WEST BEND, WI. (Top40 Charts/ Kettle Moraine Jazz Festival) - The West Bend Sunrise Rotary Foundation, Inc., producers of the annual Kettle Moraine Jazz Festival (KMJF), announced that the line up for the 2008 event, to be held Fri., Sept. 5 - Sat., Sept. 6, will once again feature an internationally diverse collection of musicians and vocalists.
The event, which will take place along the banks of the upper Milwaukee River at Riverside Park in West Bend, Wis., will showcase seven play slots, three on Sept. 5, and four on Sept. 6, with 10 recording artists. The entertainment line up is as follows:
Friday, September 5
5:30 p.m.: Warren Hill: A saxophonist, vocalist and talented composer, Warren Hill is one of the most consistently popular contemporary jazz artists, an "off the hook" showman, and an innovative creator of new and different ways to present his music and connect with his fans. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, he began his music career at age seven, originally studying guitar. At age 12, he began playing saxophone, and it became the focal point of his life while studying jazz at the Eastman School of Music. At Hill's graduation performance at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston, acclaimed record producer Russ Titleman approached him to play on a Chaka Khan record. It was at that moment that he knew he'd followed the right path.
Hill moved to Los Angeles in 1989. Within a year, RCA Records signed him to a record deal. His first CD, Kiss Under The Moon, was released in 1991. Soon after, Natalie Cole picked him up as the opening act on her 40-city Unforgettable Tour. Since then, he has released nine CDs with numerous No. 1 hits on the Contemporary and Smooth Jazz Charts, and also been recognized by a diverse list of awards.
In fall 2002, he began to conceptualize the revival of the "smooth jazz cruise genre," and the result was one of the most successful and talked about Smooth Jazz events in the past decade: Warren Hill's Smooth Jazz Cruise. The first cruise took place in January 2004 in the Caribbean and featured many of the top Artists in Smooth Jazz, after which Hill embarked upon the first full ship charter smooth jazz cruise in the history of the format. The '05 and '06 cruises were both sellouts and critical successes of the highest order.
Hill simultaneously embarked on another mission: starting his own record label, PopJazz Records, which came to fruition in spring 2005 with the release of Hill's much anticipated 10th CD, "Pop Jazz." Produced by Hill and his bassist, Andre Berry, the CD is packed with outstanding musicianship from Hill's touring band, whom many industry insiders claim to be one of the hottest bands in the genre (Andre Berry, Ronnie Gutierrez, Dave Hooper, Randy Jacobs & Michael Whittaker), as well as some special guest appearances by Norman Brown, Brian Culbertson, Jeff Golub and the incredible Harris Brothers Horns.
In addition to using his label to further his own recordings, Hill has a passion for undiscovered talent. His new website portal PopJazz.com is a multi-Artist site that features not only signed and national recording Artists, but many unsigned acts from around the globe.
