Father Stan Fortuna, C.F.R. to perform with his quartet

For The Catholic Messenger
davenport — Polyrhythms Third Sunday Jazz Series will present a matinee concert from 5–7 p.m. Dec. 19 featuring Father Stan Fortuna, C.F.R., and his quartet at the Redstone Room, in the RME on the corner of Second and Main streets in Davenport. This will be an in-person performance with proper personal distance. Please wear masks.
Father Stan looks forward to reconnecting with his friend, Manual Lopez III on the drums “and we are going to have a little quartet action, with Derel Monteith on piano and Peter Hart on saxophone. And we are going to improvise and that’s what I love to do. The spontaneity of improvising over the form of standard songs is just a beautiful thing and the art of improvising is something that motivates me as a bass player and as a singer.”
Father Stan is a Roman Catholic priest ordained Dec. 8, 1990, and is one of the eight founding members of the Community of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Prior to his conversion, Father Stan was a professional jazz musician.
He has played in some of the most prestigious venues in jazz — Birdland, Lincoln Center and Town Hall. While studying to enter the priesthood, Father Stan was working in Spanish Harlem. He encountered hip hop firsthand in the street, a style he refers to as rhythm and rhyme, and was captivated by its improvisational nature. He heard people in the neighborhood “rap” about their daily lives/struggles and soon learned how to integrate this phenomenon and technique into his own heart and music and use it to reach out to the less fortunate and beyond.
 The C.F.R. community adheres to an ascetic lifestyle in their friaries and live in impoverished areas around the world ministering to the needy. Father Stan has been involved with community development and the implementation of various social programs in his neighborhood of the South Bronx for over 25 years. In 1987, he established his nonprofit company, Francesco Productions, mixing music and message. He has since independently released several CDs, DVDs and books.
Assigned to the work of preaching fulltime, he travels extensively across the country and around the world celebrating Mass, giving talks, and performing concerts with proceeds from bookings and sales going directly towards his work with poor and underprivileged families. Visit the website http://www.francescoproductions.com/.
Doors for the Dec. 19 event open at 4:30 pm. Among the supporters of Polyrhythms Third Sunday Jazz Series is radio station KALA of St. Ambrose University in Davenport.