For the month of December, the jazz warrior activist Craig Harris has been playing with special guests during his weekly Friday night Harlem Jazz Boxx series, at the Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church (15 Mt. Morris Park West). On December 22, trombonist, composer, and arranger Harris will perform with special guest multi-reed player David Murray. The two are friends and have shared the stage many times which affords them an intuitive playing sense. The group will be rounded out with bassist Calvin Jones, pianist Yayoi Ikawa, drummer Kayvon Gordon and Murray on tenor saxophone and bass clarinet. Aesthetic
Harris is a visionary whose music reflects the Black experience from its African roots, the Harlem Renaissance, and his former large ensemble Cold Sweat, to the music of James Brown and the eternal jazz of Lester Bowie, David Murray and Muhal Richard Abrams. These intersections of textured aesthetics are what ignites Harris’s music.
Murray, like Harris, is most interested in invigorating his listeners and taking them on new journeys. The saxophonist was inspired by Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp. He was a founding member of the World Saxophone Quartet with Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett. Murray perpetuates good music, limited parameters of the jazz police be damned.
Mt. Morris Ascension will be swinging with the collaborative efforts of Harris’ band and Murray. The concert begins at 7pm.
On December 29, Harris’s special guest will be Jay Rodriguez, a multi-reed player, who is at home playing saxophones and flutes. He has played with Kenny Barron, Tito Puente, Roy Hargrove, Bobby Sanabria and Stevie Wonder. Harris’s weekly series attracts influential musicians on the jazz scene, who rarely perform in Harlem.
For ticket information visit the website harlemjazzboxx.com.
Christian Sands, one of the most dapper pianists on the scene takes the stage at the picturesque Dizzy’s jazz club on December 21-24. For this four-night stay, his quartet will perform new material and holiday favorites from his Mack Avenue release ”Christmas Stories.” The Billy Taylor protégé adds new flavor to the traditional with joyous arrangements (“Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”) and celebrates the Christmastime he remembers from his childhood as a ‘90s kid in Connecticut (“Snow Dayz” and the other side of the experience, “Shoveling”). Sands plays with a sensitive lyrical phrasing that accents every note from ballads to romping up-tempo melodies.
For reservations visit the website jazz.org
We can call him many things: great, a living legend, iconic. In the end, it doesn’t matter what adjective we use, the pianist and composer Kenny Barron is one of the most significant jazz pianists in jazz history. The Philadelphia native hit the busy jazz streets of New York City in the early 1960s playing with the likes of James Moody, Roy Haynes and Lou Donaldson. Moody referred him to Dizzy Gillespie, who hired him on the spot without an audition.
The NEA Jazz Master has appeared on hundreds of recordings as a leader and pivotal player with a host of noted jazz bands. At the beginning of 2023, Barron added yet another album, “The Source” (Artwork Records), to his long discography. It is his first solo album since his 1981 recording “Kenny Barron at the Piano” (Xanadu). The new album contains nine tracks—both jazz standards and Barron originals.
Barron brings his musicianship and years of reflection to the Village Vanguard (178 7th Avenue South) for a two-week engagement with two distinctive configurations.
From December 19-24 (Week One), Barron’s quintet will include saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist Kyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Jonathan Blake. From December 26-31 (Week Two), Barron will be accompanied by saxophonist Dayna Stephens, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake.
“I wanted to mix it up a bit,” said Barron. “Each band is different with different music which makes me play differently for each one. These are musicians who I have played with and it’s always fun.”
For tickets visit the website villagevanguard.com or call 212-255-4037.
There is a young jazz band of teenagers making a big sound on the local jazz front from New Jersey to Harlem. The young consortium, Mecadon McCune Quartet, is named after its leader, composer and drummer McCune, 18, a freshman at Montclair State University. The other band members are trumpeter Elijah Allen, 18, and a freshman at NYU; bassist Sam Konin,15; and tenor saxophonist Ben Sherman, 16, a junior at LaGuardia H.S. To demonstrate McCune’s adventurousness, he leads a pianoless band. That’s daring enough for an established ensemble but McCune and his young lions shine brilliantly. “My dad being the great pianist he is, I find myself hearing harmonies even if they aren’t being actively played by piano,” said McCune. “Sam, Elijah and Ben all have similar ears so as a leader playing chordless it’s a welcomed challenge. We are trying to go as far as possible and playing chordless is something we do often.”
Most recently during their two-set gig at Clement’s jazz club in Newark, New Jersey, the quartet presented INSIGHT featuring Tyler Bullock, an exciting young pianist and a junior at Julliard. They performed such standards as Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence,” Buster Williams’s “Song of the Outcasts,” Geri Allen’s “Unconditional Love,” and a medley of Miles Davis’s “So What” and John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” These tunes aren’t easy for established musicians, but these young cats were fearless. They exhibited stage presence and McCune’s interaction with the audience including jokes was prime, Cannonball Adderley would be proud.
Two nights later the Quartet with guest pianist Ben Collins-Siegel, a 16-year-old junior at Newark Academy, performed at Silvana (116th Street and Frederick Douglass Blvd.), a haven for aspiring musicians. The audience is usually filled with a string of musicians, including from Manhattan School of Music, proud parents, and folks looking to hear new music. Mecadon McCune Quartet started late but kept the audience enthralled with tunes from Emmanuel Wilkins, Joe Henderson’s “Afrocentric,” and a few originals.
McCune met bassist Konin three years ago during the summer workshop at Jazz House Kids in Montclair, New Jersey where they immediately locked in. “I love playing with Sam and I think the most important relationship in a band is the link between the bassist and drummer,” said McCune. The following year at the workshop he met Sherman and it was the same instant connection with him. They all played in the same ensembles in Jazz House Kids, and ended up winning the Mingus Competition, where he met Elijah and again found instant connection. “This band really came together very naturally, and we’re good friends,” says McCune. “I’m a big believer in the sound of a band, and we are all pushing in the same musical direction, with a lot of the same influences, tastes and compositional ideas.”
The drummer’s father, Brandon McCune, is a pianist, multi-instrumentalist, and minister of music for several New Jersey congregations and his mother, Christine McCune, is an opera singer. Trumpeter Elijah Allen is the son of prominent tenor saxophonist and composer J.D. Allen
In the words of McCune at performance end, “We enjoyed this fellowship and if you find yourself missing us, look to the moon, for we are amongst the stars.”