in November

Brooklyn, N.Y. — Jazz guitarist Freddie Bryant and jazz drummer Ben Riley will each give a free lecture/demonstration at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in November. Both events are part of the Music Department’s Jazz Clinic and Concert Series.

Freddie Bryant will teach Brooklyn Campus students on Tuesday, November 2, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Spike Lee Screening Room, LLC 122.  The event is free and open to the public.

Bryant, who has been playing the guitar since he was eight, studied with jazz guitarists Ted Dunbar and Gene Bertoncinni. Active in New York's jazz scene for 15 years, he has performed with Wynton Marsalis, Max Roach, Lonnie Smith and guitar legend Kenny Burrell.

He has led groups under his own name and with pianist Jonny King. His groups have featured saxophonists Ralph Moore, David Sanchez, Don Braden, Steve Wilson and Vincent Herring, trumpeters Randy Brecker and Claudio Roditi and pianists Kevin Hays and Renee Rosnes.

The event with drummer Ben Riley will take place on Tuesday, November 9, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Spike Lee Screening Room, LLC 122, and is free and open to the public.

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Riley moved to New York when he was four years old and started playing drums in junior high school. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, he worked with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Sonny Rollins, Junior Mance, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, Kenny Burrell, Walter Bishop Jr., Sonny Stitt, Billy Taylor, Johnny Griffin, Nina Simone and the Major Holley Trio.

Riley also worked with the Thelonious Monk Quartet for about five years. After Monk's death, he and saxophonist Charlie Rouse co-founded the important jazz group, Sphere. Other members included bassist Buster Williams and pianist Kenny Barron. In 1992, Riley was inducted into his Savannah, Georgia, hometown-based Coastal Jazz Hall of Fame.

For more information, call Professor Bob Aquino at (718) 488-1668. In addition to a B.A. in traditional studies, the Music Department offers a B.F.A. degree in Jazz Studies and a B.S. in Music Education in Urban Schools. Students may study privately with professionals off-campus for credit.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Some 31,000 students currently are enrolled at the university’s three residential and three regional campuses, including more than 12,000 at the Brooklyn Campus. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.