The NYC-based Hell’s Kitchen Funk Orchestra makes their first Allentown appearance.  

A dynamic and innovative composer, bandleader and trumpeter, Bill Warfield has energized audiences, performers and writers for more than four decades. Warfield’s most recent accomplishments are two highly regarded recordings including “Mercy Mercy Mercy”, recorded on the BluJazz label by the Hell’s Kitchen Funk Orchestra in 2015 and “Trumpet Story” with Randy Brecker on Planet Arts Records, recorded in 2014. These recordings are a celebration of the composer’s formative musical experiences. The two groups perform Jazz selections based on the genres of funk, Latin Jazz, and Hard Bop, all arranged by Warfield.

He holds an M.M. in Jazz Commercial Trumpet Performance from the Manhattan School of Music where he received the William H. Borden Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Jazz/Commercial Music, The Carmine Caruso Award for Outstanding Musicality and Trumpet Performance and the Maynard Ferguson Scholarship. In 1990 he participated in the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, directed by Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Albam.

Besides Mercy Mercy Mercy, and Trumpet Story, his recent work also includes collaborations with Jazz/Funk/Blues vocalist Nicole Henry. In addition to his professional schedule, Bill directs the Jazz program at Lehigh University, directs the New York Jazz Repertory Ensemble, The New York Jazz Octet and the Hell’s Kitchen Funk Orchestra. He appears regularly at Iridium, Dizzy’s Jazz Club in NYC, The Garage and many other clubs in the greater New York area. He frequently performs and teaches in Europe in addition to writing commissioned works for various conservatories and radio orchestra around the world.

Bill’s varied career as a player, an arranger and a composer has led to associations with artists as varied as Sonny Stitt, Paul Anka, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Mel Torme, The Spinners, Sheila Jordan, Jon Faddis, The Gil Evans Orchestra, Mel Lewis, Ornette Coleman, Lester Bowie, Lee Konitz, The Yellow Jackets, Don Braden, Eddie Palmieri, Buddy DeFranco, Randy Brecker and The Berlin Radio Orchestra among many others. Bill is listed in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz by Ira Gitler and Leonard Feather and the online Biographical Jazz listings by Lewis Porter and is being inducted into the Maryland Entertainer’s Hall of Fame in a ceremony to be held in Baltimore, Maryland on May 22, 2016.



For more information, please visit allentownjazzfest.org