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Owen McNally writes about jazz and other music events in Connecticut's Jazz Corridor, stretching from the tip of Fairfield County, right through New Haven and Hartford, and on up beyond the state into the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. Keep up with the best our area has to offer in music.

Guitarist John Abercrombie Leads Trio in Season Opener for Connecticut Guitar Society

John Abercrombie is perpetually seeking "new gateways" for expression.

Perhaps best known for his long, amazingly fruitful relationship with Manfred Eicher’s ECM Records, guitarist John Abercrombie has enjoyed such a diverse, distinguished career that you can’t lock up his restless, lyrical artistry into any one air-tight, neatly convenient category, not even with the venerable ECM label.

While he’s performed with a variety of great musicians -- everyone from Jack DeJohnette and Billy Cobham to Ralph Towner and Richie Beirach -- and in bands as radically divergent as organist Johnny “Hammond” Smith’s Trio, Chico Hamilton’s jazz chamber group and the Brecker Brothers jazz-rock band, Dreams, the now 71-year-old guitarist has a voice all his own.

His distinctive, luminous sound and fluent style have made him, perhaps not a superstar, but, nonetheless, a premier guitarist for decades.

Appropriately enough, Abercrombie’s first two recordings on ECM were titled Timeless and Gateway, acclaimed albums that turned out to be quite presciently named.

Along with Abercrombie's love for change and scorn for the status quo come his bold experimentations with harmony, meter, and tonal shadings.

For all its famously understated, spare, introspective qualities, Abercrombie’s music is, in fact, timeless, exactly as predicted by the title of his debut ECM release.

And while his playing is directly connected to the history of the jazz guitar, it is also simultaneously forward-looking, perpetually seeking, as the second title implied, new gateways for expression.

Along with Abercrombie's love for change and scorn for the status quo come his bold experimentations with harmony, meter, and tonal shadings, all done with his hallmark delivery graced with an enviably cool ambience and melodic invention.

Launching its new 2015-2016 season, the Connecticut Guitar Society presents Abercrombie in concert leading his trio on Saturday, September 19, at 8:00 pm in Hartford at the Town and County Club, 22 Woodland Street. He will be accompanied by bassistSteve LaSpina and drummer Anthony Pinciotti in a tribute honoring the noted guitarist and Waterbury native, Joe Diorio, who will attend. Two of Diorio’s Connecticut protégés, guitarists Rich Goldstein and Chris Morrison, are also on the bill.

Credit eddiegomez.com
Eddie Gomez

A 2006 release called Structures (Chesky Records) shows that even when working within the framework of ballads, Abercrombie, in collaboration with the great double bass virtuoso Eddie Gomez and drummer Gene Jackson, can take a familiar or maybe just vaguely familiar sounding song, and transform it into something new, following the 2oth century, modernist war cry and aesthetic motto, “Make it new.”

Along with two mellow originals apiece by Gomez and Abercrombie on Structures, the trio, in a relaxed chamber setting, presents fresh takes on Ray Noble’s “The Touch of Your Lips,” George and Ira Gershwin’s “Embraceable You,” Cole Porter’s “Everything I Love,” Irving Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean” (the grand finale), Bill Evans’ “Turn Out the Stars” (an acknowledgement of Gomez’s 13-year-stint with the Bill Evans Trio) and an exotic, classical sounding rendition of “Moon and Sand” by the jazz-friendly composer, author, wit and cynic Alec Wilder.

Loosely planned but brimming with spontaneous, conversational elegance, Structures gives you a fine simulation of hearing Abercrombie’s artistry live, which, thanks to the non-profit Connecticut Guitar Society, you can actually experience for real at the Town and County Club. Tickets: $35.00, general public; $30.00, CGS members, purchased online at ctguitar.org or at (860) 249-1132.

Credit nicholaspayton.com
Nicholas Payton.

Hail Payton, Savior of Archaic Pop

"I'm in a constant state of evolution."
Nicholas Payton

Besides being a brilliant trumpeter and strongman bender of all genres, the Grammy winning, New Orleans-born Nicholas Payton is an artist in constant motion, a visionary iconoclast with an appreciation for the past. At the same time, however, this multi-faceted figure is also a provocative writer on everything from music to racism, a critic who casts a cold eye on all forms of intellectual cant while wielding his dagger-sharp prose on social and cultural injustice.

A multi-instrumentalist, composer and indie record label owner, Payton, who has a new release out called Letters, will demonstrate where he is in his constantly evolving career as he leads his trio on Friday, September 18, at 8:00 pm at Wesleyan University’s Crowell Concert Hall on the Middletown campus. He’ll perform on trumpet and Fender Rhodes with his trio-mates, bassist Gerald Cannon and drummer Herlin Riley.

