The Jazz Standard

Monday October 12
Mingus Big Band
Charles Mingus was looking for individuality in his musicians and thats 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 thats what Charles wanted. Wayne Escoffery, in an interview with The Lumire Reader, New Zealand.

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 Zenn, Ben Monder, and Marcus Gilmore.

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.

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 Sungs fortuitous meeting with poet (and former National Endowment for the Arts Chairman) Dana Gioia. Featuring Entrance, one of Gioias 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.

Friday - Sunday October 16 - 18
Ben Allison Band
Think Free, Ben Allisons new CD (due out 10/13/09) will be his eighth release on Palmetto Records but his first to be recorded with the lineup hell 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.

Monday October 19
Mingus Big Band
Wayne Escoffery, Seamus Blake tenor saxophone
Craig Handy, Scott Robinson alto saxophone, flute
Jason Marshall baritone saxophone
Conrad Herwig, Earl McIntyre, Ku-umba Frank Lacy trombones
Lew Soloff, Tatum Greenblatt, Brandon Lee trumpets
Helen Sung piano
Boris Kozlov bass
Donald Edwards - drums

Tuesday October 20
Julian Lage Group
Theres 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. Theres 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)

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 yearlong 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.
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).

Monday October 26
Mingus Orchestra

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 Zenn, just to name a few. The musical history of Cuba is full of extraordinary pianists, says saxophonist Paquito DRivera, I am certain that Elio Villafranca is amongst the best representatives of the new generation of Cuban pianists and composers.

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 Dizzys (and Rose Hall) at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, Iridium, Sweet Rhythm, Feinsteins, 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

Thursday - Sunday October 29 - November 1
Go Home
Go Home brings together Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendolas rootsy, hard-driving grooves with the astute, lyrical interplay of Curtis Fowlkes and Ben Goldberg. This endlessly adventurous quartet builds its improvisations upon Goldbergs spacious melodies, and the result charts the clarinetist/composers creative journey from the esoteric realms of the avant-garde to the simple pleasures of syncopation and melody. Dont miss the NY premier and debut self-titled CD release celebration (on Ben Goldbergs BAG Productions label) from this exciting band!