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New York Beat

Nick Catalano has a beat on the Big Apple. Find out what's cookin' in NYC.

NEW YORK BEAT

Sonny Rollins Remasters Legendary Album with Clifford Brown

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At 87, saxophone immortal Sonny Rollins remains at work honing his recording legacy. No longer performing upon receiving medical advice, the star is busily attending to an archive which contains recordings he made with virtually every bop and post-Bop virtuoso in jazz. His latest effort is a remastering of Sonny Rollins + 4 a Prestige session recorded on March 22, 1956 with Clifford Brown and Max Roach. The recording is significant for several reasons. Initially, it contains outings ...

NEW YORK BEAT

Eric Reed at Smoke Jazz & Supper Club

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Hard Bop continues to find a home in NY's Smoke Jazz & Supper Club. For decades the room featured One for All -a group whose stalwart players Eric Alexander, Steve Davis, David Hazeltine, John Webber, Jim Rotondi, and Joe Farnsworth had critics comparing them to Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. These players often led smaller groups into Smoke with players such as Harold Mabern and other hard boppers. Last week (7-22) the club brought in Eric Reed and company ...

NEW YORK BEAT

Cecil Taylor: Courage in Creation

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Ever since innovative artists were faced with reflecting and reacting in their art to seismic events (WWI) revolutionary science (Einsteinian relativity, Darwinian evolution, and political convolution (fascism, bolshevism) over a century ago, many faced years of scorn and condemnation. When they chose abstraction in art (Mondrian, Kandinsky) dissonance in music (Schoenberg, Bartok) or stream of consciousness in writing (Eliot, Joyce) to describe a disjunctive new world they were destined to lose the masses and rely on clairvoyant critics for small ...

NEW YORK BEAT

Bobby Sanabria & Band at Dizzy's

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A scintillating evening of Latin jazz with a novel twist was the order of business Monday, March 26, 2018 at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. Bobby Sanabria, the director of The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Band, has conducted superlative shows at Dizzy's in the past, but this one had a packed audience chatting up laudable encomiums long after the opening set had concluded. The program “Cartoon and TV Music Goes Latin Jazz!!!" featured the theme music from ...

NEW YORK BEAT

African-American Music: A retrospective at Jazz at Lincoln Center

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One of Jazz at Lincoln Center's most thoughtful concert ideas in recent memory came to life at the Appel Room on March 2, 2018. Dubbed “Rags, Strides & Habaneras" the intimate program managed to survey a host of strategic forms from origins in West Africa that shaped the art of music in the Americas. Most jazz fans know about ragtime and its popularity a century ago, which was led by the genius of Scott Joplin. Ageless piano wizard ...

NEW YORK BEAT

Jelly Roll Morton Front and (Lincoln) Center

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With a three-night gala celebrating the music of Jelly Roll Morton, the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra marked its 30th season at Rose Hall. Focusing on Morton's pioneer arranging achievements with amplifications of them from Jazz at Lincoln Center performers, the evening offered a penetrating exploration of the Creole legend's multifarious compositional musings and featured a quintet of sparkling piano soloists who recalled his keyboard wizardry. The full breadth and scope of Morton's talents--his multiple syncopations, latin-textured musical ...

NEW YORK BEAT

Pat Martino at The Jazz Standard

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Pat Martino Jazz Standard New York, NY August 3, 2017With his usual understated performance posturing, Pat Martino mounted the stage on opening night at The Jazz Standard and proceeded to captivate the packed house with his signature mixture of hard swing and lyrical balladry. Alongside his familiar bandmates organist Pat Bianchi and drummer Carmen Intorre Martino segued from tune to tune in the opening set with nary a word to the audience. Such has been ...

NEW YORK BEAT

John Pizzarelli Celebrates Sinatra-Jobim

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A few readers may recall a triumphant 1967 recording with Frank Sinatra singing and performing alongside legendary composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. The album, with arrangements by master arranger Claus Ogerman globally transported Brazilian music into stratospheric heights where it remains to the present day. To celebrate the album's semicentennial anniversary world-renowned singer/ guitarist John Pizzarelli is set to release Sinatra & Jobim @ 50. Performing with Pizzarelli is Jobim's grandson Daniel Jobim. The two have previously worked together ...

NEW YORK BEAT

Collegiate Jazz at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

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For the better part of a decade I've escorted my jazz class at Pace University on trips to Dizzy's to see the Manhattan School of Music Concert Jazz Band perform. The series was forged by veteran jazz academic Justin DiCioccio whose leadership and programming has prompted a rarely noticed success of Collegiate jazz bands across the country. Since DiCioccio's pioneering efforts schools such as Juilliard, Purchase, and Temple have organized similar groups and also appeared at Dizzy's. ...

NEW YORK BEAT

John Pizzarelli Soars at Birdland

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Wowing a late night crowd of worshipful fans at a packed Birdland, John Pizzarelli showcased his guitar mastery, vocal excitement, and hilarious patter this past Saturday night. Accompanied by his Swing Seven band of jazz all-stars, the scion of the famed New Jersey Pizzarelli clan (guitarist father Bucky will celebrate his 90th birthday this week at the Jazz Gallery) continued his world-renown jazz parade with a set featuring the work of legendary composers. Pizzarelli has performed in ...