What makes jazz so engaging is the unique experience that each artist contributes to its ever-broadening sound.
The Chilean song stylist Claudia Acuna has infused her native Latina uniqueness to this music since her debut album “Wind from the South” (Verve, 2000). After paying her dues in the Big Apple since arriving in 1995, Acuna will finally make her way to Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall Center Stage (881 7th Avenue), on February 7, at 9 p.m.
She will perform her personally selected gems from the Latin American Songbook, some of which became famous to American listeners by Nat King Cole’s trio of Spanish-language albums. “The Latin American standards are important songs that Nat King Cole recorded and Frank Sinatra — ‘What A Difference a Day Makes,’ which I recorded on one of my albums. The original is actually in Spanish,” said Acuna during our phone interview. “I picked a set of songs … [that] represent what I call the Latin American standards. This whole concert is dedicated to something I have been very passionate about and trying to represent as a jazz singer. I always dreamed [about making] a mark and expand[ing] this music.”
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Acuna’s ensemble will include piano and keyboards Manu Koch, bass and charango Carlos Henderson, and drums and percussion Yayo Serka, with special guest pianist, composer, and producer Pablo Vergara (also a native of Chile, who, like Acuna, studied with pianist Barry Harris).
“Right before I moved to this country, I saw Dizzy Gillespie in Chile with the United Nations band and I saw how he embraced himself in the Afro Cuban music,” said Acuna. “His joy and connection made me realize there are more layers to jazz. It’s like a tree that keeps giving fruit. I was very inspired by that experience. It feels like this tradition welcomed me to bring whatever I had to offer. That’s why I’ve been attracted to this music since [I was] a young child. I didn’t have an opportunity to attend music school. My school was listening to records at home and singing in whatever key.”
Her latest recording, “Duo” (Ropeadope, 2022), features Acuna singing a mix of South and Central American folk songs and standards, a Chick Corea tune (“Crystal Silence”), and an original composition. Each cut features a string of renowned musicians, including bassist Christian McBride, violinist Regina Carter, guitarist Russell Malone, and pianists Kenny Barron, Fred Hersch, Carolina Cavache, and Arturo O’Farrill.
“This concert is a great moment for me and I have had so many amazing people around me, it’s such an honor,” said Acuna. “What a great way to begin the year” performing at Carnegie Hall!”
For tickets, visit carnegiehall.org.
During these dubious times, the words and music of Gil Scott-Heron are needed as America moves forward in the midst of this ongoing battle. His sharp truth will consume the SoHo Playhouse stage (15 Vandam Street) during the New York Off-Broadway premiere of Gil Scott-Heron Bluesology from February 3–23.
Poets Jazz House presents the award-winning production that features Gia Scott-Heron, co-producer and daughter of the revolutionary political poet. It was written and co-produced by poet and actress Tuesday Conner and directed by Phylliss Bailey Brooks. Artists will include Father Amde Hamilton of the Watts Prophets, Yawo Watts, Conney Williams, the Oracle, and Conner.
Bluesology is a theatrical reinterpretation that celebrates the legacy of Scott-Heron, covering his revolutionary work of music and poems from 1970 to 2010 and featuring his daughter Gia, offering insightful and heartfelt remembrances of her father, who spoke out in the face of America’s whirlwind of injustice.
Scott-Heron’s voice invoked a syncopated rhythm similar to Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., or the stern-direct flow of Malcom X (Malik el-Shabazz), Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), and poet, author, activist Amiri Baraka, who like Heron, also recorded with a live band, the Blue Ark.
Heron called his ensemble the Midnight Band, explaining, “We are convinced that midnight is the first minute of the new day … and we are further convinced that we are entitled to a new day … and we are further convinced that we are going to have to establish the new day by communicating a little bit closely with one another.”
For tickets and more info, visit sohoplayhouse.com.
When it comes to satire, Ishmael Reed is a genius — just read any of his many novels, including “Flight to Canada” (Simon & Schuster, 1976) or “Mumbo Jumbo” (Simon & Schuster, 1972), or perhaps his last play, “The Conductor.” The poet, musician, and composer believes in keeping the establishment under the microscope for its constant trickery and greed. He uncovers the butt-naked truth of this American colony, which might be why his brilliant works never find their way to Broadway.
Reed is on the march again this time with his new play, “The Shine Challenge, 2025,” playing at the Theater for the New City (155 1st Avenue) through February16.
Reed said during last week’s premiere that members of three generations of Black people had never heard the story of Shine. He calls the play “The Shine Challenge 2025” because he expects a future playwright to expand on what he’s accomplished.
Legend has it that the only Black man on board the Titanic was a laborer called Shine; of course, “Shine,” like “boy,” was a derogatory term for Black men. Because he worked below deck, Shine observed early on that the Titanic was sinking, and was able to escape while more than 1,500 passengers perished in the April 14, 1912, disaster.
The Shine saga came in the form of “toasts” or “the dozens” — an improvisational oral narrative popular in Black communities from the 1920s to the early 1960s. A form of street poetry, usually spoken out of hearing distance of young ladies and often boosted in pool halls, bars, or — in my neighborhood — the projects by pimps, hustlers, drug dealers, and wanna-be young gangstas, but most often by the cats just released from time upstate. They had this smooth, melodic rhythm thing happening — even their curse words melted like butter. Listening to them, we could very well say hip hop came from those oral street stories or rhythms.
At any rate, Langston Hughes’s earlier version of 50 lines was extended by Reed into this now 100-page script. This version begins with “It was 1912 when the news got around / That the great Titanic was going down.” It ends with the couplet “When all them white folks went to heaven / Shine was in Sugar Ray’s in Harlem drinking Seagrams Seven.”
In this “Shine,” Reed takes that left witty turn, staging the courtroom as the site for the play with Shine on trial as the accused and his own defense attorney. What is outrageous here is that Shine (superbly played by Brian Anthony Simmons), the only Black person on the ship, was actually being blamed for the disaster. (It seems that just a few days ago, a certain red baron accused people of color or DEI initiatives for another disaster.)
Reed expounds on those issues that never seem to get resolved: immigration, class, race, and Edwardian morality. And what would a toast be without Polar Bear Sam (played by the play’s director, Rome Neal) and Jack the Shark (played by Maurice Carlton).
In his book “The Signifying Monkey,” Henry Louis Gates, Jr. discusses the significance of such signifying figures and a vernacular tradition that came with Black slaves to a new country.
The Shark, by far, stole the show — his fast-talking slickness and attempt to finesse judge Georgia St. Clair (played by Malika Iman) were hilarious.
What did that so-called virtuous white woman Helen Smith (played by Jordan Barringer) offer Shine for her rescue? No, she didn’t.
Reed has created an incredible acting troupe, who transform his scripts into unforgettable masterpieces. They should be called “The Real Players.”
“The Shine Challenge 2025” is shining on the Lower Eastside. Don’t miss this sunlight of truth. Reed gives us a dose of reality now in America — but wait, that was in 1912!
For ticket information, visit theaterforthenewcity.net or call 212-254-1109.