Dear Gentle Readers, once again I have compiled some upcoming music events and news that will come to a venue near you. Have fun.
Chianti’s Jazz Sessions continues at this revered North Shore music venue
http://livejazzsessions.org/ ‘Jazz Sessions’ a jam session , 3rd SUNDAY of every month, 3-6, Chianti Tuscan Restaurant and Jazz Lounge in Beverly, MA. All instruments and genres of music encouraged. Sponsored by Barbara Alex and Chianti Jazz Lounge.
Sculptor Michael will be in Marlboro, Massachusetts this weekend. Here is Michael’s message to his fans and those who will likely become fans when they see his works: The Paradise City art fair is one of the best in the area, You’ll see my life size heron, Soul Secrets, and other new sculptures and favorites you know, along with a new, large sculpture debuting at the show.
Fri. 11/17 10 to 5
Sat. 11/18 10 to 6
Sun. 11/19 11 to 5
Parking is free. For $2 off the admission price, click here.
Royal Plaza Trade Center, Route 20W in Marlborough, MA
This is my last show in the Northeast for the year.
I hope to see you there – booth 135.
All the best,
Michael
Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham, Massachusetts has amazing shows this weekend: Two Great Bands for One Amazing Show!
Mandeville & Richards are inheritors of a timeless legacy, creating music that is both original & evocative of a rich tradition. Blending distinctive voices & a wide range of accompaniment, their songs have been well-received by audiences all around.
Smith & Ryder is an Americana / Country / Roots duo from Central MA. Their music blends acoustic instruments with close vocal harmony, singing songs with a focus on strong lyrics & a good story.
Members – $16.00
Non-Members – $19.00
Senior 65+ – $18.00
Student/Child – $9.00
The 4th Annual RIA House Benefit Concert!
Les Sampou will headline the Annual RIA House, Inc. Benefit Concert at Amazing Things. The The Lied To’s — duo Susan Levine & Doug Kwartler — will be the first act. RIA House is a 501c(3) nonprofit committed to providing healing opportunities & supportive relationships with women surviving experiences with the commercial sex industry of sexual exploitation, prostitution and sex trafficking.
General Admission – $40.00
https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us/DisplayMessage?ws_popup=true&ws_suite=true
Internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan returns to Thelonious Monkfish in Cambridge to perform on her 89th birthday – Saturday, November 18
“Ms. Jordan is what they call a musician’s singer, sure of phrase and light on her feet.”
— New York Times
Jordan also leads vocal master class on Sunday, November 19
Acclaimed jazz vocalist and 2012 NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan returns to Thelonious Monkfish, 524 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge for performances on her 89th birthday, Saturday, November 18. Joined by the Yoko Miwa Trio featuring Miwa, bassist Brad Barrett, and drummer Scott Goulding, Jordan will perform sets at 8 and 10 p.m. Tickets $20. For information visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nea-master-sheila-jordans-89th-birthday-celebration-concert-tickets-35768429335
Jordan will also present a vocal master class on Sunday, November 19 from 1-4 p.m. Tickets are $25. To register visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nea-master-sheila-jordans-master-class-tickets-36875351168
Raised in poverty in Pennsylania’s coal mining country, Sheila Jordan began singing as a child and by the time she was in her early teens was working semi-professionally in Detroit clubs. Her first great influence was Charlie Parker and, indeed, most of her influences have been instrumentalists rather than singers. Working chiefly with black musicians, she met with disapproval from the white community but persisted with her career. She was a member of a vocal trio, Skeeter, Mitch And Jean (she was Jean), who sang versions of Parker’s solos in a manner akin to that of the later Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. After moving to New York in the early 1950s, she married Parker’s pianist, Duke Jordan, and studied with Lennie Tristano, but it was not until the early 1960s that she made her first recordings. One of these was under her own name, the other was “The Outer View” with George Russell, which featured a famous 10-minute version of “You Are My Sunshine.” In the mid 1960s Jordan’s work encompassed jazz liturgies sung in churches and extensive club work, but her appeal was narrow even within the confines of jazz. By the late 1970s audiences had begun to understand her uncompromising style a little more and her popularity increased—as did her appearances on record, which included albums with pianist Steve Kuhn, whose quartet she joined, and an album, Home, comprising a selection of Robert Creeley’s poems set to music and arranged by Steve Swallow. A 1983 duo set with bassist Harvie Swartz, “Old Time Feeling,” comprises several of the standards Jordan regularly features in her live repertoire, while 1990’s “Lost and Found” pays tribute to her bebop roots. Both sets display her unique musical trademarks, such as the frequent and unexpected sweeping changes of pitch, which still tend to confound an uninitiated audience. Her preference to the bass and voice set led to another remarkable collaboration with bassist Cameron Brown, whom she has been performing with all over the world for more than ten years so far and they have released the live albums “I’ve Grown Accustomed to the Bass” and “Celebration.” Entirely non-derivative, Jordan is one of only a tiny handful of jazz singers who fully deserve the appellation and for whom no other term will do. Now in her eighties, Jordan continues to make creative, important music and inspire new generations of jazz artists. In 2012 she received the highest honor in jazz – a Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012.
