Jacob Sacks Trio & Ryan Blotnik Band & More Set For Cornelia Street Café

This Weekend At Cornelia Street Cafe

Fri Feb 05 9:00PM & 10:30PM JACOB SACKS TRIO/RYAN BLOTNIK BAND  (Jacob Sacks, piano; Eivind Opsvik, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums; Ryan Blotnik, guitar, compositions; Bill McHenry, saxophone; Curtis Fowlkes, trombone; Rj Miller, drums; Perry Wortman, bass)

9PM Jacob Sacks Trio

10:30PM Ryan Blotnick Sextet
Pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Eivind Opsvik, and drummer Gerald Cleaver have worked together in many different configurations over the past decade, but never as a trio. This special performance will include new original music, as well as some pieces from Jacob and Eivind's album 'Two Miles A Day.'

Guitarist Ryan Blotnick has been called "a vital contemporary voice" by Time Out New York, "an authentic, compelling player" by Cadence Magazine, and has garnered praise from guitarists John Abercrombie, Steve Cardenas and Ben Monder. This night will mark the debut of a new sextet featuring Paul Motian disciples Bill McHenry and Jacob Sacks, and trombonist Curtis Fowlkes of the Jazz Passengers, The Lounge Lizards and Bill Frisell's early groups. Drummer RJ Miller has recently returned from Spain where he is a member of Jorge Rossy's group.

Deeply rooted in the jazz tradition, but always listening for new sounds and trends in improvised music, Blotnick has drawn equally from the American and European jazz scenes, playing regularly with musicians from Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Canada and England. His latest release "Everything Forgets" for Songlines features drum master Jeff Williams (of Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, etc.) and Joachim Badenhorst (of the Han Bennink Trio). Marke Andrews of the Vancouver Sun wrote of the new release:

"Blotnick will never be mistaken for best-selling guitar brethren Pat Metheny or George Benson, but his music is richly drawn from many palettes. Some tracks on Everything Forgets are tone poems, including the gentle Intro and the electronic Funes the Memorius, and others, like Judge's Cave, are meter-free explorations with lots of open spaces in the dialogue among instruments. Then there are the simple, melodic numbers such as Mansell, with its firm backbeat and and unadorned guitar work, and Ballad for a Crumbling Infrastructure, which swings thanks to brushwork by drummer Jeff Williams."

"What is interesting about this disc is that there is nothing too forceful or very "out". It deals more with somber, late night listening. It more about creating a certain vibe of suspense with the occasional ghost floating across the horizon."
- Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
Cover $10 http://www.myspace.com/jacobsacks

Sat Feb 06 9:00PM & 10:30PM
TERRENCE MCMANUS' "FIRSTBORN"
(Ellery Eskelin, tenor saxophone; Mark Helias, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums; Terrence McManus, electric/acoustic guitars, compositions)

Guitarist and composer Terrence McManus has made a serious name for himself in improvised and contemporary music, with an unmistakable sound and truly new approach to the guitar. His much sought after sound can be heard in the Gerry Hemingway Quintet, Kermit Driscoll Quartet and Trio, and the Herb Robertson Ensemble. Recently, Terrence's own ensembles have included Tim Berne, Herb Robertson, Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway (The Weathly Industrialists), and Ellery Eskelin, Mat Maneri, Russ Lossing, Gerry Hemingway (The Dream of the Ants). At the heart of this new ensemble "Firstborn", is the revisitation of a more conventional quartet setting. However, the resemblance will be purposefully blurred, as the familiarity of the quartet sound will interlaced with stretches of multiple independence, electronica, and industrial sounds. press quote:
-All About Jazz NY website: www.terrence-mcmanus.com photo credit: Ralph Gibson
Cover $10 http://www.terrence-mcmanus.com

Sun Feb 07 8:30PM
ELI YAMIN BAND
(Eli Yamin, piano, vocals; Ari Roland, bass; LaFrae Sci, drums; Zaid Nasser, alto saxophone)

The Eli Yamin Band plays blues, bebop and swing with joy and a timeless soul for all times. Recently returned from multiple appearances at the White House, the band frequently tours as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. Department of State. Celebrating a year of the Eli's popular CD, "You Can't Buy Swing, " this night at Cornelia Street with will be a homecoming and a good time for all.
"Pianist Eli Yamin is a communicator who believes jazz can foster a sense of community. His work is expansive and extroverted, populist in the best sense,"
George Kanzler, All About Jazz New York.

"They are all about having a hard-swinging good time." Thomas Conrad, Jazztimes
Cover $12 http://www.eliyamin.com

Mon Feb 08
8:30PM COMPOSERS COLLABORATIVE: SERIAL UNDERGROUND
(Neil Rolnick, composer/laptop; Ed Schmidt, theater; CYGNUS: Emi Ferguson, Baroque flute; Lawrence Pangaro, gamba; William Anderson, guitar & mandolin; MOMENTA QUARTET)
Serial Underground, "the subversive nightclub series" (Time Out NY)
Allan Kozinn (New York Times) contextualizes CCi's monthly performances in the basement of the Cornelia Street Cafe - "... part of the ecology of urban night life." CCi artistic director, Jed Distler, curates the programs abetted by director Arnold Barkus and lighting designer David Lovett.
Tonight:
Neil Rolnick - Composer/laptop virtuoso Neil Ronick installment #2, exploring ideas of losing our senses. More info: http://www.neilrolnick.com/

A newer monologue written and performed by Ed Schmidt
More info: http://www.edschmidt.info/

plays New Music for Old Instruments with Emi Ferguson, Baroque flute, Lawrence Pangaro, gamba, and William Anderson guitar & mandolin - works by David Loeb, Jonathan Dawe, Milton Babbitt, and William Anderson.

