Author: Pete Mason

An Interview with David Harrington of Kronos Quartet, performing at UPH on Jan. 29

Kronos Quartet, a San Francisco treat who have been reinventing the string quartet since 1973, will arrive at Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs on Sunday, January 29th.

Featuring David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Paul Wiancko (cello), Kronos Quartet is one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing 1000s of concerts and releasing more than 70 recordings, while collaborating with composers and performers. The group has won over 40 awards, including three GRAMMY Awards, and the prestigious Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes.

Founding member David Harrington spoke to NYS Music recently, sharing insight into the group’s creation, how the early years continue to influence current projects, and how Pete Seeger influenced the band’s work.

Pete Mason: You are performing in a theatre in the round on January 29 at Universal Preservation Hall. When someone is seeing you for the first time, what do you hope their takeaways might be?

David Harrington: I hope the audience will feel like they’ve had a little adventure through the world of music as told by the members of Kronos, playing several recent pieces. The music of Nicole Lizée from Montreal brings sonic elements into the mix, and it’s got this darkness but it’s also fun. And a piece by Indonesian composer Maduswara – there’s nothing like Maduswara that I know of.

We will be ending the show with “Cadenza on the Night Plain” – one continuous 30 min piece, featuring incredibly beautiful interlocking rhythms and a solo for each member of group. You will notice Terry Relily is generous, and he gave us this beautiful work that is thrilling to play this in the round, as everyone has their own individual experience. We’re also playing “All Along the Watchtower” – if you could name one great cover version of any song, in the last 60 years or whatever, you’d have to say Hendrix doing “Watchtower” is just the most amazing reinvention of a song. We’re trying to take our audience through a lot of different sound worlds, so let’s go!

PM: Is the new release My Lai connected to your album 1990 album Black Angels?

DH: In my mind, yes. 1973 was when I first heard “Black Angels” (George Crumb’s 1970 composition) on the radio – and I formed Kronos a few weeks after hearing it, we had our first rehearsal on Sept 1, 1973. Playing “Black Angels” later that year felt like bringing a great deal of music together, chanting and shouting, playing crystal glasses and instrumental effects, it felt like it was so much together, as a response to the war in Vietnam. I was searching for that, and there it was.

40 years later, Jonathan Burger told me about Hugh Thompson, and he had an idea for an opera. I had heard of the My Lai massacre – 500 villagers dead in Vietnam – but I didn’t know the story of Thompson, and Jonathan wanted to make this an opera. With him knowing of Kronos and “Black Angels” and having been working with a Vietnamese instrumentalist, Burger learned from her and began writing this piece and it was recorded and released a few months ago.

PM: How did the music of Pete Seeger influence you?

DH: The music and voice of Pete Seeger are locked into my own life. I grew up hearing him and when we had kids, we played his music in the home. When we had grandkids, we played Seeger in the car and at home. My daughter, now a 3rd grade teacher, plays Seeger in her classroom. We played in her classroom once, and one of the teachers brought a guitar, as the kids have all learned “We Shall Overcome.” The other 3rd grade teacher noticed it was Seeger’s 99th birthday the next day. So in the classroom, we decided to make an album celebrating Seeger, and if it’s good enough for my kids, grandkids and these students, it’s good enough for an album.

Clarence Jones, a speech writer and friend to Martin Luther King, Jr. shared how the I Have a Dream speech came to be. We recorded his story, and he said “You know if Seeger were alive, I believe he’d be singing that song.” The album has songs Seeger was inspired by, songs from around the world, President Obama sang “Amazing Grace” on the album, one of the most amazing public events that any official has ever done. We recorded the “We Shall Overcome” track in the school with 100 kids, it was one of the most fun albums I could ever imagine going..

I still have Pete Seeger’s home number in my phone, and I never called him because what would I say to him?

PM: Any film scores on the horizon?

DH: The latest film Kronos scored is 1000 Thoughts. Sam Green directs and Kronos plays the score live as Sam takes the listener/viewer through the history of Kronos, with interviews with composers, one we have done live quite a bit.