Pianist Yoko Miwa is quickly becoming known as one of the most powerful and compelling performers on the scene today. Her trio – with its remarkable telepathy and infectious energy – has brought audiences to their feet worldwide. For the past decade the Kobe, Japan native has honed one of the most musical and lyrical trio sounds around. Miwa’s band, which has been heralded for their almost telepathic interplay, performs regularly at major jazz clubs worldwide including New York City’s Blue Note Jazz Club and Jazz at Lincoln Center where Miwa was chosen to play on “Marian McPartland & Friends” as part of the Coca Cola Generations in Jazz Festival. She has performed and/or recorded with a wide range of jazz greats including Sheila Jordan, Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, George Garzone, Jon Faddis, Jerry Bergonzi, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kevin Mahogany, John Lockwood and Johnathan Blake among others. A Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll winner, Miwa is on faculty at Berklee College of Music. Miwa has just earned two nominations in the Boston Music Awards: Best Jazz Artist and Best International Artist.
The trio’s 2017 recording Pathways – her seventh as a leader – is earning wide critical acclaim. Since first appearing on Jazz Week charts in June, Pathways was in the top 10 for four weeks running and consistently remained in the Top 40, peaking at #6. Miwa was the subject of a feature article in the September 2017 issue of DownBeat that referenced her “impressive technique and a tuneful lyricism that combines an Oscar Peterson-ish hard swing with Bill Evans-like introspection.” Gordon Marshall of Flash Boston says, “…what makes her new album remarkable, and remarkably innovative, is the racing, playful interplay of the instruments of the trio: drums, piano, and bass. Each has an equal part, with none dominating, but sharing, democratically, endless, intriguing dialogues.” Dick Metcalf of Improvijazzation Nation writes, “Yoko’s ability to create moods, or bring them back to mind, is simply astounding…most highly recommended.”
About the Jazz Baroness Room at Thelonious Monkfish
Jamme Chantler opened Thelonious Monkfish in 2011 and has since presided over its growth and expansion. When the clothing store that shared a wall with the restaurant moved to a new location, Chantler took over the lease and built what is now called the Jazz Baroness Room. The new space, which opened in September 2015, was clearly designed with live performances in mind. At the front of the room, overlooking Massachusetts Avenue, is a spacious stage; a beautiful, seven-foot grand piano resides on one end. More than a dozen tables with comfortable leather chairs occupy the center of the room. Toward the rear is an L-shaped bar with a sleek marble surface and colorful backlighting. The appearance is modern and meticulous, but it feels relaxed. Exposed brick adds a bit of vintage charm, while dark wood paneling fosters a home-like atmosphere. Chantler is involved in every aspect: the food and cocktails, design of the room, blogging and social networking, customer service, and branding. He is no small part of the key to the success of Monkfish, being owned by someone who cares very much and is actively involved in its operation.
Internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan returns to Thelonious Monkfish in Cambridge to perform on her 89th birthday – Saturday, November 18
“Ms. Jordan is what they call a musician’s singer, sure of phrase and light on her feet.”
