Thursday - Sunday October 1 - 4
FESTIVAL OF NEW TRUMPET MUSIC (FONT)
Jazz Standard is proud to present the seventh annual Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT), conceived and curated by acclaimed player, composer, and bandleader Dave Douglas. This year’s FONT honors the great Bobby Bradford, who will travel from the West Coast to appear on our stage at the helm of two outstanding groups.
Thursday October 1
Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet plus special guest Avishai Cohen
A “fiercely gifted young trumpeter” (Nate Chinen, The New York Times), Ambrose Akinmusire performed with such renowned leaders as Joe Henderson, Joshua Redman, Steve Coleman, and Billy Higgins while still a student at Berkeley High (Berkeley, CA). Ambrose is the winner of both the 2007 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition and 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. In 2007, he released Prelude...to Cora, his first recording as a leader, on the Fresh Sounds New Talent label. Ambrose also appears on albums by Esperanza Spaulding (Esperanza), Aaron Parks (Shadows), Steve Coleman (Resistance Is Futile), and Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd (In What Language?), among others. Special guest Avishai Cohen is making waves as an improviser, composer and bandleader on stage and his latest recording After the Big Rain, which “provides a splendid entry point to Cohen’s superb and at times singular musicianship.” (Down Beat)
Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW
Friday October 2
Jeremy Pelt with special guests Eddie Henderson and David Weiss
Soon after his arrival in town in 1998, Jeremy Pelt began to attract the attention of some of New York’s leading musicians, first as a member of the Mingus Big Band, then on gigs and recordings with such jazz luminaries as Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Frank Foster, John Hicks, Ravi Coltrane, and Cedar Walton, to name a few. In his Down Beat review of Jeremy’s 2008 Maxjazz CD November, John Murph wrote: “Pelt's deft compositions make November a rewarding disc that invites repeated listens. They’re steeped in modern post-bop, but also evoke a cinematic narrative akin to Wayne Shorter or Bobby Hutcherson. The cohesive energy of Pelt’s new outfit also contributes to this date's lasting impression.”
Jeremy’s special guests tonight are Dr. Eddie Henderson, a veteran of Herbie Hancock’s groundbreaking Mwandishi sextet who became a jazz/fusion star with his Blue Note albums Sunburst and Heritage; and the composer, arranger, bandleader and trumpeter David Weiss of the New Jazz Composers Octet and long-time musical director for the late Freddie Hubbard.
Tickets: $30 - PURCHASE NOW
Saturday October 3
Bobby Bradford Quintet featuring David Murray
Bobby Bradford is one of the most distinctive trumpet voices to emerge from the Sixties avant-garde. The Dallas native grew up playing with other locals such as Cedar Walton and David “Fathead” Newman. In 1953, he moved to Los Angeles where he met and played with Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy, and from 1961–1963 Bradford replaced Don Cherry in the Ornette Coleman Quartet but his longest and best-known association is with the clarinetist John Carter (1928–1991) with whom Bobby recorded such albums as Flight for Four (1969), Tandem (1982), and Comin’ On (1988).
Bobby Bradford’s association with his special guest David Murray goes back decades. In a 1992 New York Times review, Jon Pareles wrote: “With such superb musicians, each composition developed depth and humanity. Mr. Bradford’s solos are terse, using short phrases, angular lines and little muttering licks; they seem to spiral inward on themselves. By contrast, Mr. Murray is expansive, crooning melodies on tenor saxophone and dilating outward with hyper-fast streaks, glissandos and long lines that swoop through the instrument’s usual range and beyond.”
Tickets: $30 - PURCHASE NOW
Sunday October 4
Bobby Bradford Octet featuring David Murray
Bobby Bradford is back for a second gala night on our stage, this time at the helm of an all-star octet featuring special guest David Murray, trombonist Benny Powell (of the Randy Weston group), multi-reed master Marty Ehrlich, and the great drummer Andrew Cyrille.
Tickets: $30 - PURCHASE NOW
Monday October 5
Mingus Orchestra – First Anniversary of “Mingus Mondays” At Jazz Standard!
