The free lunchtime Jazz on Jay concert series continues this summer on Jay Street in Schenectady. The weekly concerts take place outdoors from 12noon-1:30pm on Thursdays (except where noted). In case of inclement weather the concert will move indoors to Robb Alley at Proctors.
Here’s the schedule of performances for the summer 2013 season:
Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Albert Brooks
A JazzApril story
“It’s great to see a room packed for jazz in Schenectady,” tenorman Brian Patneaude told the folks at the Van Dyck’s full-to-bursting concert space. I have to agree, but I’d like to amend that statement: It was great to see a room packed for LOCAL jazz in Schenectady! After all, most of these guys do get around the area, and three-quarters of the All-Stars’ front line play this same space every month when Keith Pray’s Big Soul Ensemble does its first-Tuesday residency thing. I’m sure a lot of it had to do with the respective fan bases the players have generated over the years. The thing is, though, the fan base for one band member included everybody else on the bandstand.
That man would be Leo Russo, who’s been playing sax in Greater Nippertown longer than I’ve lived here, and I’m working on my third decade. Not only is Russo living proof of the deep roots jazz has in these parts, but he’s also gifted us with a sapling that’s growing into a mighty oak himself – multi-instrumentalist Lee Russo, who (like Patneaude and altoist Keith Pray, the fourth member of the All-Stars’ kickass front line) I would be happy to watch play the phone book. Lee played baritone sax as well as tenor on this evening, adding another axe to his already sizeable arsenal; I’m convinced he’s going to be our Joe Lovano, mastering a myriad number of reed instruments most people never heard of. I’d only seen the elder Russo play twice before: Once with a pickup band at an Albany Musicians Union JAM celebration, and once with pianist Yuko Kishimoto at Athens Cultural Center. To see him with this group was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I was on it like a duck on a June bug.
Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy and Tim Coakley
Review and photographs by Rudy Lu
A JazzApril story
The Annual Schenectady JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month) concert was held this year at Robb Alley at Proctors with the theme of celebrating a hard-woking, multi-talented local jazz hero. This year’s hero is longtime drummer and WAMC-FM jazz radio host Tim Coakley. Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy presented a proclamation naming April 15 as Tim Coakley Day honoring him for all of his many contributions to the Local 518 jazz scene.
The Gospel Jubilee Mass Choir
Review by Valerie Medeiros
Photographs by Rudy Lu
The second annual “Gospel Jubilee” at Proctors in Schenectady was a roof-raiser from the start. The Jubilee Mass Choir and the Emmanuel Baptist Church Praise Dancers opened with ”My Faith Looks Up to Thee,” a traditional song delivered powerfully by the 60-odd voices and band. The choir was rewarded with immediate audience participation, including enthusiastic hand clapping along with the choir. Several energetic young members of the EBC Praise Dancers left the stage and took to the aisles, jumping, dancing, clapping and waving colorful banners, bringing the audience to their feet.
Pastor Annetta Dix-Howard delivered an invocation encouraging all to praise The Lord, and the audience responded resoundingly, “Praise The Lord!” Producer Sara Hill asked for a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, then gave free rein to emcee Mark Thompson, Pastor of the New Day Christian Empowerment Center in Schenectady, and musical director the Rev. Elgin Joseph Taylor Sr. of the Sweet Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in Albany.
Soloist Annette Harris joined the Jubilee Mass Choir for “Psalm 145, He’s Greatly to be Praised,” an uptempo number with the church band – two keyboards, organ, drums and a rockin’ electric bass – which set the tone for an evening where worship and performance were a simultaneous experience for both the performers and audience.
Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Rudy Lu
A JazzApril story
“Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?” Louis Armstrong made that song famous in 1947, but the question itself still hangs heavy. Unlike my friends who made Jazzfest an annual thing, I’ve only been to NOLA once, and there are days when I miss it like fire. So what happens when you’re actually FROM the Crescent City, but you’re doing business in the Empire State? You find yourself some like-minded souls, boil up a sumptuous gumbo that mixes NOLA classics with surprising covers and home-cooked originals, and then drop it on unsuspecting Noo Yawkers!
That’s what the Outer Borough Brass Band is about, and they brought big fun with them last Saturday night when they played the second installment of Proctors’ “Party Horns NYC” concert series.
Just like you’d expect, OBBB came out of the blocks fast and hard, with their killer three-man horn blowing up the intro to Smokey Johnson’s “Ain’t My Fault.” Pianist Alison Leyton-Brown, trumpeter Ivan Rosenberg and bass drummer Moses Patrou didn’t sing the words as much as they let them loose. You know how you just want to shout “Thank God THAT’S over” at the end of the week, and it feels so good when you do? That was the clear message on the players’ faces as they barked out the lyrics with smiles all around, and the smiles ran up into the audience as Rosenberg and tenorman Scott Bourgeois took turns blowing us all down. Patrou and snare player Jason Isaac kept the tune a bopping march (with the emphasis on “bopping”), while Leyton-Brown banged out the goodness on her Nord keyboard. It was a major release for all concerned, and we were howling for more when it was all done.
Story and photographs by Rudy Lu
Based upon the recent choir rehearsal held at Union College’s Memorial Chapel, the second annual Gospel Jubilee will certainly be a roof-raising evening at Proctors in Schenectady on Friday night. The Jubilee Mass Choir is composed of singers from a variety of local churches, while Union College’s Heavenly Voices Gospel Choir will perform under the direction of the Reverend Elgin J. Taylor Sr. of Sweet Missionary Baptist Church of Albany.
Story by J Hunter
My first Second Line happened in 1996 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, known forevermore and worldwide as “Jazzfest.” The band that led the way was a local outfit whose name escapes me, but they’re actually not important. What was important was the Second Line, which is essentially ongoing musical permission for anyone to join the band in the street (or the aisle, or – in the case of Jazzfest – the race track) and march, dance, laugh and generally make a full-on public spectacle of themselves. One Second Line and I was hooked; every time I’ve had the chance to take part in one, I’ve jumped on it, whether it was at SPAC with the venerable Preservation Hall Jazz Band or at Lake George Jazz Weekend with Jazz2K monsters John Ellis & Double-Wide.
But here’s the thing: All my opportunities have only come when a New Orleans band has ventured into Greater Nippertown. As far as the Empire State is concerned, a Second Line is a foreign thing, because nobody in this neck of the woods practiced this form of cathartic celebration. Thanks to trombonist Joe Scatassa and the Outer Borough Brass Band, that situation is changing. Scatassa is an alumnus of Loyola University in New Orleans, a former member of the NOLA party outfit Bonerama, and he also plays guitar in several NYC bands. But a couple of years ago, he realized there was a void in his musical life.
Entries (RSS)