March 2013 | No. 131 Your FREE Guide to the NYC Jazz Scene nycjazzrecord.com JENNY SCHEINMAN Bringing It All Together N E ” Z M Z O A E W J U “ N S I IS CLAUDIA • MIN • VALERIE • LIBRA • EVENT ACUÑA XIAO-FEN CAPERS RECORDS CALENDAR “BEST JAZZ CLUBS OF THE YEAR 2012” SMOKE JAZZ & SUPPER CLUB • HARLEM, NEW YORK FEATURED ARTISTS / 7pm, 9pm & 10:30 ONE NIGHT ONLY / 7pm, 9pm & 10:30 RESIDENCIES / 7pm, 9pm & 10:30 Friday & Saturday March 1 & 2 Wednesday March 6 Mondays March 4, 18 BILLY HARPER QUINTET Michael Dease Quintet Captain Black Big Band featuring Francesca Tanksley Wednesday March 13 Mondays March 11, 25 Friday & Saturday March 8 & 9 Rick Germanson Quintet Jason Marshall Big Band “BLOWIN’ THE BLUES AWAY” Wednesday March 20 Tuesdays March 5, 12, 19, 26 MIKE LEDONNE QUINTET FEAT. Cynthia Holiday Mike LeDonne LOUIS HAYES Wednesday Feb 27 Groover Quartet Jeremy Pelt (tr) • Gary Smulyan (bar sax) • Ira Coleman (b) Dee Daniels Eric Alexander (sax) • Peter Bernstein (g) • Joe Farnsworth (dr) Thursdays March 7, 14, 21, 28 Friday & Saturday March 15 & 16 ERIC REED QUARTET LATE NIGHT RESIDENCIES Gregory Generet Sundays March 3, 10 Grant Stewart (sax) • Matt Clohesy (b) • Willie Jones III (d) Mon The Smoke Jam Session SaRon Crenshaw Band Friday & Saturday March 22 & 23 Tue Mike DiRubbo B3-3 CELEBRATING HAROLD Sunday March 17, 31 MABERN’S 77TH BIRTHDAY Wed Brianna Thomas Quartet Allan Harris Band HAROLD MABERN TRIO Thr Nickel and Dime OPS Sunday March 24 John Webber (b) • Joe Farnsworth (d) Scott Sharrard Blues & Bugaloo Soul Revue Fri Patience Higgins Quartet featuring Ian Hendrickson-Smith Friday & Saturday March 29 & 30 Sundays FRANK WESS QUINTET Sat Johnny O’Neal & Friends Jazz Brunch Sun Roxy Coss Quartet With vocalist Annette St. John and her Trio 212-864-6662 • 2751 Broadway NYC (Between 105th & 106th streets) • www.smokejazz.com SMOKE Welcome, dear readers, to The New York City Jazz Record’s “Women in Jazz” issue. We are certainly not the first to highlight the contributions of women in the history of the music but we would like to take advantage of March being Women’s History Month to debunk the notion that women should be thought of as separate from their male musician counterparts. Women in jazz, frankly, are nothing new (wider New York@Night acceptance, perhaps, may be). Not even mentioning all the important vocalists of 4 the past century, female instrumentalists have been active in jazz as far back as the Interview: Claudia Acuña ‘20s and only gaining prominence in the subsequent decades, from Mary Lou by Suzanne Lorge Williams and Lil Hardin Armstrong to Mary Halvorson and Nicole Mitchell. Next 6 time someone says there haven’t been too many women in jazz, ask them to name Artist Feature: Min Xiao-Fen their three favorite soprano saxophonists and watch them squirm. 7 by Kurt Gottschalk We have dedicated much of our coverage to this theme (as well as reaffirming the international nature of this music). West Coast violinist Jenny Scheinman (On On The Cover: Jenny Scheinman The Cover) is both a compelling leader and valued collaborator with Bill Frisell. 9 by Sean Fitzell She leads a trio with the guitarist and drummer Brian Blade at Zankel Hall. Chilean vocalist Claudia Acuña (Interview) is a leader in both the jazz and world music Encore: Lest We Forget: scenes. She brings her group to Harlem Stage Gatehouse. And Chinese pipa player 10 Valerie Capers Patti Bown Min Xiao-Fen (Artist Feature) has thrived not only as a woman, but as a foreign by Brad Farberman by Suzanne Lorge player on an unfamiliar instrument. She celebrates a new album at Brooklyn Public Library and also appears at Avery Fisher Hall and Museum of Chinese in America. Megaphone VOXNews We also have features on pianist Valerie Capers (Encore, appearing at Jazz at 11 by Kali. Z. Fasteau by Katie Bull Kitano); pianist Patti Bown (Lest We Forget, who passed away five years ago this month); a Megaphone by multi-instrumentalist Kali. Z. Fasteau, who will perform Label Spotlight: Listen Up!: at Brecht Forum; a Label Spotlight on pianist Satoko Fujii’s Libra Records; two 12 Libra Records Roxy Coss & Lakecia Benjamin up-and-coming women, Roxy Coss and Lakecia Benjamin, featured in our Listen Up! section and the opening portion of our CD Reviews (pgs. 14-18) given over to by Ken Waxman new albums from a wide swathe of female jazzers. CD Reviews: Kris Davis, Champian Fulton, Marilyn Crispell, 14 Karin Krog, Lorraine Feather, Ig Henneman, Claire Daly and more Laurence Donohue-Greene, Managing Editor Andrey Henkin, Editorial Director On the cover: Jenny Scheinman (John Rogers/Johnrogersnyc.com) 38 Event Calendar Club Directory Corrections: In what we readily admit as the worst error in our history, last month’s 45 Globe Unity: Slovenia triple review included an introductory paragraph that spoke of Slovakia and Slovakian musicians. We deeply regret the error. 