— New York Times
Jordan also leads vocal master class on Sunday, November 19
Acclaimed jazz vocalist and 2012 NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan returns to Thelonious Monkfish, 524 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge for performances on her 89th birthday, Saturday, November 18. Joined by the Yoko Miwa Trio featuring Miwa, bassist Brad Barrett, and drummer Scott Goulding, Jordan will perform sets at 8 and 10 p.m. Tickets $20. For information visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nea-master-sheila-jordans-89th-birthday-celebration-concert-tickets-35768429335
Jordan will also present a vocal master class on Sunday, November 19 from 1-4 p.m. Tickets are $25. To register visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nea-master-sheila-jordans-master-class-tickets-36875351168
Raised in poverty in Pennsylania’s coal mining country, Sheila Jordan began singing as a child and by the time she was in her early teens was working semi-professionally in Detroit clubs. Her first great influence was Charlie Parker and, indeed, most of her influences have been instrumentalists rather than singers. Working chiefly with black musicians, she met with disapproval from the white community but persisted with her career. She was a member of a vocal trio, Skeeter, Mitch And Jean (she was Jean), who sang versions of Parker’s solos in a manner akin to that of the later Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. After moving to New York in the early 1950s, she married Parker’s pianist, Duke Jordan, and studied with Lennie Tristano, but it was not until the early 1960s that she made her first recordings. One of these was under her own name, the other was “The Outer View” with George Russell, which featured a famous 10-minute version of “You Are My Sunshine.” In the mid 1960s Jordan’s work encompassed jazz liturgies sung in churches and extensive club work, but her appeal was narrow even within the confines of jazz. By the late 1970s audiences had begun to understand her uncompromising style a little more and her popularity increased—as did her appearances on record, which included albums with pianist Steve Kuhn, whose quartet she joined, and an album, Home, comprising a selection of Robert Creeley’s poems set to music and arranged by Steve Swallow. A 1983 duo set with bassist Harvie Swartz, “Old Time Feeling,” comprises several of the standards Jordan regularly features in her live repertoire, while 1990’s “Lost and Found” pays tribute to her bebop roots. Both sets display her unique musical trademarks, such as the frequent and unexpected sweeping changes of pitch, which still tend to confound an uninitiated audience. Her preference to the bass and voice set led to another remarkable collaboration with bassist Cameron Brown, whom she has been performing with all over the world for more than ten years so far and they have released the live albums “I’ve Grown Accustomed to the Bass” and “Celebration.” Entirely non-derivative, Jordan is one of only a tiny handful of jazz singers who fully deserve the appellation and for whom no other term will do. Now in her eighties, Jordan continues to make creative, important music and inspire new generations of jazz artists. In 2012 she received the highest honor in jazz – a Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012.
Pianist Yoko Miwa is quickly becoming known as one of the most powerful and compelling performers on the scene today. Her trio – with its remarkable telepathy and infectious energy – has brought audiences to their feet worldwide. For the past decade the Kobe, Japan native has honed one of the most musical and lyrical trio sounds around. Miwa’s band, which has been heralded for their almost telepathic interplay, performs regularly at major jazz clubs worldwide including New York City’s Blue Note Jazz Club and Jazz at Lincoln Center where Miwa was chosen to play on “Marian McPartland & Friends” as part of the Coca Cola Generations in Jazz Festival. She has performed and/or recorded with a wide range of jazz greats including Sheila Jordan, Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, George Garzone, Jon Faddis, Jerry Bergonzi, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kevin Mahogany, John Lockwood and Johnathan Blake among others. A Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll winner, Miwa is on faculty at Berklee College of Music. Miwa has just earned two nominations in the Boston Music Awards: Best Jazz Artist and Best International Artist.
The trio’s 2017 recording Pathways – her seventh as a leader – is earning wide critical acclaim. Since first appearing on Jazz Week charts in June, Pathways was in the top 10 for four weeks running and consistently remained in the Top 40, peaking at #6. Miwa was the subject of a feature article in the September 2017 issue of DownBeat that referenced her “impressive technique and a tuneful lyricism that combines an Oscar Peterson-ish hard swing with Bill Evans-like introspection.” Gordon Marshall of Flash Boston says, “…what makes her new album remarkable, and remarkably innovative, is the racing, playful interplay of the instruments of the trio: drums, piano, and bass. Each has an equal part, with none dominating, but sharing, democratically, endless, intriguing dialogues.” Dick Metcalf of Improvijazzation Nation writes, “Yoko’s ability to create moods, or bring them back to mind, is simply astounding…most highly recommended.”