On the website entry for his Paytone Records, the acclaimed trumpeter’s bold musical manifesto is spelled out: “It is Nicholas Payton’s mission to extract the richness and lost knowledge of the past in order to elevate today’s consciousness. Hailed as The Savior of Archaic Pop, Payton is rooted in tradition, yet he isn’t stuck there. His life’s work is to dismantle the status quo and to subvert mediocrity by giving rise to quality.”

“I’m in a constant state of evolution,” he said on the site. “I’m always looking for new and better avenues of expression when the good, old-fashioned way doesn’t seem suited anymore. This is not to denigrate the past, but more of an expression of breathing new life into our surroundings.”

With his trumpet, keyboard, compositions and band, the prophet-like writer/critic and virtuoso musician makes the word become flesh.

The evening opens with a pre-concert talk at 7:15 pm by the noted pianist/composer and bandleaderNoah Baerman, who is Wesleyan University's jazz ensemble coach. Information: (860) 685-3355.

Rising Star Alights in Town Center

Jazzmeia Horn
Credit Jazzmeia Horn
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Jazzmeia Horn
Jazzmeia Horn

Pianist Alex Nakhimovsky teams up in his exciting, new series with the sensational, young singer Jazzmeia Horn, winner of the 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, on Friday, September 18, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm at Sam’s Gyro at 7 South Main Street in West Hartford Center.

A native of Dallas, Texas, the Harlem-based singer, who’s only in her early 20s, has already earned a reputation in New York City as a dynamic, passionate stylist whose soulful sound and hip way with lyrics have inspired comparisons with such classic divas as Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson.

In 2012, the phenomenal vocalist won the Rising Star Award at the prestigious Vaughan Competition, a warmup for the following year when she swept aside all competition.

Horn, who appropriately enough sings with a horn-like jazz conception, has, among other accomplishments, studied at the elite Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and received her degree from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

She’s played everywhere from the Apollo and The Blue Note to Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and the Zinc Bar, and shared the stage with such luminaries as Billy Harper, Vincent Herring, and Ellis Marsalis. Last year, her international touring schedule spread the good word about her in London, France, South Africa, Moscow and Austria.

Jon Hendricks, America’s uber-grand patriarch of the art of the hip vocal, has declared that Horn “is one of the greatest vocalists I’ve heard in 40 years.”

Nakhimovsky, the series producer, is fluent in all keyboard challenges from the technical rigors and expressive demands of a Chopin masterwork to the technical high-hurdles of bebop virtuosity. His excellence and empathy as an accompanist was recently displayed on vocalist JuneBisantz’s fine new recording, It’s Always You: June Bisantz Sings Chet Baker. Cover: $15.00. Information: samsgyroct.com and (860) 233-6300.

Credit Sevim Yolacti
Sinan Bakir

Bakir Pitches a Doubleheader

Guitarist Sinan Bakir makes two separate appearances on Saturday, September 19, at the ambitiousEnvisionFest Hartford that features more than 100 diverse free events, activities and performances in the capital city.

Bakir performs solo at 12:15 pm in the idyllic garden at the historic Butler-McCook House on Main Street, an ideally contemplative refuge in which to absorb his luxuriant guitar reflections. Later in the day at 3:30 pm -- not far from Hartford’s slice of Eden nestled on Main Street -- the guitarist/composer leads his trio at the festival’s Gold Street show mobile. He’ll be joined by bassist Mike Asetta and drummer George Mastrogiannis. Information:envisionfesthartford.com.

Noted Gospel Artist Presents Free Concert

Credit artistscollective.org
Doobie Powell

Hartford’s own Doobie Powell, a noted independent gospel music artist who has worked with many gospel luminaries and has recorded acclaimed albums of his own, performs in a free concert on Saturday, September 19, at 8:00 pm at the Artists Collective, 1200 Albany Avenue, Hartford.

An esteemed musician, powerful singer and songwriter in his own right, he has performed on and produced projects for such luminaries as Kim Burrell and Harry Connick,Jr., collaborating with Connick, a Connecticut resident, on a song dedicated to the Sandy Hook shooting victims.

Coming from a family line of distinguished musicians, singers and preachers, Powell’s celebration of his musical and spiritual heritage came quite naturally. He and his family have traveled extensively to minister in the United States, Japan, Africa and France. Currently, he serves as the minister of music at the Latter Rain Christian Fellowship in Hartford, where his well-known, also musically gifted parents, Hubert L. Powell II and Jacqueline Powell, are co-pastors.

Free passes for the concert are available in advance and will also be available at the door. Seating is on a first-come, first served-basis. Information: artistscollective.org and (860) 527-3205.

Please submit press releases on upcoming jazz events at least two weeks before the publication date to omac28@gmail.com. Comments left below are also most welcome.

Owen McNally writes the weekly Jazz Corridor column for WNPR.org as well as periodic freelance pieces for The Hartford Courant and other publications.

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