47 Miscellany: In Memoriam • Birthdays • On This Day Submit Letters to the Editor by emailing [email protected] US Subscription rates: 12 issues, $30 (International: 12 issues, $40) For subscription assistance, send check, cash or money order to the address below or email [email protected]. The New York City Jazz Record www.nycjazzrecord.com / twitter: @nycjazzrecord Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene To Contact: Editorial Director & Production Manager: Andrey Henkin The New York City Jazz Record Staff Writers 116 Pinehurst Avenue, Ste. J41 David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Katie Bull, New York, NY 10033 Tom Conrad, Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Sean Fitzell, Graham Flanagan, United States Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Francis Lo Kee, Martin Longley, Wilbur MacKenzie, Laurence Donohue-Greene: Marc Medwin, Matthew Miller, Sharon Mizrahi, Russ Musto, Sean O’Connell, Joel Roberts, [email protected] John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Jeff Stockton, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Contributing Writers General Inquiries: [email protected] Duck Baker, Brad Farberman, Kali Z. Fasteau, Laurel Gross, George Kanzler, Suzanne Lorge Advertising: [email protected] Contributing Photographers Editorial: [email protected] Tom Greenland, Alan Nahigian, John Rogers, Monika Sziladi, Jack Vartoogian Calendar: [email protected] All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. All material copyrights property of the authors. THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | March 2013 3 NEW YORK @ NIGHT It can’t be easy to say the words “2013 could be my last Introducing the Zmiros Project at Symphony Space year.” But that’s what the audience heard when Fred (Feb. 6th), World Music Institute Director of Marketing Ho’s Green Monster Big Band performed at Ginny’s and Programs Alexa Burneikis referred to the venue’s Supper Club (Feb. 9th). Ho seemed in good spirits and Leonard Nimoy Thalia theater as her organization’s conducted the band with vigor, but he played no “living room on the Upper West Side”, which proved baritone sax (a role given to Ben Barson, the club’s to be an apt descriptor for the trio’s recital of songs of co-manager). The early set erupted from the start with devotion and gratitude. It described the setting, that is, Ho’s first big band piece, “Liberation Genesis” (1975), even if it may have been an opportunity for a living which took on new meaning in light of the composer’s room the band never had. “I grew up on Long Island in cancer fight. Keyboardist Art Hirahara, bassist Ken a very reformed household,” Frank London said to an Filiano and drummer-percussionist Royal Hartigan audience that was quick to complete the musicians’ laid the foundation for an edifice of reeds and brass, thoughts when introducing songs and even came including the paired altos of Bobby Zankel and Marty together to sing when a title was mentioned without Ehrlich and the bass trombones of Earl McIntyre and the band’s accompaniment. Through a selection of Dave Taylor. The band was obstreperous yet tightly Sabbath songs, they held sway, Rob Schwimmer on coordinated, marrying modernist harmony and raw piano and London on keyboard and trumpet with groove, breaking away on occasion to free-improvising Lorin Sklamberg’s sonorous tenor (and some additional duos (one of them led off the Ellington ballad “In a accordion and guitar) steadying the course. The concert Sentimental Mood”). Ho took a moment before “Iron hit a peak with the impromptu addition of Michael Man Meets the Black Dog Meets Dave Taylor” to Winograd on piano and singer Sarah Gordon, but the recount how he met the remarkable Taylor during his real high point came with a lovely, nearly a cappella days as a sub with the Gil Evans Orchestra. Aspects of piece sung by Sklamberg with London and Schwimmer Evans’ approach, Ho explained, have decisively chiming in on off-mic harmonies. That piece was impacted his own. “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like an dedicated to the late Symphony Space Founding AfroAsian Bumblebee”, a movement from Sweet Science Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer. When the three played Suite (Big Red Media), found Ho speaking about future as a piano/accordion/trumpet trio, they were airy and plans in spite of his illness: the “music and martial arts familiar, the familiarity one might reasonably expect to extravaganza”, as he described it, will be staged at find among three friends sitting in a living room on the BAM in the fall of this year. - David R. Adler Upper West Side. - Kurt Gottschalk © 2 0 1 3 J a c k V a r t o i o g d a i l a i n z / S F FEATURING a r k o i n n t o DANILO PEREZ R o M w y P b JOHN PATITUCCI h o o t t o o h BRIAN BLADE s P Fred Ho @ Ginny’s Supper Club Zmiros @ Symphony Space Leonard Nimoy Thalia “A band of spellbinding intuition, By tradition, the winner of the annual Thelonious Tyshawn Sorey’s musical course changes direction as with an absolute commitment to Monk Competition is the first to play in the Tribeca easily as he himself changes instruments.