About the Jazz Baroness Room at Thelonious Monkfish
Jamme Chantler opened Thelonious Monkfish in 2011 and has since presided over its growth and expansion. When the clothing store that shared a wall with the restaurant moved to a new location, Chantler took over the lease and built what is now called the Jazz Baroness Room. The new space, which opened in September 2015, was clearly designed with live performances in mind. At the front of the room, overlooking Massachusetts Avenue, is a spacious stage; a beautiful, seven-foot grand piano resides on one end. More than a dozen tables with comfortable leather chairs occupy the center of the room. Toward the rear is an L-shaped bar with a sleek marble surface and colorful backlighting. The appearance is modern and meticulous, but it feels relaxed. Exposed brick adds a bit of vintage charm, while dark wood paneling fosters a home-like atmosphere. Chantler is involved in every aspect: the food and cocktails, design of the room, blogging and social networking, customer service, and branding. He is no small part of the key to the success of Monkfish, being owned by someone who cares very much and is actively involved in its operation.
Worcester chanteuse Niki Luparelli
Here is the latest issue of Worcester-Boston chanteuse Niki Luparelli’s monthly Boozeletter: This edition is called Holiday Boozeletter, and boy, does Ms. Luparelli have a lot to say:
| Hello Darlings!
It’s been a crazy halloween season. We ghosted, we zombied, we drank all the shots, we suffered all the hangovers, and still managed to give out candy to children. At least I think they were children anyway. I just had a random private party gig in Boston and ended up singing in front of Rita Moreno. Yes, that Rita Moreno. But, I was filling in with a pianist and bassist I didn’t know and who didn’t know my repertoire. Basically it’s like having sex with a stranger for the first time. Now, to shows! It’s Bowie Season! It’s my 6th Annual David Bowie Black Friday (and Bonus Black Saturday) All the Burlesque you want, all the Bowie you need or if that isn’t loading, go to www.cluboberon.com Facebook Event Page “Luparelli’s Bowie tribute show must be seen to be believed” –Telegram.com Friday’s show is for the biggest Bowie fans with around 3 hours and 30 songs featuring Burlesque and Aerials from some of Boston’s best and most notorious performers SATURDAY is “Just the Hits! Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma’am” **********************
The Bowiest showgirls & the showiest Bowiegirls await. 18+ to Enter
Other upcoming events This Saturday, November 18th Friday, December 1st Sunday December 3rd Saturday, December 9th Friday, December 15th The spirits of Bull Mansion invite you to their home for an evening of Vintage Holiday Cheer 18+ to enter, 21+ to drink Dance and enjoy spirits (booo!) and spirits (*wink*) as 1920s music (and contemporary songs reVAMPed for that flapper feel) play in the ballroom by resident Speakeasy Spectacle Niki Luparelli and the Gold Diggers! Retro Holiday Photobooth with a complimentary photo keepsake by Captured Exposure Inspired Vintage Dance performances Sunday, Dec 17th Tuesday Dec 19th Friday, Dec 29th Saturday, Dec 30th Bonus Drink Recipe! Love to you all. I’ve tried to do it on my own and it’s just singing in the shower to my dog xoxox |
Jazz Composers Alliance
23 Willow St. Waltham, MA 02453
(781) 899-3130 dkatz1@comcast.net jazzcomposersalliance.org
JCA ORCHESTRA in concert, Saturday, December 2nd, 8PM at The Space in Jamaica Plain.
The Jazz Composers Alliance will present new music by resident composers David Harris, Darrell Katz, Mimi Rabson & Bob Pilkington. Also on the bill will be an appearance by OddSong
Donations are $15, and $10 for students and seniors.
On Saturday, November 1st, at 8PM, the 20-piece JCA Orchestra will present a program of new music for jazz orchestra at The Space, which is at 238 Brookside Avenue in Jamaica Plain. They will be joined for this performance by the jazz chamber group, OddSong.
Featured will be new music for jazz orchestra by resident composers trombonists David Harris & Bob Pilkington, Darrell Katz, director of the JCA, and resident composer Mimi Rabson. Also on the bill will be a performance by the 7-piece group, OddSong (four saxes, violin, marimba and voice) of a setting of the Paula Tatarunis poem Outta Horn, about the night John Coltrane ran out of horn.
