Category Archives: Concert And Event Reviews

2012 NYC Winter Jazzfest Part 3: feat. Jessica Lurie Ensemble at pre-2012 NY Winter Jazzfest

Date: Thursday, January 5, 2012
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)

Review by Matt Cole

On Thursday, 5 January 2012, the Jessica Lurie Ensemble opened up a 4-band pre-2012 NY Winter Jazzfest concert at La Poisson Rouge with a very strong set, which was dominated by selections from her upcoming album, Megaphone Heart. Naturally, this band is led by multi-instrumentalist Jessica Lurie, who is known for her saxophone pyrotechnics in Living Daylights and The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet. In addition to Ms. Lurie on the saxophone, flute, and vocals, the band consisted of longtime JLE stalwarts Allison Miller on drums, Erik Deutsch on keyboards, along with frequent collaborator Will Bernard on guitar and a (so far) rare appearance by Chris Lightcap on double bass.

It is very hard to pin down the JLE with regards to genre or style. The band can go from Balkan sounds, to avant jazz, to rock, to gentle ballads and back again in the space of a set (and sometimes within the space of one song). All of the musicians are virtuoso players on their respective instruments, and have excellent listening and communication skills.

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2012 NYC Winter Jazzfest Part 2: enjoy!

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi and Jim Hoey

Now in it’s 8th year, NYC’s Winter Jazzfest sent out an impossible dare to city jazz fans this time in 2012: “Pay the low price of $45 for two nights and we dare you to try to see over 60 acts in four venues around the West Village”.

The clubs that featured bands are some of the oldest, and smaller, rooms in the city: Le Poisson Rouge, Sullivan Hall, The Bitter End, Kenny’s Castaways, and Zinc Bar. In trying to manically beat a path from spot to spot hoping to catch a favorite act, over 4000 music lovers made this year’s festival probably the most successful yet, thanks to the hard work of founders Brice Rosenbloom and Adam Schatz and the promotion efforts of Boom Collective and Search and Restore.

Since the closing of many of the more avant-garde downtown venues like Tonic and the original Knitting Factory, the city has felt a loss in the jazz scene; sure there’s always Lincoln Center, but what about the emerging artists, hungry to push boundaries? At times it’s felt like maybe the old “Jazz is dead” cliche is actually starting to ring true, with so much shifting sand under the feet of those in the scene, so to speak, and everything spreading out to Brooklyn. Here in NYC, that would be unbelievable, unacceptable.

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Special women around us: Azam Ali – the singer and the music activist.

Concert review by Eric Lofhjelm

Azam Ali and (most of) the members of Niyaz played two shows in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving week. I left from my home in Maryland on Sunday the 20th and travelled to the northeast suburbs of Philly to visit with family. Monday afternoon I headed into the city and found the venue, Ibrahim Theatre, at International House on Chestnut St. Having a few hours to spare, I sought out the Occupy Philadelphia site to get a first-person view of the encampment, and perhaps some perspective that the media was not presenting.

Returning to the venue for the show, I was pleased to find a somewhat ethnically mixed crowd, and a dance floor! Raquy and The Cavemen, from NYC, opened the show with their energetic mix of drums, guitar and kamanche (Persian spike fiddle). Azam, her husband and co-writer Loga Ramin Torkian, and 3 others took the stage. They performed several songs from Azam’s latest release, From Night to the Edge of Day as well as favorites from the two Niyaz recordings. Azam invited the audience to the dance floor towards the end of the show, and it filled with mostly women, swirling, arms lifted, hips swinging.

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Concert review: Butch Morris and the Lucky Cheng Orchestra’s musical adventure

Date: Monday, November 7, 2011
Venue: Lucky Cheng (NY)
Reviewed by Matt Cole

On Monday, the 7th of November, Butch Morris led his newest project, the Lucky Cheng Orchestra, in a two-set conducted musical adventure at Lucky Cheng’s (the current residence of Nublu) in Lower Manhattan, the latest in a weekly residency, which started in early September, and will last until the end of November. This night’s players included Tom Swafford on violin, Nicole Federici on viola, Meaghan Burke on cello, Areni Agbabian on voice, Christoph Knoche on bass clarinet, flute, and harmonica, Doug Wieselman on clarinet, Stephanie Richards on trumpet, Brendan Ross and Octavia Romano on guitar, Tom Zlabinger on double bass, Joe Hertenstein and Kenny Wollesen on percussion, and William MacIntyre on vibraphone. This night’s show was also videotaped by the BBC for a news segment.

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Concert review: a night of Indian-American music, another example of great local talent reaching forward into new territory!

Date: September 23, 2011
Venue: Baruch College’s Performance Space (NY)
Concert review by Jim Hoey

This recent night of Indian-American music at Baruch College’s performance space, on Sept. 23rd, is another example of great local talent reaching forward into new territory, and simultaneously upholding the traditional apects of Hindi-inspired Bollywood soundtracks. Two bands,  Ravish Momin’s Tarana, and Sameer Gupta’s Namasker, took two different approaches, drawing from the same traditions.

It was incredible to hear Momin on drums in Tarana, with the exquisite accompaniment of Trina Basu on violin, mixing live percussion with trademark electronics. They slowly built up a loose framework for the extensive and soulful improvisations, playing most of the 4 new tracks on the new EP After the Disquiet. The achievement of Tarana is that with even the most traditional of folk-Hindi rhythms as a point of departure, their songs can take subtle turns down different paths to a more Middle-Eastern or Asian sound, then more modern, and can often switch mid-piece without any jarring or noticeable transition point.

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