PM: Do you have a favorite arrangement of music you are enjoying at the moment?

DH: I try to keep my ears open every day and I never know where it’s gonna pull me next. I just try to be ready, thats been my habit all these years, and I think I’m getting better at it – just getting ready. I heard a musician the other day, my friend told me about, Pura Fé, a singer/songwriter who plays guitar, and a member of the Tuscarora Indian Nation. I was just struck by it and thought it was amazing.

Revisit our July 2022 coverage of Kronos Quartet performing their live documentary, A Thousand Thoughts for the Celebrate Brooklyn! summer series.

Tickets for Kronos Quartet at UPH are available here.

January 29th Program

Peni Candra Rini (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Maduswara **
Aleksandra Vrebalov / My Desert, My Rose **
Mazz Swift / She Is A Story, Herself *
Nicole Lizée / ZonelyHearts *
INTERMISSION
Bob Dylan (arr. Jacob Garchik) / All Along the Watchtower (inspired by Jimi Hendrix) +
Abel Meeropol (arr. Jacob Garchik) / Strange Fruit (inspired by Billie Holiday) +
Terry Riley / Cadenza on the Night Plain *
Introduction
Cadenza: Violin I
Where Was Wisdom When We Went West?
Cadenza: Viola
March of the Old Timers Reefer Division
The Old Timers Throw a Spring Festival
Marching Off to More Serious Matters
Cadenza: Violin II
Tuning to Rolling Thunder
The Night Cry of Black Buffalo Woman
Cadenza: Cello
Gathering of the Spiral Clan
Captain Jack Has the Last Word

January 25, 2023
Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts receives Grant for Quad-County Program

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) located in Blue Mountain Lake, has announced they have been awarded a grant of $295,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). The grant will benefit ALCA’s Adirondack Quad-County Region Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Program for fiscal year 2023.

The Quad Counties of Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties will see a more than 125% increase in funding to arts organizations and artists, with a priority on funding of Native American and othre indigenous people’s arts, culture and history.

Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts

Along with significantly increasing the amount of money the SCR Program will be able to regrant to arts organizations and artists in Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties, the additional funding enables ALCA to expand its offerings and services to the entire four-county region. In addition to the ongoing grant categories of Community Arts and Arts Education, ALCA’s SCR Program is reviving the Individual Artist grants, which have not been offered in the ADK Quad-County region in approximately a decade.

This increase in SCR support means an expansion of both the funding and services ALCA provides to arts organizations and artists in the four-county region, which translates into wider benefits for residents of, and visitors, to the many varied communities within the region, according to Jean-Marie Donohue, Development General Director of ALCA.

We are grateful to NYSCA for this generous increase, which is a validation of the truly indispensable work ALCA has been doing for all four counties in our service area since at least the mid-2010s. We are also excited about the opportunity the increase in funding offers to extend and deepen our service to the abundance of wonderful artists and arts organizations in the region. Although ours is a rural area, the communities we serve range from the City of Plattsburgh to the tiniest hamlets in remote stretches along the Canadian border and in the heart of the Adirondack mountains.
Jean-Marie Donohue
Development General Director of ALCA

Each grant category lists several criteria on which applications are evaluated—for example, artistic merit, organizational competence, service to the community, and local priorities for SCR funding in Community Arts. In this last one, priorities include projects that address areas of distinct cultural deficiency—e.g., programs for underserved rural communities; and projects that focus on, or represent, aspects of our region’s history or cultural identity/diversity. With the presence of the Akwesasne community based north of Franklin County in mind, ALCA’s grants program will add the priority of projects dedicated to Native American and other indigenous people’s arts, culture and history.

photo provided by the Tahawus Cultural Center

As seen above, the exhibit “Journey” at the Tahawus Cultural Center, Au Sable Forks, in Essex County, was presented in Fall 2022 featuring the work of two Town of Black Brook/Clinton County-based artists, painter Heidi Gero and fiber artist Carrie Plumadore, a project supported by SCR funding awarded to the Appleby Foundation, Inc., Tahawus Center and Rebecca Kelly Ballet.

