David Foster & The Legendary Shaboo Allstars Present Holiday Benefit Concert at UCONN's Jorgensen Center

David Foster & The Legendary Shaboo AllStars will perform a special benefit holiday concert at Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts at UConn Storrs on Saturday, December 13 at 3 p.m. All proceeds from the concert will be used to support the Covenant Soup Kitchen and the UConn Husky Harvest Food Pantry, helping to replenish pantry shelves and ensure that families and students receive the food and care they need this holiday season. All tickets are $50 per person with general admission seating. Tickets are on sale at Jorgensen.UConn.edu.

Covenant Soup Kitchen offers breakfast and lunch seven days per week and dinner on Friday, Saturday and Monday evenings, at no charge to its guests.  In addition to meals served in the soup kitchen, bakery items, fresh produce, meats, eggs, dairy products and other foods are offered to guests to take home, when available. 

In partnership with Connecticut Foodshare, the Husky Harvest Food Pantries' mission is to address food insecurity across UConn. The food pantries are accessible to anyone with a UConn ID and provide the campus community with non-perishable food items, toiletries, and more at all University locations. Husky Harvest Food Pantries are open to students, faculty, and staff at Avery Point, Hartford, Stamford, Storrs, and Waterbury, as well as at UConn Health in Farmington.

A long-established force in the Connecticut music scene, David Foster will be performing with his group of top-notch musicians and special guests for the event at Jorgensen that will include Jeff Pitchell, Christine Ohlman, Curtis Salgado and The Uptown Horns, with more to be announced. Foster has organized several concerts to benefit the Covenant Soup Kitchen.

“What happens is you shine a bigger light on the problem or need, and you make it a joyful occasion for everyone to help them,” Foster says. “I think it's just so much more meaningful to do it through music and to share a beautiful evening or afternoon of music and raise money at the same time.”

As one of the owners of the Shaboo Inn, Foster worked with Dick Waterman to establish the 1,000-capacity road house as a legendary northeast venue for major blues, jazz and R&B acts on the same level as the other famous clubs in major markets like The Bottom Line in NYC, Paul's Mall and the Jazz Workshop in Boston, The Main Point in Philadelphia, and the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C.  He will perform with his longtime bandmates Mitch Chakour on piano and keyboards, Cliff Goodwin on guitar and Al Copley on piano.

Jeff Pitchell is an internationally acclaimed dynamic singer, songwriter and guitarist who achieved national recognition when his album Heavy Hitter (PyramidRecords/EMI) reached #7 on the Billboard Charts. He has recorded with such greats as J Geils, Rick Derringer, Dave Mason, James Cotton and Clarence Clemons. He won the "Best Guitarist" in the State of Connecticut competition as well as two songwriting awards from the Great American Songwriting Contest. The International Songwriting Contest (ISC) judge and renowned blues legend John Mayall subsequently recorded Pitchell's song "An Eye for an Eye" on one of his albums. Pitchell and his band, Texas Flood, won the BEST BLUES ACT in New England in a six-state vote.

Christine Ohlman is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, recording artist and music scholar known as "The Beehive Queen," a tribute to her distinctive platinum beehive. She leads the band Christine Ohlman and Rebel Montez, which has recorded six albums. Additionally, she has been the long-running vocalist for the Saturday Night Live Band for over 30 years, and appears annually at the W.C. Handy Music Festival in Florence/Sheffield/Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Curtis Salgado is an award-winning vocalist, instrumentalist and songwriter. He has been nominated three times for the Blues Music Award, winning Song of the Year in 2018 for “Walk A Mile in My Blues.” He has won 13 Blues Music Awards including the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year.

The Uptown Horns were formed in 1980 by Arno Hecht, Crispin Cioe, Bob Funk and Paul Litteral in New York City.  The group is known as a premier horn section backing artists including Big Joe Turner, the Neville Brothers, Ronnie Spector and David Johannsen. They toured with The J. Geils Band and appeared live with the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, Ray Charles and B.B. King, among others. Their recording credits are on more than 150 albums, including James Brown’s Grammy Award winning “Living in America,” and tracks for Tom Waits, Joe Cocker, Albert Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Palmer, Lou Reed and R.E.M.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Jorgensen.UConn.edu

ARTIST/PUBLICITY PHOTOS:  Shaboo Publicity Photos

MEDIA SPONSORS: The Willimantic Chronicle and WILI AM/FM

TICKETS AND BOX OFFICE INFORMATION:

Tickets for this concert are $50 each with general admission seating. Tickets can be purchased on the Jorgensen website, jorgensen.uconn.edu. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts is located at 2132 Hillside Road on the UConn campus in Storrs. The Box Office is open Mon – Fri, 10 am to 5 pm. For questions and assistance, email jorgensen.tickets@uconn.edu or call 860-486-4226.  (Note: all artists, events, dates, programs policies are subject to change.)  

ABOUT JORGENSEN:

Opened in December of 1955, Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts presents 25-30 diverse performances each season, from nationally and internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles ranging from classical music to world music and dance, classical ballet and contemporary dance, comedy, family programming and contemporary entertainment