The JCA has recently received, from the Aaron Copland Foundation, a grant to do a new recording. This is the 4th recording grant for JCA, and the third from Copland.
This is adventurous multi-stylistic music, with a wide range of influences and directions. Blues, contemporary chamber music, tango, collective improvisation, world music, and more are all part of it. The Jazz Composers Alliance has been presenting adventurous, exciting new music since 1985.
Drawing on influences that span the history of jazz and the world’s musical traditions, the JCA composers have brought together a huge palette of sounds, structures and concepts. The JCA Orchestra was a runner up in 2009’s Boston Phoenix Best of Boston poll. The group has also presented an illustrious group of guest performers including Oliver Lake, Steve Lacy, Dave Holland, Maria Schneider, Sam Rivers, Julius Hemphill and Henry Threadgill.
The JCA Orchestra is a gem – the highest caliber musicians deeply dedicated to new territory in large ensemble music.
“This is music for mind and soul.” — Irwin Block, Montreal Gazette
The JCA Orchestra has been a fixture on Boston’s creative music scene since its first performance in December 1985. The JCA Orchestra has released 10 critically acclaimed CDs, with its last release, Wheelworks, on the list of Downbeats best albums of 2015. “…. every community should have one” says Willard Jenkins of Jazz Times.
OddSong’s crtically acclaimed first CD, Jailhouse Doc With Holes In Her Socks, was released October, 2016. “…Darrell Katz and the various JCA groups have been quietly putting out excellent music for some time. This is one of their finest efforts.” Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz
“The band plays with drive and vitality. The soloists responding with imaginative fire to the charts and the ensemble. This is contemporary big band music of a very high order, written and played with considerable skill and integrity”-swing2bop.com/reviews.
“… Darrell Katz has forged an identity as a progressive and creative orchestrator of new music in a way that few can claim … Katz is best known not only for jagged edges and vast colors of the musical spectrum as much as direct correlations to tradition.” – Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
“… the JCAO seamlessly moved from composition to improvisation, chordal improvisation to free extemporization,wide-open structure to well-ordered chaos. The music was daring but incredibly disciplined. Even in their wildest abandon, every musician demonstrated self control in the service of expression and musical goals larger than themselves.” Aesthetic, Not Anesthetic Perfesser M. Figg
For further information on the Jazz Composers Alliance, call 781 899-3130, or dkatz1@comcast.net or:
info@jazzcomposersalliance.org,
or visit www.jazzcomposersalliance.org.
A photo is attached. Let me know if you need anything else.
Thanks!
Milva McDonald
781-259-9600
Acclaimed pianist Laszlo Gardony and his trio headline the Nashua Holiday Stroll on Saturday, November 25
The pianist’s latest recording is the joyously thoughtful
solo effort Serious Play
4 stars—“There’s a stillness at the center of [Gardony’s] music, a distinctive amalgam of central European folk strains, majestic classical piano and improvisational fearlessness. On this recording…Gardony never splinters; he only consolidates, gaining power along the way.”—Carlo Wolff, DownBeat
“Laszlo Gardony is wonderfully imaginative, his music conjuring up images of busy urban thoroughfares, starry nights in the woods of New England, of hushed audiences in a concert hall, and so much more…Serious Play does in essence, in fact, and in deed, describe this lovely album down to its resonating final chord.”—Richard Kamins, StepTempest
4 stars—“…resonates with a deep and profound sense of understanding.”—Dan Bilawsky, All About Jazz
Internationally acclaimed Boston-based jazz pianist and composer Laszlo Gardony, one of the most expressive and technically skilled pianists working in jazz today, headlines the Nashua Holiday Stroll on Saturday, November 25. Gardony and his trio featuring bassist John Lockwood and drummer Yoron Israel perform 5:45-8:10 p.m. at the Nashua Public Library, 2 Court St., Nashua NH. Free admission. For information visit http://bit.ly/2zsoQzS.