January 25, 2023
EPAC Rock Project presents “I’m Still Standing” featuring the music of Elton John this February

The Endicott Performing Arts Center EPAC Rock Project starts off 2023 with “I’m Still Standing”, featuring the music of Elton John. The celebration features local musicians for a multi media live rock show, February 9-12 at the Robert Eckert Theater in Endicott, NY.

The EPAC Rock Project has been bringing local musicians together with other performing artists who sing and dance, to create live rock shows with multi media at EPAC for many years now. EPAC Rock Project has featured such classic rock bands as The Beatles, Queen, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Metallica, and many others over the years.

EPAC is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide an affordable and high quality venue to local, regional and touring performing artists, enabling them to present, develop, & improve their artistic efforts. For a quarter century, EPAC has renovated and operated out of the 105 year-old “Lyric Theater” (now the Robery Eckert Theater) in Endicott, just west of Binghamton.

This year’s EPAC Rock Project will celebrate the 25th Anniversary of EPAC by featuring the ‘Best of’ Elton John’s music. “I’m Still Standing” will feature the top hits from Elton John’s diverse collection, including ‘Funeral for a Friend’, Benny and the Jets’, ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’, ‘Your Song’, ‘Tiny Dancer’, ‘Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues’, ‘Honky Cat’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright (for fighting)’, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, ‘Rocket Man’, ‘Levon’, ‘Don’t Let the Sun’, ‘Candle in the Wind’, ‘I’m Still Standing’, and others.

The live rock show brings together local musicians, singers and dancers performing these hit Elton John songs in front of Big Screen Projections with full stage lighting and sound. Reserved Seating tickets are available to purchase through the EPAC Website, and/or the EPAC Box Office located at 102 Washington Ave. Endicott, NY. Tickets are $20 for Adults and $18 for Seniors (65+) and Children (12 & under).

The EPAC Rock Project runs from February 9–12, with performances on Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 3pm.

January 24, 2023
An Evening of Psychedelic Rock at Lark Hall with Circles Around the Sun and Rich Ruth

Lark Hall in Albany hosted Circles Around the Sun with special guest Rich Ruth for a night of pure psychedelic rock on Friday, January 20.

Opening up the show was Nashville-based recording artist Rich Ruth. A seasoned session musician and an ambient music making machine, it was this critically acclaimed up-and-comers first time passing through Albany. Captivating the audience early with dreamy, lush and psychedelic post-rock styled soundscapes, the band created a huge swirling sound layered with rich textures, soaring saxophone solos, syncopated drumming, droning synthesizers, reverb-drenched feedback and huge blues rock guitar peaks. Playing mostly songs from 2022 I Survived, It’s Over, an album written in the days after a devastating twister ravaged Ruth’s neighborhood, the set found a healthy balance between beauty and chaos. Backed on this tour by a talented group of friends and equally skilled musicians, each member of the group brought something unique to the table and the result was something palpable and potent and left the Lark Hall wanting more.

Circles began their set around 930pm, taking to the disco ball laden stage, resembling mid-1960s era Deadheads and Grateful Dead members. The five giant disco balls made the stage seem more full, as the notes the band produced were far greater than the sum of the members. Yet not a moment is wasted among these four – John Lee Shannon (guitar), Dan Horne (bass) Adam MacDougall (keys) and Mark Levy (drums) – as each sonic branch ventured off into another, connecting for a sound that filled in all available space.

The highlight of the night could be found anywhere, but “Language,” a track released in March 2022 featuring the harp of Mikaela Davis, stood out. This funky new disco number is a pure dance potion, consistently hit its mark, retreating before resurging towards an extended ending and then “Money’s No Option.” The 90+ minute set was better than two separate sets, so as not to interrupt the flow. Circles could have easily played another hour and lost few, if any of the dialed in crowd.

An encore of “One for Chuck” had a smooth-flowing Dead-heavy jam that give a hint of “NFA” but ended up falling into a soft rock smooth jazz vibe.

