New York City is the jazz capital of the world and spring is a perfect time to go out to jazz clubs and jazz concerts. One of the advantages of living here is that you can listen to an exciting new recording and then catch the artist or group performing in a local club or concert hall.
Ehud Asherie
Last year, I attended a cabaret show featuring three female singers backed up by a superb jazz group. The pianist was a young man I had never seen before, Ehud Asherie (who was born in Israel). He has a delightful new CD, “Shuffle Along” (Blue Heron Records), a solo piano performance of Eubie Blake songs from the musical “Shuffle Along.”
I don’t know if the project was prompted by the current Broadway revival (or re-working) of the 1921 musical, but whatever the reason, we should be grateful. Asherie shows himself to be a resourceful interpreter, able to conjure up the styles of swing and stride but injecting later styles as well his own wit and lyricism.
The most famous song, “I’m Just Wild about Harry,” appears in two different renditions. While some of the titles may be dated (such as “If You’ve Never Been Vamped by a Brownskin”), the music, especially when this well performed, is timeless.
Asherie will be playing solo piano at Mezzrow https://www.mezzrow.com on April 22 and April 28. On May 3 he returns to Mezzrow in a duo with outstanding vocalist Hilary Gardner, one of the three singers with him at the earlier show. (She has an album, “The Great City,” dedicated to New York, and if the audience is lucky, she will sing my favorite track on the CD, “Sweetheart (Waitress in a Donut Shop).”)
Rob Garcia
Judging from Rob Garcia’s new album, “Finding Love in an Oligarchy on a Dying Planet” (on Brooklyn Jazz Underground), he is not only a drummer, composer, and arranger of merit, but also a humanist.
“People are Everything,” for which Garcia supplied lyrics as well as music, is a plea for tolerance of those from other cultures and races. The piece is affectingly sung by Kate McGarry.
Another guest artist, saxophonist Joe Lovano adds luster to Garcia’s lovely ballad, “Precious Lives,” as well as “Greenland is Turning Green.” Actor/writer Brendan Burke rails against bank fees in “Mac and Cheese.”
Garcia’s own group—Noah Preminger on sax, Gary Versace on piano, and Masa Kamaguchi on bass—shines throughout. There are two solo drum pieces that prove that Garcia can hold an audience’s interest all by himself.
His love of tradition is highlighted by the opening track, Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer,” and later by “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier,” which features an exemplary bass solo.
The Rob Garcia 4, with Noah Preminger, Leo Genovese, and Matt Aronoff, will hold a CD release performance at Smalls Jazz Club (https://www.smallslive.com) on Wednesday, April 27, from 10:30pm - 1am.
You can also catch Garcia playing with likeable retro singer Svetlana and her group, The Delancey 5, at The Back Room (http://backroomnyc.com) on Mondays during April and May.
Murray Allen Carrington Power Trio
“Perfection” (on Motéma) is the bracing new album by the self-described Power Trio of saxophonist/bass clarinetist David Murray, pianist Geri Allen, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. The album is dedicated to Ornette Coleman, who had died shortly before the recording session, as well as other giants we lost in the past year.
The centerpiece of the CD is the title track by Coleman never previously recorded. Along with the trio, it features the bassist Charnett Moffett (who had played with Coleman along with Geri Allen), the trombonist Craig Harris and the trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr. (Allen’s son).
