Results for "New York City"

New York City Gay Men's Chorus

Born: August 13, 1980

The New York City Gay Men’s Chorus is currently celebrating its 27h season. and will conclude the season with a performance, Take the A Train: The Music of Billy Strayhorn, on June 18 at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square. The Chorus has been acclaimed by America’s leading music critics as a men’s chorus of outstanding musical accomplishment, and has established itself as a cornerstone in the musical life of New York City, bearing a message of equality and freedom by openly gay performers. It has engaged leading composers to illuminate its mission, including John Corigliano, David Conte, William Bolcom, Libby Larsen and Ned Rorem, leading to over 60 premieres, adding significantly to the repertory of choral music

Alexis Cole

Born: January, 1976

Called "one of the great voices of today," by Jonathan Schwartz, Alexis Cole has been compared to classic jazz singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Anita O'Day. She's performed with the Boston Pops and New York Philharmonic on stage at venues from Avery Fisher Hall to the Kennedy Center. She records for Motéma Music, NY, Chesky Records, NY and Venus Records, Japan. Her nine recordings, which feature musical luminaries such as Fred Hersch, Eric Alexander, Matt Wilson, Harry Pickens, Don Braden and Pat LaBarbara, have received high praise in the jazz press and are spun on radio world-wide

Rana Farhan

Jazz siren Rana Farhan proclaims on her web site: “Jazz is peace.” She’s not just borrowing 60s flower child rhetoric. She knows firsthand. Born in Iran, Rana grew up listening to any albums she could get her hands on, fostering a love for American blues artists like Brownie McGhee, Leadbelly, and Johnny Winter; while rockin’ to Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Soon she was begging her older brother to teach her guitar and singing through a microphone she had plugged into an old radio in her families living room. Rana left Iran after the religious revolution made her artistic pursuits nearly impossible and she soon found herself in New York City, exploring her talents in lacquer paintings, restoring antique furniture, and soaking in the sounds and music of Manhattan

Aaron Goldberg

For the Boston-born, New York-based Aaron Goldberg, Worlds his 2006 release on the Sunnyside label, is an encyclopedic circumnavigation of his ever-evolving musicality, which began with piano lessons at the age of seven. In high school Aaron got hooked on jazz by Bob Sinicrope of Milton Academy and continued his pursuit with saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, two master educators. "At first improvisation was a mystery and a puzzle, but soon it became a profound inner and outer journey as life and music entwined." After receiving awards from Berklee School of Music and DownBeat, Aaron left at age 17 for NYC

Avishai Cohen - Trumpet

Born: 1978

A year after his impressionistic, award winning and critically-lauded ECM debut Into The Silence, Avishai Cohen’s Cross My Palm With Silver (May 5th, 2017) introduces a program of new pieces which put the focus on the ensemble, on teamwork, with an exceptional quartet featuring Yonathan Avishai (piano), Barak Mori (bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums). The adroit interplay among the musicians allows Avishai Cohen to soar, making it clear why the pure-toned trumpeter is one of the most talked-about jazz musicians on the contemporary scene.

In 2016 alone, Cohen was named “Best Foreign Artist” by Jazz Magazine France, while Into the Silence was awarded “Best Album of the Year” by TSF Jazz and Academie du Jazz, and in the top 20 albums of the year by JazzTimes. For four years running, Cohen has been voted a Rising Star-Trumpet in the Down Beat Critics Poll. Along with leading his quartet, the trumpeter has led Triveni (a trio with Omer Avital and Nasheet Waits) for over a decade, was a member of the prestigious SFJAZZ Collective for six years, and has been a featured soloist in a number of special ensembles – most recently in “Jazz 100” alongside Danilo Perez, Lizz Wright, Chris Potter and Wycliffe Gordon. He also records and tours the world with The 3 Cohens Sextet, the hit family band with his sister, clarinetist-saxophonist Anat, and brother, saxophonist Yuval. Declared All About Jazz: “To the ranks of the Heaths of Philadelphia, the Joneses of Detroit and the Marsalises of New Orleans, fans can now add the 3 Cohens of Tel Aviv.”

