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Joe "Sonny" Barbato
Born and raised in Boston, MA, at nine years of age Joe began taking weekly lessons with accordion master Louis Bregoli. Sonny played the accordion until he was about thirteen years old, and then decided to begin studying the piano instead. He studied with jazz pianist Mike Marra and later attended Berklee College of Music, as well as the New England Conservatory. Joe then decided to become serious about playing the accordion again. He began to take the instrument on certain gigs and projects that called for the sound. He was beginning to find his voice on the accordion. He broadened his range of experience playing the instrument in pop, rock, [and] country, as well as jazz, this helped him to become diverse on the accordion and find his own sound.
Sonny has toured Europe as well as the United States, and he continues to work as a freelance musician and teacher in New York City as well as Boston. He has performed at festivals and concerts with Ravi Coltrane, Eddie Harris, Stanley Turrentine, Donald Harrison, Joe Locke, Jerry Bergonzi, Jeff "Tain" Watts, David Sanchez, and Larry Coryell. Joe has played accordion on over 30 recordings that range in style from country to jazz. Some of the artists he has recorded alongside with are Luciana Souza, Lori Mckenna, Kenny Barron, Duke Levine, George Schuller, David Budway, Bobby Previt, Jenifer Jackson, Ben Sher, Marvin Sewell, and many more.
After his extensive work as a sideman, Joe decided that it was time for him to take on the role of leader. Joe believes that music is about the entire group as opposed to one person. The “Crackerjack” project is really a team effort. Also featured on "Crackerjack" is Joe's long time friend pianist Dave Budway and Jimmy Ponder on guitar. Budway and Barbato penned seven of the eight songs on "Crackerjack.” There are no edits or fixes. It is all an exact representation of the actual moment that it was recorded which accounts for “Crackerjacks” fresh and exciting feel.
An increasingly significant performer in the musical community, Joe "Sonny" Barbato is ready to bring his accordion and his unique sound to the forefront of the jazz world.
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Smoke Jazz Club Announces October 2025 Lineup Including A Two-week Thelonious Monk Festival With Orrin Evans, Terri Lyne Carrington, Melissa Aldana, Joe Lovano, And More
Source:
AMT Public Relations
SMOKE Jazz Club today announced its concert schedule for October 2025. The month’s capstone is a two-week Thelonious Monk Festival (Oct 8-19) celebrating the unparalleled genius of the legendary composer/pianist Thelonious Monk (born 10.10.17) with performances by some of today’s top artists including Melissa Aldana, winner of the 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. Other highlights this month include the return of club audience favorites Nicholas Payton, Steve Davis, and one of the greatest organ trios Goldings/Bernstein/Stewart. For the ...
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Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation Featuring Amira B. & Dick Griffin At Joe's Pub Saturday, August 23, 2025
Source:
Robert C. Ford
On Saturday, August 23, 2025, Sound Liberation, the audacious musical collective led by visionary composer, guitarist, and rapper Gene Pritsker, storms the stage at the vibrant Joe's Pub in NYC. Armed with the philosophy of “ending the segregation of sound vibration,” Pritsker and his ensemble obliterate genre boundaries, fusing classical elegance, jazz improvisation, rock intensity, hip-hop swagger, and global grooves into one electrifying soundscape. This one-night-only performance will feature powerhouse R&B vocalist Amira B., a Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal ...
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Smoke Jazz Club Announces September Schedule Featuring Kris Davis Tribute To Women Pianists, Joe Farnsworth Album Release, And More
Source:
AMT Public Relations
Hailed as the “#1 Jazz Club in New York City (SecretNYC),” SMOKE Jazz Club today announced its concert schedule for September 2025. The month begins by celebrating the release of Joe Farnsworth’s latest album The Big Room (SMOKE Sessions Records) with “one of the best bands recording today” (WJTU Radio): Sarah Hanahan, Emmet Cohen, Joel Ross, Yasushi Nakamura, and Jeremy Pelt. Making her SMOKE debut as a bandleader is pianist Kris Davis—who was recently named the Pianist of the Year ...
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Backgrounder: Joe Puma - East Coast Jazz/3
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
I love precious jazz guitarists who place a premium on harmony, swing and compelling chords. One of the best in this category was Joe Puma. In the 1950s, Puma was a session sideman on many recordings and led his own groups. He recorded into the 1990s and died in 2000 at age 72. One of his finest early albums was Joe Puma Quintet: East Coast Jazz/3, which was part of a series produced by Creed Taylor for Bethlehem, in November ...
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Joe Diorio: A Guitarist's Guitarist
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
I first became aware of guitarist Joe Diorio in the1970s, when I bought a pair of Sonny Stitt albums on the Argo label—Move on Over (1963) and My Main Man (1964). I was instantly struck by how tasty Diorio played behind Stitt, especially his driving rhythm figures and fills. Born in Waterbury, Ct., in 1936, Diorio was inspired to take up the guitar by his uncle and studied in the early 1950s. Arriving on the jazz scene late, just as ...
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Backgrounder: Grant Green and Sonny Clark
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Throughout jazz history, there have been magical pairings of musicians in recording studios. Sometimes the union was established jointly by the two musicians. At other times, producers brought them together. These couplings include Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden, Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Shirley Scott and Stanley Turrentine, Sonny Stitt and Don Patterson, and Donald Byrd and Pepper Adams. Add to the list guitarist Grant Green and pianist Sonny Clark. ...
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Perfection: Sonny Stitt - Goin' Down Slow
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Today, I'm serving up two tracks for this week's Perfection entry, because as anyone who bought Sonny Stitt's LP Goin' Down Slow in 1972 knows, it's impossible to listen to the first without the second. The two featured tracks are Stitt's Miss Ann, Lisa, Sue and Sadie and Where Is Love by Lionel Bart from Oliver! The songs were recorded by Stitt in February 1972. Produced by Ozzie Cadena for Prestige, the first song featured Thad Jones (tp), Sonny Stitt (as), ...
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Backgrounder: Sonny Rollins - Alfie (1966)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
No album better reflects Sonny Rollins's personality than his Alfie: Original Music From the Score, arranged by Oliver Nelson. Recorded in New York in January 1966, the original music has his energy, passion, tenderness and his melancholy in one fell swoop. It's all very mid-1960s. To learn more about the recording, consult my two-part post on The Making of Alfie, from 2010. The first part was devoted to the popular song by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and the second ...
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Joe Pass: Virtuoso (1973)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
One of the best-selling jazz guitar albums up to 1973 was Joe Pass's Virtuoso. The jet black LP with Pass on the cover in shadow came out ahead of the December holidays and gave Norman Granz's Pablo label massive visibility. It also motivated a generation of listeners to take up the jazz guitar. Now Craft Recordings has remastered and released the album as a digital download and a 180-gram LP. Great to hear the music in sterling shape in both ...
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Spartan Press Publishes Neon Jazz Host Joe Dimino's Book of Poetry, 'The American Enigma is You'
Source:
All About Jazz
“Joe Dimino is a poet who gives us riffs bright, kindly and thoughtful. He looks and listens for those singing on their instruments. He write about several pleasures: Jazz veterans; Jazz custodians; his son's ever-fanciful language on Post-It notes. He delights in a 'little pig / wagging its tiny tail / like mad / and eating everything [ ... ]'. He sees from his home the 'white-throated sparrow that sends / out these little love notes [ ... ]', transporting ...
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