Sue Mingus assembled this ambitious repertory group that de-emphasizes solo improvisation to focus instead on Mingus’ more classically influenced compositions. “One of several bands entrusted with the daunting task of preserving Charles Mingus’ raucous, bighearted legacy, the ten-piece Mingus Orchestra has all the depth and muscle needed to render the master bassist-composer’s tempestuous fantasias.” (Time Out New York)
Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW
Tuesday October 6
Cuong Vu
Cuong Vu has lent his distinctive trumpet playing to the music of artists ranging from Pat Metheny and Myra Melford to Laurie Anderson and David Bowie. As a leader, each new recording has found Cuong Vu carving out a distinctive sonic territory on his instrument while gracefully transcending all stylistic boundaries. “When he’s on his own, Vu composes and plays a kind of music that is both jazz and not-jazz, post-rock without the pretension, metal without the cookie monster voice. Whatever it is, it’s brilliant.” (Matt Cibula, PopMatters.com)
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Wednesday - Thursday October 7 - 8
Joe Martin Quartet featuring Mark Turner, Brad Mehldau & Marcus Gilmore
Jazz Standard is proud to present bassist Joe Martin in the premier of music from his forthcoming Anzic Records CD, Not By Chance. This all-star ensemble, featuring Grammy-nominated pianist Brad Mehldau, the articulate saxophonist Mark Turner, and thrilling drummer Marcus Gilmore, will dig into Joe’s original compositions – “A Dream,” “Not By Chance,” “The Balloon Song” – for two nights of state-of-the-art modern jazz.
Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW
Friday - Sunday October 9 - 11
Dafnis Prieto “Si o Si” Quartet
Live at Jazz Standard, due out in September 2009, by Dafnis Prieto and his “Si o Si” Quartet is simply one of the best albums ever recorded in our room. Apfelbaum, Valera, and Flores play as one voice on Dafnis’ soulful compositions, riding Dafnis’ tricky, fast-flowing rhythmic currents with grace and assurance. On this album, Dafnis Prieto achieves his stated goal: “To have the opportunity of bringing your own ideas, to enrich the way, to awake the beauty of music itself.”
Tickets: $30 / $25 Sunday - PURCHASE NOW
Monday October 12
Mingus Big Band
“Charles Mingus was looking for individuality in his musicians and that’s one of the great things also about being in the Mingus Big Band, because it really forces you to have your own individual sound. Each song every night is played in a completely different way and goes different places, because that’s what Charles wanted.” – Wayne Escoffery, in an interview with The Lumière Reader, New Zealand.
Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW
Tuesday October 13
Jazz Standard & The Austrian Cultural Forum New York Presents
Hans Glawischnig Quartet
Jazz Standard and the Austrian Cultural Forum proudly present Hans Glawischnig, one of the most in-demand bassists on the scene, leading his own quartet for a very special one-night stand. The high esteem in which the Graz, Austria native is held by his fellow musicians is evident from the personnel on Hans’ 2008 CD Panorama (Sunnyside Records), which includes Chick Corea, Miguel Zenón, Ben Monder, and Marcus Gilmore.
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Wednesday October 14
Pyeng Threadgill
Pyeng Threadgill is truly a unique and unclassifiable artist. In the grooves of her forthcoming album, Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories, Pyeng explores concepts of reality and magic, humanity and nature through her vibrant, caressing vocals, metaphorical lyrics, and the rolling rhythms and revolving countermelodies of her versatile band. Pyeng Threadgill, wrote Neva Chonin at SFGate.com, “understands subtlety. From her sensible shoes and swishing pleated skirt to her elegantly measured phrasing, her approach is both pristine and intimate, supported by arrangements that are inventive but not gaudy.”
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Thursday October 15
Helen Sung: Sung with Words
Earlier this year, Helen appeared on our stage with a top-shelf quartet to record her first live album (coming soon). Sung With Words is a new poetry and music project sparked by Sung’s fortuitous meeting with poet (and former National Endowment for the Arts Chairman) Dana Gioia. Featuring “Entrance,” one of Gioia’s poems from his award-winning Interrogations At Noon, this remarkable program includes musical settings of additional poems by poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Friend.
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Friday - Sunday October 16 - 18
Ben Allison Band
Think Free, Ben Allison’s new CD (due out 10/13/09) will be his eighth release on Palmetto Records but his first to be recorded with the lineup he’ll lead this week at Jazz Standard. The album includes four new originals and new versions of three Allison classics, plus a free-improv vignette. One of the true MVPs on the New York scene, Ben Allison was cited in multiple categories (including Bassist and Composer) in the 2008 Down Beat Critics Poll and his album Little Things Run The World reached Number One on the CMJ National Radio charts.