Saul ZebulonRubin

Born: October 30, 1958

“Saul is a consummate musician, a person who is aware of the feelings of others and a person who is gentle in that sense. He is everything I could ask for in a bandmate.”– SONNY ROLLINS

“Saul has it all together and is a positive force in the world of the guitar. He plays hip melodies, which he’s totally in touch with when improvising. His harmonies, both with his impeccable comping and chord soloing, employ refreshing voicings, and certainly keep the listener involved. – GENE BERTONCINI

“An accomplished guitarist” – THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Dayna Stephens

Since the release of his 2007 disc, The Timeless Now (CTA), Dayna Stephens has emerged as one of his generation’s most distinguished modern jazz tenor saxophonists and composers. He hones a sinewy yet supple tone that unfurl poised improvisations with melodic ingenuity. As a composer, Stephens continues to build a multifaceted oeuvre filled with pieces that are cinematic in dynamic scope as they incorporate and suspenseful dialogue and interplay. In addition to establishing himself as a leading early 21st century jazz voice, Stephens has collaborated with an impressive array of jazz musicians, including pianists Brad Mehldau, Taylor Eigsti, Muhal Richard Abrams, Kenny Barron, Theo Hill, Gerald Clayton and Aaron Parks; drummers Brian Blade, Al Foster, Idris Muhammad, Marvin “Boogaloo” Smith, Eric Harland, Matt Slocum and Justin Brown; trumpeters Roy Hargrove, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Michael Rodriguez; saxophonists Jaleel Shaw, Ben Wendel, Chris Potter, John Ellis and Walter Smith III; bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Joe Sanders, Linda Oh, Doug Weiss and Larry Grenadier; vocalists Gretchen Parlato, Becca Stevens and Sachal Vasandani; guitarists Julian Lage, Lage Lund and Charles Altura. The New York Times heralded Stephens as a “must see,” and wrote, “Everything flows with unusual fluency and makes you feel rewarded,” regarding his improvisational facilities

Kendrick Scott

Born: July 8, 1980

Drummer and composer Kendrick Scott kicked off his Blue Note contract four years ago with We Are the Drum. Expertly produced by Derrick Hodge, Scott’s creative confidant and musical brother, and featuring a stunning guest performance by vocalist Lizz Wright, it earned rave reviews and reiterated how Oracle, Scott’s long-running working group, is one of the most thoughtfully powerful jazz bands of its generation. When it came time to follow this success up with a new effort, however, Scott felt stuck. Nothing he wrote or played seemed good enough; self-doubt had formed a blockade where inspiration once flowed

Roberta Piket

Born: August 9

The daughter of a European composer and a Great American Songbook singer, native New Yorker Roberta Piket is a pianist who loves to swing while exploring the more adventurous harmonic possibilities of jazz and improvised music. Roberta’s father was the Austrian composer Frederick Piket, whose works were performed by the New York Philharmonic under famed conductor Dimtri Metropolis. (The elder Piket, who passed away when Roberta was eight, is also renowned for his significant contribution to the musical liturgy of reform Judaism.) From her mother, Cynthia, Roberta learned by ear the tunes of Porter, Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers, and Berlin (as well as accompanying lyrics). In her early teens, a chance encounter with a classic LP rescued from a flea market changed the course of Roberta’s life

Sean Noonan

Born: December 11, 1975

Rhythmic storyteller Sean Noonan composes and conducts with a pair of drum sticks original multi-stylistic American music. The treasures that he finds along the way are filtered through his distinctive vision to become the unpredictable and far-ranging sounds of Noonan’s wide-spectrum music, which combines the eloquence of an Irish bard, the narrative rhythms of Samuel Beckett, and the raw physicality of a street-smart boxer. An Irish-American drummer with a theatrical bent and a passion for African rhythms, Noonan’s excursions are both geographical, taking him to far-flung corners of the world to study cultural and conceptual traditions as he explores the outer limits of music to soak in harmolodic jazz, bleeding-edge rock or avant-garde classical influences