One of the elder statesmen of jazz piano, Kenny Barron turned 70 on June 9, 2013. As part of his 70th birthday season, he will perform at the Clarice Smith Center with The Kenny Barron Platinum Quintet – a stellar group of musicians including Kenny Barron, piano; Tim Warfield, tenor saxophone; Lionel Loueke, guitar; Linda Oh, bass; and Terreon Gully, drums.

Barron’s career began in the ‘60s with the Dizzy Gillespie Band and has included memorable recordings with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, saxophonist Stan Getz, bassist Charlie Haden and many other jazz luminaries.

When Barron was named a 2010 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts — the nation's highest honor — he told interviewer Molly Murphy that he was originally drawn to jazz in part because of the satisfaction he gets from improvisation: “… it amazes me just to [be] able to grab a handful of notes out of thin air and make something out of it, to make a statement, to tell a story … to reach out to somebody. … If you can do that, then I think you’ve accomplished something.”