“A formidable improviser who lives in the moment,” (JazzTimes), Gardony has performed in 27 countries and released a dozen albums during his distinguished decades long career. After graduating from the Bela Bartok Conservatory and the ELTE Science University in his native Hungary, Gardony earned a full scholarship to Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music in 1983 and joined the faculty there not long after graduation. His first prize performance at the 1987 Great American Jazz Piano Competition launched him into the international spotlight. Since then, Gardony has performed at major festivals and premiere jazz clubs around the world and has toured and/or recorded with jazz greats such as Dave Holland, Miroslav Vitous, Mick Goodrick, Bob Moses, Yoron Israel’s High Standards, Matt Glaser’s Wayfaring Strangers, and David “Fathead” Newman, as well as the Boston Pops, the Utah Symphony, and the Smithsonian Institute’s Traveling Duke Ellington Exhibit, among others. Gardony’s 2015 Sunnyside recording Life in Real Time was named one of the 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2015 by the Boston Globe. His primary vehicle for most of the 21st century has been his state of the art trio with bassist John Lockwood and drummer Yoron Israel, an ensemble first documented on the 2003 Sunnyside release Ever Before Ever After. One of the finest working trios in jazz, the group performs and records regularly, exploring Gardony’s extensive book of originals as well as the occasional standard and jazz classics by the likes of Horace Silver and Billy Strayhorn.
Gardony created most of the music for his new solo album Serious Play (Sunnyside Records) spontaneously in the studio, with a few soulful reimaginations of beloved standards added, providing a potent reminder that the longtime Berklee College of Music professor is one of jazz’s most emotionally trenchant and melodically inventive solo piano practitioners. It’s his 12th album and 9th recording for Sunnyside.
Possessing a ravishing touch and a singular style that draws on the post-bop continuum, various strains of folk music and his Central European classical training, he “went into the studio with two goals that went hand in hand,” says Gardony, who couldn’t help but carry with him an acute sense of rising anxiety in the country. “One goal was to sit down and improvise for an extended amount of time,” revisiting the compositional approach that led to Clarity, his celebrated 2013 solo piano session. “The other was to organically connect that soul-baring material to soul soothing arrangements of beloved standards.
“In the studio, I asked Paul, the sound engineer, to keep the recorder running. There was the sense that this is again the right time to let spontaneous improvisation unfold and express my feelings about our times and my responsibilities in it, thereby adding my voice to our collective conversation.”
He opens and closes Serious Play with familiar standards reimagined, what Jackie McLean called “new wine in old bottles.” He starts his journey with a sublime meditation on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind” that builds on a melody that drips with longing. He follows with the album’s longest track, a caressing exploration of Coltrane’s sublime ballad “Naima” that builds between meditation and tension with his rumbling left-hand figures driving his solo, contrasting with his peaceful statement of the melody.
As Gardony writes about recording this album, “music has a direct effect on our emotions and also on our well-being. What we need at all times – but perhaps now even more – is a clear mind, so we can assess our reality accurately, energy, so we can take positive and protective action, and of course, courage, fearlessness…With this CD my focus was on strengthening us so we can be resilient and resistant, and also on washing away any fatigue, doubt, or desperation we may feel.”
“I always have a reason I make an album,” Gardony says. “It has to be something new. When I was a kid I really appreciated progressive rock, Bartok, folk music, and of course jazz and blues. With all of those musics, people never step into the same river twice.”
At a time of hunger for reason and thirst for peace of mind, Serious Play arrives like an energizing meal, accompanied by a tall drink of pure, clean water.
# # #
On Saturday, December 9, the sixteenth “Playing For The Planet” benefit concert will showcase master musicians from three different musical traditions, with all proceeds going to benefit the environmental advocacy group 350MA.org. The lineup includes Rob Flax’ genre-crossing one-man band, the Hurdy-Gurdy Band’s enthralling evocation of 18th-century European street music, and a Hindustani performance by master sitarist Jawwad Noor. The music begins at 7:00 pm, at The Community Church Of Boston, 565 Boylston Street (Copley Square), Boston. Admission is $20; $15 students & seniors. For information, please call 781-396-0734, or visit the event website at www.warrensenders.com.
“…Senders possesses a gift
for assembling fascinating programs.”
