Harlem in the Himalayas at The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA)

Harlem in the Himalayas: Hot Jazz for a Cold Climate
Rubin Museum of Art and Jazz Museum in Harlem Collaboration Takes Off!

3/24 Jazz Museum in Harlem Septet Rare Ellingtonia featured this Friday

3/31 Scott Robinson

4/7 Frank Wess

4/21 Gene Bertoncini (solo guitar)

5/19 Jack Walrath

6/2 Ron Blake plus many more in June/July

The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) in Chelsea and the Jazz Museum in Harlem are extending their hugely successful concerts into the spring. The concerts are followed by films inspired by RMA's current exhibition “Holy Madness: Portraits of Tantric Siddhas." In the course of their performances, the musicians will respond to the paintings and the films that follow in their own idiom.

Jazz is not new to RMA. Tim McHenry, Director of Programming at the Rubin Museum of Art, invited Chelsea residents Roswell Rudd and Andrew Sterman to premiere works within the first weeks of the Museum's opening in 2004. Rudd, the veteran trombonist who has performed in two dynamically different ensembles at the RMA--a Mongolian string band with singers and a Dixieland band with brass and drums--was moved to say, “there is something definitely right about the range of acoustical spectrum in the theater. Jazz, and in fact any music, will sound good there."

The concerts, part of RMA's new K2 Lounge on Friday nights, are curated by Executive Director of the Jazz Museum in Harlem, Loren Schoenberg. The programs present a range of jazz interpreters - this month's concerts have already featured the combos of Dominick Farinacci, Marcus Printup and Jonathan Batiste. This Friday, rare Ellingtonia will be on the menu (Barzalai Lew, Going Up, Savoy Strut, Reflections in D, Wig Wise) by the Jazz Museum in Harlem All Stars. Mr. Schoenberg said, “too much is made of the differences between the various jazz idioms. All of the bands coming to play at the RMA swing, and each do it in their own way."

The all-acoustic jazz combo concerts presented by the Rubin Museum of Art and The Jazz Museum in Harlem are held Friday nights at 7 p.m. There is a Happy Hour from 6-7 p.m. at the bar. Movies from the Fakir & Faker film series follow the concerts at 9:30 p.m. and are free with a $7 bar minimum.

Rubin Museum of Art
New York, NY
150 West 17th Street (corner of 7th Ave.)
http://www.rmanyc.org

Tickets are $15 and include admission to the Museum's galleries. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 212.620.5000 ext. 344, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.