Circles Around the Sun – Lark Hall, Albany – Friday, January 20, 2023

Setlist: Scatlotta, Landline, Outerburrows, Babyman, Rouge > Language, Money, Away Team
Encore: One for Chuck

Photos by Zak Radick

January 24, 2023
The Ashokan Center Winter Hoot to be held Feb 3-5 feat. The Mammals, Rachael Yamagata, and more

The Ashokan Center will host their annual Winter Hoot – a down-home and down-to-earth music gathering where are all welcome with joy to spare, over February 3-5 in Olivebridge, NY.

Located 20 minutes south of Woodstock and 25 minutes west of Kingston, The Ashokan Center offers an opportunity to reconnect with your local community through their twice a year Hoots.

The Hoot began in 2013 when Mike Merenda, Ruth Ungar, and their friends at the Ashokan Center and throughout the local community decided to pull together and try their hands at producing a festival. With the success of the first event, now twice a year, the Hoot Heroes continue to build a Hoot, a celebration of music & nature for all generations.

The Ashokan Center’s friendly and skilled Outdoor Education staff will lead blacksmithing workshops, indoor kids zone activities, and a laid-back instrument petting zoo where anyone can try their hand at a variety of musical instruments.

Food is vended festival-style by Ashokan Chef Bill Warnes and Veggie Oasis, plus local beer, cider, wine, and non-alcoholic Immuneschein spritzers.

Globe-trotting ice sculptor Thomas Brown will entertain onlookers outdoors all day, creating a unique and ephemeral work of art to be illuminated at night. Late night improvisational jazz duets will be provided by London-born saxophonist and composer George Winstone with guitarist Ben Monder (of the Bad Plus.)

The event is a showcase and fundraiser for the Ashokan Center, a unique nonprofit organization with a 55 year history of youth outdoor education and 42 years of cultural preservation at summer Music & Dance Camps for adults and families. This past year the center has expanded outreach to offer local in-school and after-school arts and nature programming, and increased access to its 385 acres of forests through guided hikes, day passes, and community events like the Hoot.

Friday, February 3rd kicks off with a dinner, documentary, and discussion as Saturday overflows with music & dancing all day into the night plus blacksmithing, mini concerts in the pewter shop, used clothing swap, kids zone activities, local food & libations. Sunday, February 5th closes with hiking, yoga, and a farewell singalong.

Admission tickets and lodging are on sale now, with passes in advance $50 for the weekend, $35 for Saturday only, $25 for Friday dinners and $10 for Friday Film Screening tickets. At the Door, “Pay what you want” admission is available – no one is turned away for lack of funds.

You can see past Hoot lineups here.

The Ashokan Center Winter Hoot Schedule of Events

Friday, February 3
3:00pm Gates Open (get cozy or go for a hike!)
4:00-6:00pm Donor Gratitude Reception and Hoot Kickoff
6:00pm COMMUNITY DINNER (by reservation)
7:00pm Inhabit DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENING. Inhabit takes us on a tour of best practice permaculture: regenerative farms, suburban gardens, organic orchards, food forests, appropriate technology, inner city regeneration in the poorest of communities, commercial mushroom production, flood mitigation… It is a feast of practical information and a flowering of hitherto untold possibilities, showing us that we have the skills and knowledge to restore the earth and that it’s not only possible it’s already happening.” Maddy Harland, Permaculture Magazine
8:30pm DISCUSSION AND Q&A with filmmaker Costa Boutsikaris and inspiring local growers/farmers who contributed to the dinner!
9:30pm JAM SESSION

Saturday February 4

Kids Zone Activities – 12-5pm
Attire Rotation – 10am-5pm donate gently used clothing and shop sustainably
Instrument Petting Zoo in the main lobby
Nursing Nook – relax in the balcony with rocking chairs, free water, and changing tables provided
Pewter Shop Sessions – Short acoustic sets in the beautiful Pewter Shop see schedule