MOMENTA QUARTET plays Arthur Kampela's String Quartet (chamber danger).

Box office: 212.663.1967 (advance purchase discount available)
Admission at the door: $20 + one drink minimum
Jed Distler, host. http://www.composerscollab.org

Spoken Word

Fri Feb 05
6:00PM SON OF PONY
Arrive early to sign up for the open mic.
Featured readers: Kahlil Almustafa & Eli McCarthy PLUS NYC's Best Open POETRY Mike

Eli McCarthy is an Irish, Barcelona-based artist. Her medium is Anatomusic, a new "humanized" genre of intimate experimental electronica. In the same way as poetry describes a situation via words, Anatomusic allows the body to recount its experiences via the recording and digital processing of its movement/sound expression into musical notes, timbres and ambients.

Kahlil Almustafa is known as the People's Poet, whether for a mass rally of hundreds, a nightclub, church, university or a backyard family reunion. almustafa is the 2002 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion and the author of four book of poetry and his debut CD CounterIntelligence. His collection of 15 years of poetry, Growing Up Hip-Hop, is used in classrooms from the elementary to the university level. almustafa recently completed the "100 Poems For 100 Days" project where he wrote 100 poems in the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency soon to be published in a collection of poems entitled, From Auction Block to Oval Office. He uses poetry to engage communities in critical dialogue.
Kat Georges, host. Cover $7 http://www.myspace.com/espacemc2

Sat Feb 06 6:00PM
THE LIAR SHOW
(DJ HAZARD; DAVID ELLIS DICKERSON; SHERRI ELDIN; ROB GORDON)

Seek Truth. Get a T-Shirt.
4 Storytellers, 3 True Stories, 1 Pack of Lies.

Uncover the liar and win a prize worth its weight in fool's gold.

DJ HAZARD - American Misfits, Fuel TV

DAVID ELLIS DICKERSON - NPR's This American Life

SHERRI ELDIN - Osbournes: Reloaded

ROB GORDON - The Rob And Mark Show

Andy Christie. Cover $15

Sun Feb 07 6:00PM
THE CAMERA NEVER LIES

The camera never lies - or does it? Or does it tell a greater truth than our eyes alone? Photography has changed the way we see the world. For this evening we have we have one of the world's leaders in the science of photography in the computational age joining with a photographer whose images have become part of the culture.
Professor Shree K. Nayar, the T. C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, will present his latest work on "Computational Cameras: Redefining the Image". The computational camera embodies the convergence of the camera and the computer. It uses new optics to select rays from the scene in unusual ways, and an appropriate algorithm to process the selectEd Rays. This ability to manipulate images before they are recorded and process the recorded images before they are presented is a powerful one. It enables us to experience our visual world in rich and compelling ways.

In the second half of the evening noted photographer Jim Moore, who has been photographing the eccentric performing arts for over 30 years will present a sampling of his work and will include photographs from the Oscar winning documentary "Man on Wire" of which Moore was an integral part. A performer himself, his photography was honed when performers he met asked for 'publicity photos' for their career moves out of the streets and into theaters. He will also present and discuss his extensive portfolio of clowns. jugglers, ventriloquists, sword swallowers, and other assorted performers.

In a new twist, the scientist and the artist will sit together for 15 minutes of moderated discussion regarding the intersection of their work, with questions from the audience
Roald Hoffmann, Stuart Firestein, hosts; Shree K. Nayar, Jim Moore. Cover $10 http://www.moorepics.com

Mon Feb 08
6:00PM WHITE SWALLOW READING SERIES:
(Mark Doty; Jason Schneiderman; Alex Dimitrov; SaeEd Jones; Tom Healy)
Monday, February 8th, 6-8pm
Featuring Mark Doty and poets from the Wilde Boys, a queer poetry salon in New York.

Mark Doty's Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. His eight books of poems include School of the Arts, Source, and My Alexandria. He has also published four volumes of nonfiction prose: Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Heaven's Coast, Firebird and Dog Years, which was a New York Times bestseller in 2007. He is the only American poet to have received the T.S. Eliot Prize in the U.K.

Jason Schneiderman is the author of Sublimation Point, a Stahlecker Selection from Four Way Books. His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, Grand Street, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, and Tin House. A graduate of the MFA program at NYU, he is currently completing his doctorate at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Alex Dimitrov is the recipient of a Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan. He holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2009, Southwest Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Crab Orchard Review. He frequently writes for Poets & Writers magazine, and is the founder of Wilde Boys, a queer poetry salon in New York City. Alex is the Awards Coordinator and Executive Assistant of the Academy of American Poets. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, he lives and writes in Manhattan.

SaeEd Jones is a poet and public speaker who recently moved from the South to New Jersey. He received a BA in English at Western Kentucky University. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Word Riot, The Adirondack Review, Barnwood Magazine, and Underground Voices. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark.

Angelo Nikolopoulos is a retired high school teacher currently pursuing an MA at NYU's creative writing program, where he also serves as the managing editor of the Washington Square Review. He also works as a writing fellow at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island and is the founder of The White Swallow reading series.

Tom Healy is the author of the book of poems, What the Right Hand Knows, from Four Way Books. His poems and essays have appeared in BOMB, The Paris Review, Salmagundi, Tin House, The Yale Review,and other journals. He studied at Harvard and Columbia.
Angelo Nikolopoulos, host. Cover $7