Buddy Guy will return to UPAC in Kingston for the final time on his ‘Damn Right Farewell’ tour, on June 15, 2023, with special guest the Samantha Fish Band.
At age 86, Buddy Guy is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, and a living link to the city’s halcyon days of electric blues. Buddy Guy has received 8 GRAMMY Awards, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award, 38 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #23 in its “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
In July of 2021, in honor of Buddy Guy’s 85th birthday, PBS American Masters released “Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away”, a new documentary following his rise from a childhood spent picking cotton in Louisiana to becoming one of the most influential guitar players of all time. The documentary features new interviews with Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Gary Clark Jr, and more. Watch the full documentary at PBS Online here.
Though Buddy Guy will forever be associated with Chicago, his story actually begins in Louisiana. One of five children, he was born in 1936 to a sharecropper’s family and raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, located some 140 miles northwest of New Orleans. Buddy was just seven years old when he fashioned his first makeshift “guitar”—a two-string contraption attached to a piece of wood and secured with his mother’s hairpins.
In 1957, he took his guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the rest of the label’s legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer. “He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,” said Eric Clapton at Guy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. “My course was set, and he was my pilot.”
Seven years later, July 2012 proved to be one of Buddy Guy’s most remarkable years ever. He was awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contribution to American culture; earlier in the year, at a performance at the White House, he even persuaded President Obama to join him on a chorus of “Sweet Home Chicago.” Also in 2012, he published his long-awaited memoir, When I Left Home.
These many years later, Buddy Guy remains a genuine American treasure and one of the final surviving connections to an historic era in the country’s musical evolution.
Buddy Guy 2023 Damn Right Farewell Tour
Feb 17 – Rockford, IL – Coronado PAC Feb 18 – Joliet, IL – Rialto Square Theatre Feb 23 – Fort Wayne, IN – Embassy Theatre Feb 24 – New Buffalo, MI – Silver Creek Event Center Feb 25 – Anderson, IN – Paramount Theatre Feb 26 – Evansville, IN – Victory Theatre Mar 01 – Baton Rouge, LA – Baton Rouge River Center Theater Mar 03 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater Mar 04 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater Mar 05 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall Mar 08 – Dallas, TX – Majestic Theatre Mar 11 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater Mar 13 – Chesterfield, MO – The Factory Mar 14 – Memphis, TN – The Orpheum Theatre Mar 16 – Knoxville, TN – Tennessee Theatre Mar 17 – Atlanta, GA – Atlanta Symphony Hall Mar 20 – Spartanburg, SC – Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium Mar 21 – Chattanooga, TN – Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium Mar 22 – Charlotte, NC – Ovens Auditorium Mar 23 – Greensboro, NC – Steven Tanger Center for the Perf. Arts Mar 30 – Toronto, ONT – Massey Hall Mar 31 – Toronto, ONT – Massey Hall Apr 08 – Tyagarah, Australia – Bluesfest Apr 10 – St Kilda, Australia – Palais Theatre Apr 12 – Sydney, Australia – Enmore Theatre June 15 – Kingston, NY – UPAC
The Syracuse Jazz Festival has announced they are currently searching for private and public sector funding to help fund the 2023 edition of the festival.
The Syracuse Jazz Festival is now in its 37 year and returned last year after a five-year-long hiatus due to financial issues. It is the nation’s 12 longest-running festival and the world’s 12 longest-running jazz festival. It was previously named “The Largest Free Jazz Festival In The Northeast”, winning 30 International, national and regional awards as the Best Music Festival.
Many legendary artists have performed at the festival, including Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, and Sonny Rollins. These performances gave the festival international acclaim.
The festival organizers are currently pursuing private and public sector funding to mount a 2023 edition of the festival in the amount of $650,000. According to festival founder and executive producer Frank Malfitano, “The cost of mounting a world class, non ticketed festival – one that remains free of charge for area residents and visitors – has risen dramatically.” He also went on to say that artists’ fees have doubled and even tripled since the pandemic. In 2022, the festival got $400,000 in funding to bring it back.
This past year, with the help of Amazon, Onondaga County and the City, we achieved our primary goal of bringing the festival back, and we’re extremely proud of that collective accomplishment. We’re also proud of the fact that we were able to showcase many of our region’s finest jazz artists in 2022 at 20 different venues over 3 evenings, providing needed work opportunities for more than 100 Syracuse-based artists who had been negatively impacted by the pandemic. While we were successful in helping revitalize the region’s cultural and music scene by achieving those goals, we simultaneously fell a little short of securing needed and hoped for multi-year funding commitments for Jazz Fest. But, we’re hoping our success in 2022 will lead to even greater success in 2023.
Frank Malfitano
Malfitano concluded by saying that anyone interested in learning more about the 2023 Syracuse Jazz Fest Sponsorship can contact him here.
Manhattan’s Blue Note Jazz Club is partnering with Newark jazz radio station WBGO 88.3 FM for “WBGO Presents Brunch at The Blue Note,” a Sunday concert series running from November to March.
The World Famous Harlem Gospel Choir will open the series with performances on November 13 & 20 and wrap it up with shows on February 12 & March 19.
The partnership, which will run 13 concerts total, also has features performances from Svetlana & The New York Collective, as well as Terry Waldo’s Gotham City Band, the NYU Wayne Shorter Ensemble, JJ Sansaverino, the Aubrey Johnson Group, the Anderson Brothers with Vince Giordano, and Jason Prover & The Sneak Thievery Orchestra.
Information regarding reservations and more can be found here.
Upcoming WBGO Presents Brunch at The Blue Note shows:
The World Famous Harlem Gospel Choir – Sunday, November 13, 1:30 PM (Doors 12:00 PM)
The World Famous Harlem Gospel Choir – Sunday, November 20, 1:30 PM (Doors 12:00 PM)
Terry Waldo’s Gotham City Band – Sunday, November 27, 12:30 PM (Doors 12:00 PM) & 2:30 PM (Doors 2 PM)
NYU Wayne Shorter Ensemble – Sunday, December 4, 12:30 PM (Doors 11:30 PM) & 2:30 PM (Doors 2 PM)
The Great Salt City Blues Concert, an annual Syracuse event, will return to the Palace Theatre for its sixth rendition on the day after Christmas at 7:30 p.m.
Held following the holiday every year, the concert series intends to feature ten shows by the end of its run.
The show will be held in honor of several renowned blues artists: singer Etta James, who the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has called “the matriarch of blues,” blues guitarist Elmore James, who has been named “The King Of The Slide Guitar,” guitarist and Blues Hall of Fame member Sleepy John Estes, and singer Junior Parker, another Blues Hall of Fame member.
With the night featuring cover performances of their music, participating musicians include the following: Tas Cru, Morris Tarbell, Colin Aberdeen, Ava Andrews, Dave Liddy, Jes Sheldon, Jeff Stockham, Rod Zajak, Ronnie Leigh, Rob Spagnoletti, Jake Capozzolo, Garnett Grimm, Steven T. Wilson, Raedwald Howland-Bolton, Don Williams, Larry Kyle, Lee Tiffault, Mike Davis, and Matt Lomeo.
The doors for the Great Salt City Blues Concert #6 at The Palace Theater, located at 2384 James Street, will open at 6 p.m. and information regarding tickets and more can be found here.
Tank and the Bangas will kick off their six-night residency at New York’s iconic Jazz club Blue Note New York on November 11, and bring with them special guests, starting with GRAMMY winning singer and pianist Norah Jones. This will mark the first show Norah has done with Tank & the Bangas since 2017, aside from their performance on her podcast.
In addition to Jones, other special guests announced include Keyon Harrold, Big Freedia, Kat Edmonson, Brandee Younger, Isaiah Sharkey as well as surprise sit-ins. Tank and the Bangas will also spend two nights covering The Music of Green Balloon and The Music of Red Balloon.
Coming from New Orleans, Tank and the Bangas are surrounded by plenty of grand musical traditions. And the five-piece group has a rare knack for combining various musical styles- fiery soul, deft hip-hop, deep-groove R&B and subtle jazz- into one dazzling, cohesive whole that evokes the scope of New Orleans music while retaining a distinctive feel all its own. “It’s music that can’t really be put in a box,” says singer and poet Tarriona “Tank” Ball.
Blue Note New York is located at 131 West 3rd St in Manhattan
Tank and the Bangas Blue Note Residency Lineup
FRI NOVEMBER 11 – THE MUSIC OF GREEN BALLOON + NORAH JONES – 8 PM & 10:30PM ET
SAT NOVEMBER 12 – THE MUSIC OF RED BALLOON + SURPRISE GUESTS – 8 PM & 10:30PM ET
SUN NOVEMBER 13 – KEYON HARROLD – 8 PM & 10:30PM ET
FRI NOVEMBER 18 – BIG FREEDIA – 8 PM & 10:30PM ET
SAT NOVEMBER 19 – KAT EDMONSON & BRANDEE YOUNGER – 8 PM & 10:30PM ET
SUN NOVEMBER 20 – ISAIAH SHARKEY – 8 PM & 10:30PM ET
The Central New York Jazz Orchestra, a Syracuse area non-profit big band, will join up with NEA Jazzmaster David Liebman later this month to perform and record together.
This comes 11 years after the orchestra accompanied the saxophonist/flautist’s world premiere solo performance of “If a White Horse from Jerusalem,” a four-movement work for soprano saxophone, wooden flute, and jazz orchestra. After the concert, Liebman had offered to record an album with the orchestra, and is soon coming through with this offer.
David Liebman.
On the 20th, he’ll again perform the composition at Syracuse’s Temple Adath Yesurun, before recording with the orchestra the following day. The CNYJO who will be conducted by Music Director Bret Zvacek, is also debuting its 27th season. Additional numbers of the concert include Quincy Jones’ arrangement of the theme from Exodus, as well as orchestra originals to be found on their 2023 album with David Liebman. The doors open at 4 p.m. while music begins at 5.
“If a White Horse from Jerusalem” was originally commissioned by the S.U. Humanities Center on their 2011 theme of “Conflict: Peace and War” and performed that year in the Carrier Theater, with additional support by the Jewish Federation of Central New York and Hillel. Both the Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation of Central New York will lend their support for the reprise production in November.
Information regarding tickets and more can be found here.
In the 1920s, “Rent Parties” were a common place in Harlem. As the end of the month approached, with rent looming and no way to pay, tenants would host a musician and invite friends, raising money and having fun, dancing and listening to music with their community in a place safe from discrimination. In 2020, as the pandemic struck, esteemed jazz pianist Emmet Cohen started hosting Rent Parties in his own Harlem apartment. He played with his trio and live streamed the event, calling it “Live From Emmet’s.” This event isn’t where his inspiration from Harlem’s jazz scene ends, though; Emmet Cohen’s newest record was made in Harlem’s spirit as well — Uptown in Orbit was released on October 28.
Uptown in Orbit presents huge energy through bright and powerful chords while showcasing immense talent and control. When listening, you see the view of bustling Harlem like you’re looking down on the streets from an upstairs apartment window. It’s all perpendicular and over-excited, but still perfectly harmonious, timed absolutely naturally. It feels like the song’s subject is orbiting, either we’re all circling around it or it’s circling us, either way the album brings the listener straight into this orbit.
The highlight of this album is the title track, “Uptown in Orbit.” Use of hemiola gives the song veritable bounce, as the ¾ rhythm is coupled into rhythmic pulses of three against two beats. The timing is swinging, and though Cohen likes to call back to the jazz hay days of the early 1900s, this track still has a modern feel with its energy and brightness. A saxophone comes soaring in during the second half of “Uptown In Orbit” — wailing with so much passion and grace, before turning brassy and raspy, almost like the voice in Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky.
Cohen has said jazz boils down to connections; between the musicians performing and the audience, as well. This album exhibits that connection flawlessly, with brass that floats over Cohen’s dextrous, easy-going piano, drums that shake the background, adding fuzzy sparkles and backbone to the other instruments’ colorful musicality.
Since he was three, Cohen has been devoted to the piano. He earned a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music after graduating from University of Miami, and has since performed in international events, such as the Newport, Monterey, Detroit, North Sea, Bern, Edinburgh and Jerusalem jazz festivals, in addition to playing in some of the most storied jazz clubs across the world.
The pianist is currently touring Europe, but in December he will be back in NYC for five days at Dizzy’s Club with his trio and Mary Stallings, starting December 8. You can RSVP for tickets here.
Produced by Brandon “Brick” Lohr and Jason “J” Hubert, the inaugural Ramble Festival held at Camp Ramblewood in Darlington, MD from October 7-9, transpired smoothly, as fans enjoyed nearly perfect fall weather near the Susquehanna, mere miles from Pennsylvania. Camp Ramblewood has held other music events, but Ramble Fest hosted a wide variety of bluegrass, brass, indie rock, blues, country, Americana and folk music from Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Indiana, Colorado, California, and many other states, with fans traveling from all over the US and internationally to enjoy fun in the sun with cool nights & campfire jams.
Headlined by Leftover Salmon, Keller Williams, and The Traveling McCoury’s, along with many local and national bands, Ramble Festival had numerous activities, a busking competition, kids’ shows and play areas, yoga, charity auctions & raffles, live art painters, an on-site art gallery, and numerous clothing, food & art vendors. Art Director Lindsay Jamison and her staff of volunteers spent weeks getting the site and the art gallery in the Beer Hall ready for the event. Street Team lead Will Gibbons also ran the instrument raffle, where two fans won a guitar and banjo signed by the headliners, with proceeds donated to Backline and Rage Against Addiction.
Camping was superb. Ramblewood has 200 pristine acres on a rolling hillside, with a lake, fire pits, large cabins, and wide fields, with ample trees & grassy shade. Food & drink vending was plentiful, including local microbrews, and food trucks with typical festival fare such as pizza & burritos, as well as veggie and farm-to-table options. There was onsite parking for the thousand or so attendees (though the lot nearly filled up during the peak on Saturday night). There were a few RV spots (no power & water hook-ups), as well as car camping, but the best camping was near the stages.
Fri. Oct. 7: Abby Bryant & The Echoes, Caleb Stine Band, Kendall Street Company, Rufus Roundtree & Da B’More Brass Factory, Arkansauce, Bella’s Bartok, Big Something, Keller Williams Grateful Grass feat. The Hillbenders, Kendall Street Company & Dirty Grass Players – late-night in the barn.
Friday started off smooth and sunny, with Rufus Roundtreee and his band leading a second line march from the campsites down the hill, where Abby Bryant & The Echoes kicked off the weekend on the Main Stage. Abby is a vocalist & guitarist from Charlotte (since relocated to Asheville), who performed a mix of soul & Americana, with great instrumental work by her band & cohort in songwriting, guitarist Bailey Faulkner.
A quick jaunt up the hill and past the food trucks brought us to the Beer Hall, an indoor stage with standing room for a thousand. Caleb Stine & Band treated us to cool country with a tinge of bluegrass. Kendall Street Company from Charlottesville next played on the Main Stage, with thoughtful and often funny lyrics, great harmonies, and energetic, punk stylings, deft guitarwork, sax, and engaging vocals by lead singer Louis Smith.
Back at the Beer Hall, Rufus Roundtree, who is from Parliament Funkadelic, led his band Da B’More Brass Factory on vocals & trombone, with fiery NOLA-style, Go-go tinged funk, supported by trumpet, sax, tuba, guitar & drums. Arkansauce next tore up the Main Stage with speedy banjo riffing by Adam Collins, Ethan Bush on mando, Zac Archuleta on guitar, and Tom Andersen on upright bass.
The wildness of Bella’s Bartok engaged our feet as we returned to the Beer Hall, with fast, energetic fiendish horns, driven by lead singer Asher Putnam, with Alex Kogut on accordion, synth, and keyboards, Riley Goodemote on trombone, and Julia playing feisty washboard. Mixing sonic styles of Googol Bordello with punk, folk, and klezmer music, an amalgam of genres and theatrical sensibilities. They were a new discovery to me, and fan favorites by the end of their set.
Big Something, a hip hop pop rock fusion jam band from Burlington, NC, heated up the Main Stage at sunset, with Casey Cranford’s signature EWI and sax work driving the melodies along with dueling guitar monstrosities Jesse Hensley and Nick MacDaniels, with Josh Kagel on keys and trumpet, Doug Marshall on bass and Ben Vinograd on drums holding it down. Stylistically chameleons, they drift from tight riffs to expansive jams, sometimes evoking Lettuce, other times Lotus, and at times channeling Umphrey’s McGee, basically all over the place, with aplomb.
The incredible sound and lights apparently challenged the main stage power generator, which failed shortly thereafter, and was not resurrected until the next day. This only major glitch of the weekend was trouble, but thankfully, the production team planned generous stage switchover times, so crews had time to migrate Keller Williams over to the Beer Hall. Stage Manager George Barrick reactivated that stage, which had prepared to close for the night.
Keller and The Hillbenders treated us to his widely-popular Grateful Grass set. The Beer Hall was a bit crowded, so staff asked fans to help move tables and chairs out of the way, which quickly added enough space to get everyone inside – just in time, since the only few raindrops of the weekend fell outside and chilled the night air as temperatures fell into the low 40s. Keller & friends treated us to a fun-filled set of Dead classics, including a killer Scarlet > Stranger, and a trippy They Love Each Other back and forth into and out of Cumberland Blues, followed by a lovely Bird Song > Cassidy [24-bit SBD/Stage Matrix recording by George Barrick].
No proper first day would be complete without a late night set, held in the Ramble Stage, aka “The Barn” (a nice, cozy place to warm up as temps dropped further at night). Kendall Street Company joined The Dirty Grass Players, which was the most musicians jammed onto that tiny stage. The Barn was well-appointed, with brass chandeliers, hanging flower arrangements and festive lighting. There were two late-night picking circles, one at the Hill Camp w/ Bella’s Bartok, and another down at the Lake Camp, with Deer Creek Sharpshooters & Fishing for Hippies to end the night.
Sat. Oct. 8 – Dogs in a Pile, Arkansauce, Armchair Boogie, Dirty Grass Players, Toothless (kids set), Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Underground Springhouse, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Kyle Hollingsworth Band, Leftover Salmon, Neighbor.
After much-needed rest, I arose Saturday morning to the distant sounds of another second line by Naptown Brass Band from Annapolis, MD. I ran up the hill to meet them as they marched down into the main field and kicked off the day for Charm City Junction, towing along recently-rousted dancing campers, led by the Vibe Tribe‘s Holly Reasner.
Arkansauce fired up the Beer Hall next. Saturday Bands played with some overlap, as there were 17 or more performance on Saturday. Dogs in a Pile was another great band that all my friends recommended. They had a great turnout, especially since they started around 1pm, and many campers partied quite late the night before.
Baltimore’s finest, the Dirty Grass Players kicked it up in the Beer Hall, with some overlap with Armchair Boogie on the main stage, another new band I really enjoyed. Toothless played a kids’ set on the small barn stage. Underground Springhouse continued in the Beer Hall, while Caleb Stine returned in the barn.
We kicked our socks off to Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band (a funny name, because it’s only 3 people). Hailing from Indiana, the “Big” is for Jayme Peyton, who is a ginormous human as well as guitarist. They’re a wild country blues band, with heavy guitar shredding and “reckless” washboard by Breezy Peyton. Breezy actually lit her washboard on fire in the middle of a song!!! The band and audience had a good laugh; neither eyebrows nor hair were burnt in the process.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit, a bluegrass/Americana band from Northern California, continued at the Beer Hall, playing towards dinnertime. Heading back to the Main Stage, I wolfed down some tasty mac & cheese from Cosmic Charlie’s Grateful Grill, one of my favorite food trucks conveniently located between the two biggest stages.
Maryland native Kyle Hollingsworth (from String Cheese Incident) and his Band lit up the main stage, with a mix of organ and keyboard-infused jammy rock, tight & funky drums, bass & guitar. They played a variety of originals and classics, rearranged with speed & intensity, sprinkled with riffs & quotes from various well-known songs. Kyle is a killer clavinet and synth player, playing with percussive rhythm, electric piano and effects, his talented band adding fuel to his fire.
Ramble’s resident emcee, Libby Eddy (plays fiddle in The Jakobs Ferry Stragglers), got up to announce Leftover Salmon dressed as a giant avocado. She wrote page-long summaries of each band. As she rattled off superlatives, Vince Herman (in a blue unicorn costume) laughed and told the audience, “first time our band has ever been introduced by an avocado“! Ramble Festival founders Brick and J dressed as a tiger and bumblebee, to fit the costume theme, “furry creatures”.
Another favorite band, Neighbor (founded by Pink Talking Fish’s keyboardist Richard James), capped off Saturday night in the barn, followed by late-night campfire jams by Fishing for Hippies, Caleb Stine, Annie Sellick, and Pat Bergeson.
Sun. Oct. 9 – Travers Brothership, Country Current, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Woody! kids set, Neighbor, Bella’s Bartok, Busking Competition, Empire Strikes Brass, Armchair Boogie, Pink Talking Fish, The Travelin’ McCourys, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Arkansauce, & Armchair Boogie – late-night in barn.
Travers Brothership, based near Asheville, started the last day off with searing blues guitar intensity by frontman Kyle Travers, who formed the band with his twin brother and drummer, Eric. They’ve played all over the US & Europe, and are widely praised. Their new album is slated to be released next year, so they played a song or two off their new album.
The bluegrass band, Country Current, is the US Navy’s official band, formed in 1973. They’ve played for Presidents Bush, Clinton, Obama, and have toured nationally as well as overseas. They are all Musician Petty Officers, wearing their uniforms proudly on stage in the Beer Hall, playing guitar, banjo, bass, drums, fiddle, mando, and pedal steel guitar.
AJ Lee and Blue Summit returned to play the main stage, followed by Muskrat Flats in the beer hall, and another special kids’ set by Woody!, who is Jon Wood of Dancing Bears, ELM, Psycho Killers, and other Baltimore-based bands. His 7-yr-old daughter Ella helped her dad set up his mic and danced with her friends and other kids in the barn.
Neighbor treated us again to another tasty set on the main stage in the mid afternoon, followed by another wild dance party by Bella’s Bartok in the Beer Hall. The horn-heavy Empire Strikes Brass hit the main stage in the afternoon, and Armchair Boogie returned to the Beer Hall to close out the afternoon.
Pink Talking Fish brought resounding thunder and intermingling of songs by Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, and Phish to the main stage, as a massive flurry of bubbles filled the air and caught the brilliant light trackers scanning over the field, filling it with geometric patterns and a spectrum of color.
Emcee Libby Eddy introduced The Traveling McCourys as “the best band on the planet!!!” – the final headliner set of the weekend. This long, wonderful weekend of music ended with a joint collaboration between AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Arkansauce, and Armchair Boogie, packed into the barn with as many fans as could still stand or dance, with a couple more campfire jams that lasted until 3 or 4 am.
Few festivals are successful upon inception, but through great planning, Ramble Festival attracted over a thousand people to its first annual event. They sold a hundred tickets at the “steepest discount” to fans on site.
“It takes a village”. I met dozens of staff, volunteers, artists, campers, production crew from Harford Sound, lighting engineers, photographers & videographers, vendors, artists, medical personnel (Bear Care), and vendors. There were zero injuries or problems, nobody got stuck in the mud, the weather was absolutely perfect, and the camping is the best of any music event I’ve attended. Everyone was friendly, helpful, fun, and smiling all weekend.
Brick and J are music lovers first and foremost. They hired a skilled team, adept at multiple roles. They asked their friend Phil Chorney (Charm City Bluegrass) to recruit a wide cast of musicians from all over. Skilled directors & coordinators were carefully chosen for Volunteers, Artists, Hospitality (Sandee Taylor), Marketing (Kelsey Riegger) and Media Coordination (Zach Ubaldini), as well as staff photographers Chris Gamber among many other pros.
Some of these bands I’d heard about, and saw them for the first time at Ramble Festival, a sentiment shared by many fans. I’ve seen all the headliners multiple times, which got me interested when J told me about Ramble at B Chord. I did some research on only a few of the bands I hadn’t seen, which left the rest as pleasant surprises.
Ramble Festival was quite smooth, even though it’s only in its first year. Everyone felt like family, with an atmosphere reminiscent of Catskill Chill, Bear Creek, and High Sierra Music Festival. Brick, J, Phil, and their wonderful cast & crew deserve accolades for making Ramble the best music and art experience of the year.
In the next three weeks, Flushing Town Hall will welcome new and old, hosting Ethiopian experimental band QWANQWA and their 16th Annual NEA Jazz Masters concert.
QWANQWA, who are on their debut U.S. tour, are the Flushing Town Hall’s next performers on Saturday. October 29. Based in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa, the five-piece was formed in 2012 by violinist Kaethe Hostetter.
QWANQWA members from left to right: Bubu Teklamariam, Endriss Hansen, Selamnesh Zemene, Misale Leggese, and Kaethe Hostetter.
QWANQWA also consists of percussionist Misale Legesse, vocalist Selamnesh Zemene Taye, Endres Hassan, player of the masingo, a one-stringed traditional Ethiopian instrument, and Anteneh “Bubu” Teklemariam Barago, player of the bass krar, a five-stringed traditional Ethiopian instrument.
QWANQWA describes their music as “intersectional,” combining elements of rock, psychedelic, and regional beats from Addis Ababa.
NEA Jazz Masters from left to right: Wycliffe Gordon, Danny Mixon, Terri Lyne Carrington, Jimmy Owens, Camille Thurman, Kenny Davis.
The NEA Jazz Masters, led by trumpeter Jimmy Owen, will perform at the town hall on Saturday, November 12 at 8 p.m. With over 45 years experience as a jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and music education consultant, he’ll be joined on stage by five musicians.
Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington is a three-time Grammy Award winner, and the newest member of the group. Camille Thurman is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist who has performed on the same stage as Wynton Marsalis, Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu.
Wycliffe Gordon has been named “Trombonist of the Year” by The Jazz Journalists Association a record 13 times and has topped the Downbeat Critics Poll for “Best Trombone” an unprecedented six times. Daniel Asbury Mixon’s 50+ year piano career has taken him to the White House. Bassist Kenny Davis has toured with artists such as Herbie Hancock and led “The Tonight Show” band from 1999 to 2002.
Vanessa Collier, the 2022 Blues Music Awards winner for Contemporary Female Artist of the Year, will head north to Plattsburgh for a show at Retro Live on Saturday, November 12. She’ll bring her winning heart and soul style of blues, funk, songs and R&B to The Lake City.
Vanessa just released her fifth album, Live at the Power Station, which is up for GRAMMY consideration. Joining Collier is one of the greatest guitar masters is Laura Chavez, who has multiple BMA noms for Guitarist of the Year.
Retro Live is a two-story dance hall and concert space with plenty of room to get down, and is located at 14 Margaret Street in Plattsburgh.
Doors will open at 7pm with the show from 7:30 to 9:40 pm. Tickets for Vanessa Collier at Retro Live are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and only $10 with student ID. Get tickets at Alpha Stereo and online here.