Music lineup
Mister Chris • 11:00 am • all-ages joy
Dr. Mack • 12:00pm • she’s got your back!
Family Square Dance • 12:30pm • fun & easy
The City Stompers • 1:15pm • fiddle & footwork
Jay Ungar & Molly Mason • 3:00pm • folk medley
Jude Roberts • 4:30pm • melodic songwriter
Rachael Yamagata • 6:00pm • engaging & terrific
The Mammals • 7:30pm • americana quintet
Square Dance • 9:00pm • all fun no fear
George Winstone w/ Ben Monder • 10:45pm • jazz improvisation
Thomas Brown Ice Sculptor • All Day
Blacksmithing 3-6pm

Sunday February 5
9:00am GUIDED HIKE WITH DEL ORLOSKE, YOGA WITH SARA TRAPANI
10:15am COMMUNITY SING
Noon FAREWELL

January 23, 2023
Sam Smith Slays as SNL Sends up Santos

The first episode of the new year for Saturday Night Live found host Aubrey Plaza welcoming back an old friend to the Update desk, while Sam Smith played tracks from his upcoming Gloria album with two mesmerizing musical performances.

With a timely opening sending up Fox NFL post-game coverage of Giants/Eagles – which ended less than a half hour before, SNL wasted no time using the Congressman and life story fabricator George Santos (Bowen Yang) reporting from the Super Bowl, delusions of grandeur on full display. Yang’s Santos would make an appearance on Weekend Update, driving the bit even further, as the jokes write themselves with the continually unraveling fictional backstory of Santos front and center this past week.

Aubrey Plaza (The White Lotus, Parks and Recreation) took the stage of Studio 8H and recounted her longtime desire to host SNL, including her time as a page. This led to the SNL monologue trope of a tour behind the scenes, meeting cast members, the set design team and special guests – like former cast member and Parks and Recreation co-star Amy Poehler – popping up along the way.

A take on the recent TikTok clip-worthy Miss Universe pageant featured cameos from both Property Brothers, and skateboarding legend Tony Hawk.

Digital short “The Black Lotus” reimagined The White Lotus as a no-nonsense black-owned and staffed hotel, while “Game Night” brought together new neighbors in a revealing game of Taboo, and despite obvious cue card reading from Plaza, the rapid fire humor was refreshing and aligned perfectly with the host.

Sam Smith’s first song “Unholy” found the London singer in a fluffy pink ball gown under pink curtains and lighting, with Kim Petras appearing out from under the dress to join in the song. By the end, this performance turned into a devilish hallucination, with Smith donning a horned helmet. This marked Smith’s third time performing on SNL, having made their debut in 2014 and performing again in 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5fUCOgAJgk

Weekend Update showed that the Santos well of comedy will not run dry, with Yang showing longterm potential for his satiral take. Plaza joined the Update team as April Ludgate, revisiting her character from Parks and Recreation, and then bringing on Leslie Nope (Poehler) who made herself at home at the update desk, once again. Poehler shared Weekend Update duties with Seth Myers from 2006-2008.

The second performance from Sam Smith found him clad in gold, standing behind a choir who sang much of the track “Gloria.” Actress Sharon Stone – who starred in a remake of the movie Gloria in the late 90s – laid on a golden bed, moving to a new pose once Smith began to sing under the golden hued stage, a piece of performance art that was Smith’s idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFq8sojJNDo

Saturday Night Live returns on Saturday, January 28 with host Michael B. Jordan and musical guest Lil Baby.

January 22, 2023
Timing to hold Debut Album Listening Party at The Hangar on January 28

The debut recording from timing – featuring members of punk rock bands Public Access and The Slaughterhouse Chorus – will be premiered on Saturday, January 28 at The Hanger in Troy.

photo by Yuliya Peshkova.