— Andrew Gilbert, The Boston Globe —
“Playing For The Planet: World Music Against Climate Change” is the sixteenth concert in an ongoing series of cross-cultural events produced by Boston-area musician and environmental activist Warren Senders. These concerts were conceived as a way for creative musicians to contribute to the urgent struggle against global warming. Their choice of beneficiary, 350MA.org, is focused on building global consensus on reduction of atmospheric CO2 levels — action which climatologists agree is necessary to avoid catastrophic outcomes.
Because the climate problem recognizes no national boundaries, the artists represent musical styles from three different parts of the globe, but share key musical values: listening, honesty, creativity, and respect. And, of course, they are all committed to raising awareness of the potentially devastating effects of global warming. It’ll be an incredible evening of powerful music — from some of the finest musicians in New England and the world.
New England Conservatory Celebrates Dizzy Gillespie’s centennial in concert on Thursday, December 7
‘Manteca: Dizzy Gillespie and the Birth of Latin Jazz’ to feature the NEC Jazz Orchestra with soloists Chris Washburne and Miguel Zenón
Photo of Miguel Zenón by Jimmy Katz
New England Conservatory’s (NEC) Jazz Studies Department will present Manteca: Dizzy Gillespie and the Birth of Latin Jazz on Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. at NEC’s Jordan Hall. In celebration of Dizzy Gillespie’s centennial, the NEC Jazz Orchestra will perform early Latin jazz masterpieces including “Manteca” and “Cubano Be, Cubano Bop.” NEC alumnus Chris Washburne will perform with the band, in addition to speaking at 1:00 p.m. on the day of the concert. NEC faculty member Miguel Zenón will also be a featured soloist, and will contribute two compositions, “Second Generation Lullaby” and “Oyelo.”
While playing together in the trumpet section of Cab Calloway’s band, Dizzy Gillespie and Mario Bauzá became friends and started collaborating on the creation of a new musical style, mixing Gillespie’s modern jazz sensibility with the Cuban tradition that Bauzá grew up with in Havana. When Gillespie put his own big band together in 1947, Bauzá recommended Cuban percussionist, singer, dancer and composer Chano Pozo, who worked closely with Gillespie on many of the band’s most influential arrangements, including “Cubano Be, Cubano Bop,” “Manteca,” and “Tin Tin Deo.” George Russell, hired by Gunther Schuller to teach at NEC in 1969, was also a pivotal part of this development, composing what is generally considered to be the first modal jazz composition in “Cubano Be, Cubano Bop,” a piece so ahead of its time that many reviewers at its Carnegie Hall premiere compared it to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.”
NEC Jazz Orchestra members are alto saxophonist and clarinetist Nathan Reising; alto saxophonist Yu Wang; tenor saxophonist Hunter Smith; tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Jesse Beckett-Herbert; baritone saxophonist Andrew Bedard; trumpeters Robert Lane, Jeffrey Cox, Massimo Paparello, and Daniel Hirsch; trombonists Bulut Gulen, Nicholas Rosario, Michael Sabin, and Felix Padilla; pianist Inigo Ruiz; guitarist Luca Ferrara; bassist James Dale; and drummer Marcelo Borque Perez. Guest players are percussionists Sebastian Garzon and Luis Herrera, and Nick Auer, Andrew Bass, and Mackenzie Newell on French horns.
Manteca: Dizzy Gillespie and the Birth of Latin Jazz will be performed on Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Ave., Boston. Admission is free. For information, please call 617-585-1122 or visit https://necmusic.edu/event/7256
New Hampshire country music artist Nicole Knox Murphy will now be playing out with her 603 Band as well as continuing to perform solo acoustic gigs. https://www.facebook.com/NKMsings4u/?timeline_context_item_type=intro_card_work&timeline_context_item_source=100000627505067&pnref=lhc
Lights Out Blues Band will be headlining a fundraiser at the Village Trestle in Goffstown, New Hampshire on Saturday, January 6th, 2018. The event will not conflict with anyone’s plans for Sunday TV football games and will help raise money so Lights Out Blues Band, Baza Blues duo, and youth performer Veronica Lewis will be able to compete in the International Blues Competition in Memphis, Tennessee later that month.
Granite State Blues Society will be organizing the event and they will likely have information coming soon about the Jan 6, 2018 Lights Out fundraiser:
https://www.facebook.com/GraniteStateBlues/
That’s all the music news I have for now, folks. Please stay tuned to:
