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.
The punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, created by Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione in 2001, held nothing back deep in the woods of Woodstock for a three night run at The Colony from November 10th to November 12th. The best way to experience this band is up close and personal, which made the Colony the perfect place for their first live performances since 2018 in the UK, as the venue held roughly 150 people from the floor to the balcony.
Palmer, now 46, still performs like she is 25 at the start of The Dresden Dolls’ birth. Her raw energy and flawed flawlessness that she puts into any one of her performances is something that cannot be explained through words, it’s something that needs to be experienced. Her vocals are unmatched with a mix of melodic sounds and scream-singing and her skills on the piano complement that so well. She is one of the most passionate artists out there and is a sight to behold. Her passion is so strong that it spills out from her voice into her piano and every single move she makes. She breathes a new breath into every single performance.
Viglione on the drums, back-up vocals, bass, electric and acoustic guitar complements that beautifully. He matches her energy and that brings every performance from a 10 to a 20. The things he can create, on the drums especially, is an artform all by itself. The two clad in cabaret styled clothes and mime-like face paint created an experience for the audience that is part rage, part beautiful storytelling, with a little bit of everything mixed in. Everything includes a cover of “Fight For Your Right” by The Beastie Boys where Amanda got up from her piano and took over the drums while Brian played guitar and guest bass player Manta joined in.
The performance overall was a mash up of high-energy rage-filled songs like “Girl Anachronism” and some lower-energy ballads. This included their song “Delilah” which was accompanied by a newer artist named Veronica Swift who’s vocals were out of this world. It was truly show-stopping.
The performance and the reaction of the audience breathed new air into The Dresden Dolls and if you’re lucky enough to score a ticket to any one of there other performances, GO. Long live the Punk Cabaret.
Setlist: Good Day, Sex Changes, Gravity, Bad Habit, Backstabber, Modern Moonlight, My Alcoholic Friends, Missed Me, Mrs. O, Astronaut, Delilah (with Veronica Swift), Gardener, Ultima, Fight For Your Right, Amsterdam, Mandy Goes To Med School, Coin Operated Boy, War Pigs, Half Jack, Girl Anachronism
Encore: Truce, Sing
Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione rocking out Colony. Photo by Samantha Rychlicki
While many found the sudden lockdown spurred by 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic depressing, isolating and fruitless, Marco Benevento found the time trapped in his Hudson Valley dilapidated home studio to be inspiring and invigorating. In that room, surrounded by outdated technology, malfunctioning drum kits and eclectic instruments, the Woodstock keyboardist found his latest album: Benevento. Benevento will be celebrating the album’s release with a tour across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest in March 2023.
The production of Benevento took place over many solo jam sessions, rife with experimentation and improvisation, things Benevento is no stranger to. Within the keyboard, Benevento finds and exploding breadth of sound and texture, and he wanders into the realm of psychedelic funk in his latest album, taking with him notes of rock, jazz and especially dance.
Benevento is pulling a two night stand in his home town of Woodstock at Levon Helm Studios in January, 2023. Tickets go on sale November 18 at 10 a.m. for the March leg of Marco Benevento’s tour. He’ll have a couple shows in the New York area, including on March 10 at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. See the complete list of tour dates below; tickets here.
MARCO BENEVENTO Complete Tour Schedule
November 17 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg ^
November 18 – New Haven, CT – Space Ballroom ^
November 19 – Holyoke, MA – Race Street Live ^
December 29 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre *
January 13 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios
January 14 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios
March 10 – Jersey City, NJ – White Eagle Hall
March 11 – Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts
March 12 – Baltimore, MD – 8×10
March 13 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird Cafe
March 14 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom
March 15 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
March 16 – Milwaukee, WI – The Back Room at Colectivo
Bob Riley is a singer extraordinaire, in more than one groundbreaking hardcore band, blazing a smoke strewn trail from Troycore to New York Hardcore. He’s fury and force, and a guy who sits down with his morning coffee and enjoys the peace of Motown with the waking dawn.
One of the enduring mysteries of music, all art really, is that the performer exists and the person exists, and if you didn’t know both of them, you might not guess one would inhabit the same flesh and bone of the other. Art gives people a chance to step out of the confines of who they are, who an orderly society needs them to be, and become who they need themselves to be, and in that transformation, a little magic escapes to the crowd.
RadioRadioX: Murderer’s Row is the name of your band. It’s a historical term, coming from a bad section of the tombs in New York City, and also a fearsome section of the 1927 Yankees lineup with Ruth and Gehrig. Was there a tie or a nod back to the history of the phrase, or is the idea of a Murderer’s Row just universal?
Bob Riley: No, Murderers Row is definitely a nod at the Ruth, Gehrig Yankees lineup of 1927. The original lineup of Murderers Row would get together every Sunday to rehearse and watch the Yankees game. We would play during commercials. I suggested the name knowing it had been used here and there in the past but seeing as how we are Yankee fan New Yorkers and live three hours from the stadium that we would use it. Bring it home back to NY!
RRX: Murderer’s Row, by all accounts, would be considered Troycore. There’s a lot of sentiment surrounding all things Troy, and Troycore has a deep vein. But what does it mean? Is it a situation of everybody living in Troy, so a geography, or is it a unique sound, like Muscle Shoals or Chicago blues?
BR: There has always , long before me, an us vs them attitude with Troy people. South Troy against the World is an old saying long before my dad and his friends were using it. It most certainly stems from Troy having so many factories back in the day. The “Collar City”, as we are nicknamed, was and still is very working class. Also, the “Home of Uncle Sam” Working people are tough and proud and that’s Troy in a nutshell. It’s only natural that angry proud music is made by Troy people. We labeled ourselves “Troycore” to say, “Hey, we are the outcasts of the outcasts, and we are proud of it!” There’s some old school people who believe that the original five Troy bands Cranial Abuse, Dead End, Final Terror, Direct Attack and Rude Awakening was Troycore and that’s it period it’s over. I don’t agree at all. I love that these newer kids in bands are flying the Troycore banner keeping it alive!
RRX: You been down the long road with hardcore and punk. Cranial Abuse, Stigmata, Murderer’s Row and more that I don’t know, more that maybe no one except the people in the room knew about. You’re in a good band then you’re in a good band; you’re in three, then maybe it’s you who got something. What’s the secret to having something?
BR: I’ve been involved in music my whole life at this point. I love what I do and it shows. People can sense that, especially a live audience. You can’t fake it. I’m so happy and very lucky I have people who want to make music with me. I’m so happy I have people buying our music and coming to see us play. Music has given me so much it has gotten me around the world many times. And I’ve met so many great people. I love what I do so maybe it’s just as simple as that!
RRX: Hardcore gets a bum rap among the pleasant folks in the PTAs and the Homeowners’ Associations. Because those people listen to hardcore too. Violence and aggression, but people in the scene, people deep in the scene, including, have a pretty laid-back mindset. Is hardcore cathartic? If so, why do you think that is?
BR: It’s easy to see outsiders see hardcore metal or punk as negative because sometimes, well, it is. It’s many different things to many different people. Hardcore gives you that platform to complain about your bad day that jerk who cut you off or that crappy 9 to 5 job or worse. For me it was to get my anger and negativity out. Yell it, scream it, pound it out as loud and as angry as possible into people’s faces. So yes, aggressive music can be very cathartic.
RRX: You bring a ton of energy to the stage when you’re on it. And that; I can’t imagine its always easy. Do you have to prepare yourself, punch yourself in the face in front of the mirror backstage? Punch someone else in the face backstage? (kidding.) How do you go beyond just bringing a melody to the stage to bring a strong feeling?
BR: Thank you for the compliment but nowadays I do a lot of pointing. I was more energetic was I was younger. Jumping off the stage into the crowd. Fell off the Saratoga Winners stage so many times. And bashing my head off the beam above the drum riser so hard I saw stars. As I’ve gotten older, I put together Murderers Row because I wasn’t so angry anymore and I could use my humor in my lyrics. I also wrote a song for my daughter called “My Little Molly”. If there’s violence in an Murderer Row’s song, and there is, I compare it to Three Stooges violence. Nowadays, I’d rather laugh than fight.
RRX: Everybody thinks of match-ups. But let’s go a little weird. Instead of wishing you had such and such a person on drums, let’s say you could have a nameless drummer that is a master of one kind of fill. Can you give us that? Not people, but specific talents. What specific instrument talents would you want in a dream team?
BR: That’s a good question because I’ve made music with a lot of amazing musicians over the years people who played in big named bands. Machinehead, Possessed, Danzig, Biohazard, Cromags and even Glen Campbell. I’m going to mention some names and only those living. If I was to put together a heavy rock kinda band dream team for myself Phil Rudd: drums, Harley Flanagan: bass, Tom Warrior: rhythm guitar, Michael Schenker: lead guitar.
RRX: Here’s where you answer the question I didn’t ask. Comments or remarks? Hype and promo? Educate, enlighten, emote – the floor is yours.
BR: Keep making music, live hard, love hard, work smart, make mistakes but learn from them! Have fun always all ways! Thank you, Liam, and Xperience!
Timber Banks, a golf course-based residential community in Baldwinsville, will soon be hosting the “Jazz at Timber Banks” music series at their brand-new Persimmons Restaurant.
Running from November 30 to May 10, the series will showcase events every Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. It will begin with a performance by Edgar Pagán and his “Grupo Pagan Lite” trio, playing pop and Latin pop selections, on a night featuring free finger food.
Promotional poster for “Jazz at Timber Banks.”
Excluding a holiday break, Fitzsimmons will host every week over the course of its 5+ month run. No show will include a cover charge. Edgar Pagán’s GPL will also feature at the series’ closing event.
CNY Jazz is presenting the series as their latest “CNY Jazz Club” offering. “Now the northern suburbs will have nearby access to great music of all kinds on a regular basis in a cabaret setting,” said Larry Luttinger, leader of the upstate non-profit operation and series curator of the concert series.
21 events and 15+ acts strong, the series bills itself as multidisciplinary, featuring blues, funk, R&B, Americana, country swing, Latin crossover, modern pop, and Sinatra in addition to jazz.
CNY Jazz donor cardholders will receive 10% discounts on food and drink at all events scheduled at Persimmons.
Information on more upcoming CNY Jazz events can be found here.
Amid their current tour with Trey Anastasio Band, Goose has announced their first shows in six years at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, and they’re going big for it. Over March 8-12, Goose will play 5 consecutive nights, adding to the band’s historic rise, and the extensive history of The Cap.
The only other time Goose played The Capitol Theatre was a single set on October 1, 2016. Here’s the setlist, via elgoose.net: Arcadia, Madhuvan, Jive I, Indian River, Creatures, Turned Clouds, So Ready, One More Saturday Night.
Presale tickets will be available starting Thursday, November 17 at 10am through 10pm using the password TUMBLE with general on-sale beginning Friday, November 18 at 10am. $1 of each ticket sale will support Backline, a mental health and wellness resource for the music industry.
Check out coverage of Goose with Trey Anastasio Band at Mohegan Sun and at Glens Falls this past week.
On Tuesday, November 15, Black Star took the stage at Sony Hall in Times Square for a once in a lifetime performance, presented by Blue Note Entertainment Group and co-presented by podcast platform Luminary.
Black Star is Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey, the internationally recognized icons of rap, activism, and entertainment. This night, they performed songs from their iconic debut Mos Def & Talib KweliAre Black Star, as well as their new album No Fear Of Time, which was released after an extended hiatus of nearly 25 years. In addition to the Black Star originals, they both performed hits from their individual catalogs.
The Sony Hall show followed their SNL debut on Saturday, November 12th, where Black Star performed “So be it.”
After two years under wraps, The Wonderfront Music Festival makes its first return since 2019. Running from November 18-22, 2022, Wonderfront was started by CEO Paul Thornton and is located right in the marina along the waterfront piers and parks of downtown San Diego. Wonderfront is a multi genre annual festival hosting over 80+ artists, including award winning headliners Gwen Stefani, Cage The Elephant, G-Eazy, and The Zac Brown Band.
WonderFront 2019
One of Southern California’s biggest cities, San Diego has become the perfect location for festival grounds in the SeaPort Village Marina. The Wonderfront Festival is bringing a full package to the comeback lineup for 2022 with many art installations, food vendors like Sophias Kitchen, Pressed and Smash City Burgers, in addition to hosting various retail vendors and partnering with The San Diego Museum of Art, one of the region’s largest and most-visited art museums to accentuate the visual arts experience.
WonderFront Music and Arts Festival Lineup
The lineup includes artists coming from around the globe. Headliners include Gwen Stefani, G-Eazy, The Zac Brown Band, Cage The Elephant, Young the Giant and EARTHGANG. While hosting over 80 artists, Wonderfront pulls from rock, alternative, rap, pop rock to appeal to a wide range of community for the fans. Not only does Wonderfront bring award-winning headliners but brings deserving attention to many more well established artists. Other artists featured on the lineup include Fitz and The Tantrums, Bea Miller, Joey Purp, Hippie Sabotage and many more.
NYS Music will head west for WonderFront Music and Arts Festival and will be reporting back on members of the East Coast music community, several of which are making an appearance at Wonderfront Festival 2022. Bea Miller from Maple Wood, New Jersey, launched her career after placing 9th on X- Factor at the age of only 13. Some of her top hits from album Aurora include “Song Like You,” “Like That,” and “Motherlove.” Another artist representing the East Coast is Two Feet, originally from Manhattan and gained attention in 2016 and rose to success after releases Pink and Max Marco is Dead Right? in 2021.
The night of Saturday, November 12 was a bitter and cold, and at The Rapids Theater in Niagara Falls, The Thom Conde Project, Buffalo’s newest hard rock band, opening the night’s show. Next up, was Buffalo’s Red Letter, followed by Sirens & Sailors from Rochester taking the stage. And among the crowd was unreal anticipation for STEMM to the start their set. Even Rob Arnold, guitarist from the band Chimaira made the trip to see this show from Ohio.
By showtime, the building had filled up and it didn’t feel like a bitter cold night anymore. STEMM has been working for over a year to bring back their old vocalist TJ Frost to play their album Songs for the Incurable Heart in its entirety. TJ flew in from Boise, Idaho for two weeks of constant rehearsals – and let me tell you, it surely paid off. They started with original STEMM songs before TJ was brought out on stage. At this point, the entire vibe in the building was through the roof – it was hot, It was humid and it felt like a jungle inside the venue.
This is where things got fun. Having personally known the guys in STEMM for 25 years and shared the stage with them with my band countless times (before I traded in my gear and became a photographer.) When you add STEMM and TJ Frost – the roof was blown off the building by the crowd. There were multiple people crowd surfing including a 10 year old kid who was witnessed crowd surfing at least 5 different times, like it was his favorite theme park ride. When you think you’ve seen it all, you see a security guard crowd surf, and you know you’re at an amazing show, with all the incredible vibes at this point.
STEMM is Joe Cafarella- Vocals/Guitar; Danny Nelligan – Drums; Alex Scouten- Guitar; TJ Frost- Vocals; Louis Penque – Vocals; Fred Blackwell- Guitar, and Joe Scouten- Bass Guitar. With seven members on stage during STEMM’s set, including their original vocalist Louis Penque from the beginning of their days, to TJ Frost himself, both vocalists were boucing all over the building. On the speakers and on the security gate they were both reaching out as far as they could in the crowd just to give a fan a high five. This is personally the most amazing performance I have seen STEMM perform in more than 20 years. Yet the band is not done – they plan on one-upping this show in the future.
Not only has STEMM became a staple of the music scene in Niagara Falls for the past 25 years, their songs have been used by the UFC, including “Face the Pain” being the UFC’s main theme song from 2002-2018. The UFC has used 25 different STEMM songs as background music over their history. This is saying A LOT from a little band from a the second largest city in NYS, Niagara Falls, NY. And Recently heard at Buffalo Sabre’s and Buffalo Bills games; more STEMM songs.
STEMM – The Rapids Theater, Niagara Falls, NY – Saturday, November 12
Setlist: Wish, Dead Inside, House of Cards, Don’t Act Surprised, Inside, Casualty for Prayer, The Memory Remains, A Song for the Incurable Heart, Till I Die, MONSTER, Pandemic, Numb, On the Surface, 13 Years, Incomplete, Holding On, Between now and Forever, The day the Earth Stood Still, Face the Pain
These include the school’s annual holiday concert on Sunday, December 4 at 3 p.m., “Twelve Drummers Drummin’” on Monday, December 5 at 7 p.m., and “Carols from Near and Far” as performed by the UAlbany Chamber Singers on Sunday, December 11.
Photo credit: Paul Miller
The holiday concert will showcase five departmental ensembles, those being the UAlbany Community Chorale, UAlbany Chamber Singers, UAlbany Concert Band, UAlbany Jazz Band, and the UAlbany Symphony Orchestra, in addition to musical clubs Serendepity and Pitch Please.
Photo credit: Paul Miller
The following night’s performance will display the UAlbany Percussion Ensemble under the direction of Richard Albagli. The concert will include works from Germany and Guatemala in addition to a piece about the creation of the world performed to the words of Richard Feynman and Neil de Grasse Tyson and music by Peter Garland. The night will climax with David Amram’s “Latin Roots” from his work Landscapes, in a piece which features audience participation.
Photo credit: Gary Gold
In addition to the UAlbany Chamber Singers for “Carols from Near and Far,” the Festival Celebration Choir, a group of department guest performers. The two choirs will sing separately and together over accompaniment by pianist Daniel White, harpist Karlinda Calidcott, guitarist Sten Isachsen and percussionist Eugene Lorini. The program centerpiece will be Carols and Lullabies by Conrad Susa, a 10-movement collection of holiday carols from South and Central America.
Information regarding tickets and more can be found on the UAlbany Performing Center website.
