Mark Slouka – Studio Around the Corner – September 22, 2013
This was the second Studio Around the Corner (see details of this venue in the September 8 post) in a month. This place is becoming a cultural powerhouse! Author Slouka was making the rounds to promote his latest novel, “Brewster”. We all basked in the resonance of his reading from the novel to inhabitants of the place that is the setting and title, especially the person who lived on the same block!
Mark Slouka
Juilliard Jazz Quartet – Peter Jay Sharp Theater – September 17, 2013
Thank you Juilliard Jazz, and especially Carl Allen, for keeping up with these great performances. This one was originally to have featured Ron Carter, but health issues precluded his being able to perform. Ben Wolfe filled in ably on bass. Carter did contribute a few compositions, as did Allen, Blake, and Kimbrough.
Carl Allen
Ron Blake
Frank Kimbrough
Ben Wolfe
Ensemble Signal – Miller Theatre – September 10, 2013
This was a part of the Miller Theatre’s “Pop Up” concert series. With a modest turnout expected, the seats were actually on the stage at the same level as the performers. Free beverages (alcoholic!) were provided. I’m not sure of the full configuration or orientation of the ensemble; this evening was devoted to new music for soloists, including a number of New York, USA, or world premieres. I worked in ink – bold for me, no erasing – but blinked at the photoshop step, “fixing” a few “flaws” on Parker.
Steven Parker
Oliver Hagen
Kelli Kathman
American Music & Local History – Southeast Museum – September 8, 2013
A wordy title that doesn’t fit on one line, oh well. Full story: the basement of the Southeast Museum in Brewster is a small performance space and gallery known as the Studio Around the Corner, operated by the Town of Southeast Cultural Arts Coalition. The museum is housed in the historic old town hall. OK, mouthful done! The quintet ensemble was assembled by Bob Zubrycki, and the program comprised American music spanning two centuries, from Benjamin Franklin to Aaron Copland. Narration providing historical context of the pieces was provided by Amy Campanaro (the museum’s director).
Robert Zubrycki
Sarah Hewitt-Roth
Adria Benjamin
Cecile McLorin Salvant – Marcus Garvey Park – August 24, 2013
This was day 2 of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, so it was a bit of a tossup how I would title it, but Cecile was the real draw for me, getting me down to Harlem plenty early and sitting in the hot sun for over an hour to get a primo seat. Not that the other bands, and there were three of them, were slouches by any means. I got all of the players for the Jaleel Shaw group, and the Kimberly Thompson combo as well. But for Cecile I broke out the watercolors and let the rest of her band slide. By Kenny Garrett’s set, I was played after two days of mad action sketching, so I just took what I could get. Sketches here are in chronological order.
Jaleel Shaw & Boris Kozlov
Johnathan Blake & Lawrence Fields
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Kimberly Thompson
Courtney Bryan & Aaron Burnett
Nick Woziak
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Cecile McLorin Salvant
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Kenny Garrett
Corcoran Holt
Rudy Bird
Jimmy Heath Big Band – Marcus Garvey Park – August 23, 2013
As part of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, Heath led his big band in a premiere of his extended composition, “Bird is the Word”. And then continued with his brand of modern trad post-bop. Heath gets top shelf players for his ensemble, some still young and in training, and lets ’em wail! A parade of soloists doing right by the music kept me frantic trying to keep up sketching, no time for color. Lordy!
Jimmy Heath
Frank Basile & Douglas Purviance & Freddie Hendrix
Bobby LaVell
David Wong
Greg Gisbert
Jason Jackson
Jeb Patton
John Mosca
Mark Gross
Charles Davis
Sharel Cassity
Scott Wendholt
The Ebony Hillbillies – Slattery Park, The Bronx – August 19, 2013
Somehow this group got booked into Slattery Park for 10:30 AM on a Monday morning! A serious chat with the booking agent is called for. I was the only person who actually was there to see them, and as anticipated, (let’s see how to best euphemise this) there was no trouble in viewing close and unobstructed. Some of the park patrons did stop by for a few numbers here and there. Anyhow, they are another bastion of old-timey Americana, mined in a similar fashion by the Carolina Chocolate Drops (see June 23, 2012). Gassaway is depicted playing “the bones”, another first for my expanding sketch horizons. I came up a little short on time, so wasn’t as finished as I wanted to be, especially with Salter (btw, co-author of a couple of pop classics – “Where is the Love” and “Just the Two of Us” – as pointed out to me by Gassaway). This seems to be the year for me to catch the blind players; banjoist Bennett evidently has plenty of experience signing autographs, though.
Newman Taylor Baker
Henrique Prince
Gloria Gassaway
Norris Bennett
Bill Salter
The Ebony Hillbillies
Yard Byard – Dobbs Ferry Riverfront Park – August 14, 2013
This is a tribute band to the late jazz piano encyclopedist, Jaki Byard; a number of the players had worked with him in some capacity. It is testimony to the strengths of Byard’s compositions that they sounded great even with no piano!
George Schuller
Adam Kolker
Jamie Baum
Ugonna Okegwo
Jerome Harris
Roots of American Music – Lincoln Center Hearst Plaza – August 10, 2013
I wasn’t sure what to call this; the main draw for me was Martha Redbone and her Roots Project. I couldn’t tell from the promo material that she was clearly the headliner, so I’m calling it by the umbrella title, Roots of American Music. This year is Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors’ 30th annual edition of this, and not my first time around with it. Trixie Whitley, unfamiliar to me, was the opener. Redbone (no stretch here to connect to roots) got the watercolor treatment, which meant that I was unable to portray her band, which was seriously cookin’. Hurray for the Riff Raff, equally unknown was the closer. It’s apparently the vehicle for Bronx-native-but-relocated-to-New-Orleans Alynda Lee Segarra. Posting of her band’s portraits awaits clarification of their identities; I’ll give it decent try to find out first.
Martha Redbone
Trixie Whitley
Ray Rizzo
Thomas Bartlett
Josh Kaufman & Sam Cohen
Trixie Whitley Group
Alynda Lee Segarra
Busking Seattle – August 2-3, 2013
The area around Pike Place Market in Seattle is a natural hub for that city’s busker community. In addition to musicians of various ilk, other forms of entertainment were proffered, including the guy I saw doing card tricks. I stuck to portraying the musicians, which included three personal firsts: kazoo (Jobydiah), Scottish highland pipes (Brendecke), and didgeridoo (Kimes). Unfortunately for the latter, I caught only the last few minutes of his set, so the sketch is at the basic level; he gave me a free CD, but it didn’t play in any of my players! The apparent duo “Squirrel Butter” (Beck & Slavin) was a trio with a fiddle player the day before; Slavin not only plays and sings, but on some numbers she clog-dances a percussion track on a special board that they shlep around. My imagination reels at the amount of practice necessary to master (and she has mastered) such a talent.
Charlie Beck
Charmaine Slaven
Jobydiah
Gibson & Symer & Kent
Jeff Kimes
Martin Brendecke