Tickets: $25 / $30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW
Monday October 19
Mingus Big Band
“The weekly Monday Mingus show at the Jazz Standard is New York’s most transcendent weekly residency. It’s probably the best in the entire world. The group treated what appeared to be a sold-out house to a passionate, frequently ecstatic performance, which wasn’t particularly surprising considering what a treat it must be to play this stuff. It could be argued that there has been no composer in any style of music who has written with such fearlessness, ferocity or consistently counterintuitive creativity since Mingus’ sadly early demise in 1979.” (from Lucid Culture review of Mingus Big Band, 7/27/09 at Jazz Standard)
Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW
Tuesday October 20
Julian Lage Group
There’s no other guitarist on the American music scene who sounds like Julian Lage. His singular style melds strains of blues, classical, folk, and jazz music as he switches deftly from acoustic to electric and back. Sounding Point, the new EmArcy/Universal album by 21-year-old Julian Lage, is the most striking and sophisticated debut by a young instrumentalist in years. The music ranges from through-composed works and impromptu improvisations in duo and trio settings to solo excursions and a finale capped by a masterful rendering of Miles Davis’ “All Blues.” “There’s a palpable joyousness to this music, an optimism and rhythmic buoyancy that help uninitiated listeners join Lage for the ride.” (Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune)
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Wednesday - Sunday October 21-25 (7:30 & 9:30 ONLY)
JOSHUA REDMAN TRIO
Having turned forty on February 1, 2009, Joshua Redman seems to have embarked on a year–long public celebration of his spectacular musical gifts. Critics hear a musician who just keeps getting better: At the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, “Redman put on the show of his life,” wrote Steve Greenlee in The Boston Globe, playing “more confidently and powerfully than ever.” After an appearance at Yoshi’s in Berkeley, Jim Harrington of the Contra Costa Times was convinced “Redman never has sounded better” and discerned “a mature, confident artist whose body of work someday may stand with jazz's giants.” At Manhattan’s Highline Ballroom, Nate Chinen of The New York Times heard the saxophonist “making some of the best music of his career. At almost every turn he seemed intensely focused but unpressured and completely in command.” For this Jazz Standard engagement, Joshua Redman will expand upon the music of his 2009 Nonesuch CD Compass in a three-way conversation with the superlative rhythm section of Matt Penman (bass) and Gregory Hutchinson (drums).
Tickets: : $35 / $37.50 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW
Monday October 26
Mingus Orchestra
“Whenever you feel gloomy about the future of jazz, try to catch the mavericks gathered by Charles Mingus’ indefatigable widow, Sue. Many repertory bands can deliver note-perfect but lifeless reproductions of old glories. Mingus’ heirs stay as true to the restless spirit of the originals as anyone could possibly hope for.” (Clive Davis, The Times of London Online)
Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW
Tuesday October 27
Elio Villafranca Quintet featuring Grant Stewart
The gifted pianist and composer, Elio Villafranca, first appeared on our stage with his quartet in the “New Dimensions in Latin Jazz Series” in 2007. In the interim, Elio won a Heineken Green Ribbon Master Artist Music Grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC). As a sideman, his credits include gigs and recordings with Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Fortune, Pat Martino, and Miguel Zenón, just to name a few. “The musical history of Cuba is full of extraordinary pianists,” says saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, “I am certain that Elio Villafranca is amongst the best representatives of the new generation of Cuban pianists and composers.”
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Wednesday October 28
Pamela Luss with Houston Person
Tonight, Jazz Standard celebrates the release of Sweet and Saxy, the fourth album by the widely acclaimed vocalist Pamela Luss, on Savant Records/HighNote Records. Produced by and featuring tenor saxophone colossus Houston Person, Sweet and Saxy is a glorious display of the dynamic synergy created by the emerging singer and the veteran horn man. Pamela Luss has appeared at virtually every major venue in New York, including Dizzy’s (and Rose Hall) at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, Iridium, Sweet Rhythm, Feinstein’s, and the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. “Everything about Pamela is first-rate, be it her solid chops, well-endowed voice, or skillful ballad delivery...The magical interaction between the warm sound of Person's tenor sax and Luss's expressive singing suggests the birth of a new, splendid partnership.” – JazzYell-Japan
Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW
Thursday - Sunday October 29 - November 1
Go Home
Go Home brings together Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola’s rootsy, hard-driving grooves with the astute, lyrical interplay of Curtis Fowlkes and Ben Goldberg. This endlessly adventurous quartet builds its improvisations upon Goldberg’s spacious melodies, and the result charts the clarinetist/composer’s creative journey from the esoteric realms of the avant-garde to the simple pleasures of syncopation and melody. Don’t miss the NY premier and debut self-titled CD release celebration (on Ben Goldberg’s BAG Productions label) from this exciting band!
Tickets: $25 / $30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW