A band named Kilimanjaro emerged from the unlikely state of Vermont, to become a dominant voice in Jazz Radio airplay. Kilimanjaro’s self-titled debut recording quickly rose to #3 in the national Jazz Radio Airplay charts.

That led to appearances at some of the most prestigious jazz festivals in the world, such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Newport Jazz Festival (aka The Kool Jazz Festival), the Atlanta Jazz Festival, and San Antonio’s, Riverwalk Jazz Festival, to name a few.

In 1983 the band’s second release, “Kilimanjaro II”, rose to #5 in the national airplay charts, and that led to several U.S. tours, appearing at many of the country’s most prestigious venues, as well as a tour with blues legend Paul Butterfield, which included appearances at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and the Roskilde Festival in Copenhagen.

The band would open the show as Kilimanjaro, and then show their amazing versatility by “changing hats” and becoming the Paul Butterfield Blues Band for the second half of the show. What audiences didn’t know was that, by the time he was 20 years old, Chicago born guitarist Paul Asbell, had performed with such blues greats as John Lee Hooker, Otis Rush, Junior Wells, and Muddy Waters. Nor did they know that bassist Tony Markellis, who in recent years has done seven U.S. tours with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, had been a member of the David Bromberg Band. (Incidentally, Paul was Trey’s first guitar teacher, which undoubtedly earns in a place in rock n’ roll history!) It was during this time that Kilimanjaro met and joined forces with B.B. King alumnus, Big Joe Burrell, to form a highly popular blues band that soon became a regional phenomenon of it’s own for many years, and took them on a detour from their lives as international touring artists.

Sadly, in 2005 Big Joe Burrell passed on at the age of 81 and Burlington’s FlynnCentre chose to honor Kilimanjaro with a grant for the creation of new compositions, which would be debuted in a “reunion concert” at the June ’06 Discover Jazz Festival. The concert was a huge success, and ticket sales necessitated the adding of a 2nd show. This enormous response also catalyzed a recording plan, which started that June and recently culminated with the release of “Homecoming,” the band’s first CD in almost 25 years!

Having set the bar extremely high for their first two Indy Award winning albums in the early 80’s, “Homecoming” was designed to display the band’s growth and maturity that have resulted from over 30 years of performing together! While “reunions” are the popular thing these days, few bands today have actually continued to play together with the original members for that length of time and we’re confident that you’ll hear that in the music! We also think that you’ll agree that “Homecoming” is Kilimanjaro’s best work ever!

Website :- www.kilimanjarojazz.com