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A local country connection, and a couple of Eastman honors, at Grammys

Jazz bassist Ron Carter was one of Sunday night's Grammy winners with a local connection, as an Eastman School of Music graduate and inductee to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame.
Atilla Kleb
/
www.roncarterjazz.com
Jazz bassist Ron Carter was one of Sunday night's Grammy winners with a local connection, as an Eastman School of Music graduate and inductee to the Rochester Music Hall of Fame.

It was a quiet night at the 64th Grammy Awards for the local scene, and perhaps on the national scene as well. Unlike last week’s Oscars ceremony, no one got slapped.

The Brothers Osborne song “Younger Me” won for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Rochester native Pete Sternberg is the duo’s touring bassist.

Sternberg is also on the band’s 2020 album “Skeleton,” which was nominated for Best Country Album. But that award went to Chris Stapleton and “Starting Over.”

With the exception of Best Country Album, all of the categories involving local musicians were announced in the hours before Sunday night’s celebration in Las Vegas.

Drummer Steve Gadd, a Rochester native and Eastman School of Music grad, was up for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for his “At Blue Note Tokyo.” That category was won by Taylor Eigsti for “Tree Falls.”

Mastodon, whose drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Kelliher are from Rochester, had its song “Pushing the Tides” nominated for Best Metal Performance. That category went to Dream Theatre’s “The Alien.”

By the Eastman School of Music’s estimate, a dozen Grammy categories had connections to the school. That included some musicians with multiple nominations, and some categories with more than one Eastman connection.

Bassist Ron Carter, a 1959 graduate of Eastman, teamed up with percussionist Jack DeJohnette and Gonzalo Rubalcaba for “Skyline,” named Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Carter was the first African-American to play as a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and was inducted into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame in 2015.

And soprano Erin Morley, who earned her undergraduate degree in voice from Eastman, can be heard on Mahler: Symphony No. 8, “Symphony Of A Thousand,” the winner of Best Choral Performance.

Jeff Spevak has been a Rochester arts reporter for nearly three decades, with seven first-place finishes in the Associated Press New York State Features Writing Awards while working for the Democrat and Chronicle.