The album, Storm’s Coming, is more of a recording project and one that cannot be performed live. However on this night at The Hanger, the album will be played in its entirety, set to a 30 minute video that follows the flow of the album. On Storm’s Coming, the weather seems fine -but it could change at any time.

timing’s formation was a reaction to an ever-changing forecast and the debut recording a song cycle about the storms of uncertainty that was borne on the winds of most uncertain times. In the strange, scary summer of 2020, four lifelong musical comrades – Chris Jordan (vocals, resonator, keys), Jason Bonafide (pedal steel guitar), Bob Watson (bass) and Mark McKenna (drums) -reconvened after their first extended break in nearly 20 years of weekly rehearsals for their reasonably regionally successful punk rock bands, Public Access and The Slaughterhouse Chorus. With the doors wide open and plenty of room to breathe, the four dragged some instruments into an old horse barn in rural Rensselaer County to start again.

art by Mavis McKinley

A handful of fingerpicked resonator riffs and bits of melodies collecting dust were finally given a place in the sun as the band developed a series of Jordan’s instrumental ideas into the basis of “Storm’s Coming” over that eerily quiet summer in the barn. Jordan and Bonafide traded their distorted guitars for plucked acoustics and steel guitar swells, learning to play as they went, while Watson and McKenna locked into backcountry rhythms that occasionally spiraled into chaos. Inspired by Radiohead’s approach to Kid A, the band forced itself to embrace the uncertainty of the times by substantiating those early demos with unusual instrumentations, unconventional songwriting, and unfamiliar production techniques.

Live recordings from the barn were brought back to Bonafide’s basement studio, unraveled, ripped apart, and reassembled, with the traditional sounds forming the dirt floor for an off-kilter skyscraper of strings, synthesizers, drones, and impressionistic lyrics delivered in rich harmonies. Built up brick by brick over the course of the next two years into a multifarious musical collage, the EP attempts to interface Nine Inch Nails‘ industrial dread with the organic warmth of Crosby, Stills, & Nash without losing course.

art by Mavis McKinley

Mixed by Scoops Dardaris (Prince Daddy & The Hyena, Undeath) and mastered by Nick Sebastiano (Another Michael), timing’s Storm’s Coming is a concept album where meteorology is the metaphor for life’s everyday anxiety and unease, where the thunderheads are always lurking somewhere on the horizon, where the river is always threatening to flood its banks. The alt-country heart of the record skips into arrhythmias of crashing doom, swirling post-rock, pastoral indie-folk, and glitching electronics. Tossed around somewhere in the trailing wakes of The Band and The Books, Aphex Twin and Aaron Copeland, the resulting mini-album is an amalgamation of the new and the old, the familiar and the unknown, blurring the lines between acoustic and electronic and riding the fence dividing tradition and experimentation.

Doors open at The Hanger on January 28, with music starting at 8pm. Admission is free.

Listen to “The King” below or on various streaming services here. The rest of Storm’s Coming will be released on Friday, February 3rd on Bandcamp.

January 21, 2023
Deb Cavanaugh and Dandelion Wine Share “Electric Avenue” Cover

Deb Cavanaugh, an award-winning folk artist from Saratoga Springs, has recently formed Deb Cavanaugh and Dandelion Wine, with their first release a cover of “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant.

Very much like Deb Cavanaugh‘s former band, General Eclectic, Dandelion Wine’s line-up may vary depending on the venue and availability of musicians. Dandelion Wine is Jared Carrozza on bass and Ben Hart on drums, who also provides vocals and occasional lead guitar.

The unique blend of blues, rock & roll, and folk is what gives Dandelion Wine a genre best defined as “psychedelic folk.”

Cavanaugh is a singer songwriter, artist educator, multi-instrumentalist (guitar, mountain dulcimer, mandolin & more) in Petersburg, NY playing feel-good Americana.

The group have also released a video, “New Age Guy,” recorded at The Jive Hive.

January 19, 2023
Lost Jazz Shrines Series at Tribeca PAC Honors Boomer’s and Cedar Walton this February

The Helen Sung Quartet will perform as part of the Lost Jazz Shrines series at Tribeca Performing Arts Center on Satuday, February 18. The performance will recall the Greenwich Village jazz club Boomer’s, as well as hard bop jazz pianist Cedar Walton.

The Lost Jazz Shrines series is dedicated to bringing legendary NYC jazz clubs back into the consciousness of the world with a thorough remembrance and celebration. Boomer’s was a jazz club in Greenwich Village during the 1970s and a venue for bebop musicians, with artists Barry Harris and Kenny Barron playing there.

At the club, Cedar Walton recorded the albums A Night at Boomers, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Cedar Walton was an American hard bop jazz pianist who came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey’s band before establishing a long career as a bandleader and composer. Several of his compositions have become jazz standards, including “Mosaic”, “Bolivia”, “Holy Land”, “Mode for Joe” and “Fantasy in D.”

The Helen Sung Quartet is comprised of Sung (piano), Jaleel Shaw (alto saxophone), Reuben Rogers (bass) and Kendrick Scott (drums). Pianist/composer Sung is a graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance and won the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition. Her newest album Quartet+ garnered a 4.5 star DownBeat review and inclusion in its “Best of 2021 Albums” list, and a JazzTimes cover story (January 2022 issue). In addition to her own band, Helen has performed with such luminaries as the late Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Regina Carter, Terri Lyne Carrington, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and more.

Helen’s 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship is being applied toward a multi-movement composition for big band; one of the movements, “Wayne’s World,” won the 2022 BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize.

Tribeca Performing Arts Center is located at 199 Chambers Street. For performances in Theatre 1, enter the West. St. Gate, on 190 West St., north of Chambers St. and south of Harrison Street.

Before the concert, join for a free Conversation With Helen Sung at 7PM, with Artistic Director of Jazz Programming Willard Jenkins interviewing Helen Sung. Tickets are available here.

January 18, 2023
De La Soul share “The Magic Number” ahead of Digital Catalog Release on March 3

After years of delay, De La Soul will release their catalog on streaming services on March 3, 2023, the 34th anniversary of the release of 3 Feet High and Rising the Amityville groups’ debut release. The album, which went platinum, reached the top of the R&B chart, and even made it into the Top 40 of the pop music charts, including the single “The Magic Number.”

The influential Long Island group, including members Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove and Pasemaster Mase found new life for “The Magic Number” after an appearance in the credits of Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021. The song would sample from the 1973 Bob Dorough song “3 is the Magic Number” – Somewhere in this hip-hop soul community / Was born three Mace, Dove, and Me / And that’s the magic number – as well as sampling James Brown, Johnny Cash and Eddie Murphy.

In addition to the digital reissue, “The Magic Number” has also been made available in a handful of physical formats, including a 7″ single and a cassette single.

The group revealed in 2019 that their six albums released while under contract with the Tommy Boy record label would be on streaming services soon. Disagreements with the label, as well as an exploitative contract that cut royalties for the group also made it difficult to clear samples used on the album. After Tommy Boy was acquired by Reservoir Media, a resolution was reached in 2021, leading to the six albums – 3 Feet High And Rising (1989), De La Soul Is Dead (1991), Buhloone Mindstate (1993), Stakes Is High (1996), Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000) and AOI: Bionix (2001) – to appearing on streaming services, effective March 3, 2023.

De La Soul’s last album was 2016’s And The Anonymous Nobody…, featured Talking Heads’ David Byrne, Little Dragon, 2 Chainz, Snoop Dogg, Samon Albarn, Estelle, Usher and more and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Rap Album category.

The band, in speaking with Apple Music, reflected on their catalog, with Trugory saying “3 Feet High and Rising was inspired, maybe just the state that we were in as kids, just not afraid to say, ‘This is me.’ At the same time, it also gave birth to an era, a sound, a style in Hip Hop.”

Posdnuos added: “Dealing with how the media was labeling us, purposely putting us as the champion of gangsta rap or… None of that really mattered to us. We’re part of something that’s truly bigger than us, so now it’s even another thing of having a responsibility to continue on just for, one, three being three Black men who stuck together; two, being a part of a culture that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

The hip-hop collective will be touring the UK in April, playing shows in London, Glasgow, Nottingham and Manchester.

January 18, 2023