'New Dimensions in Latin Jazz' Closes at Zinc Bar 12/2

The Sauter Piano Company begins a nationwide piano partnership with significant venues of jazz,  classical and alternative music with their presentation of Sauter Omega, 220 Firebird to Zinc Bar, a small but prestigious jazz club in Greenwich Village  that until now has not had an acoustic piano. In conjunction with the installation of the piano, Sauter will sponsor the renowned  performance series "New Dimensions in Latin Jazz" at Zinc Bar from November 2nd through December 2nd 2010.

"This is a dream come true," said Zinc Bar's owner, Alex Kay. "Zinc Bar has given opportunities to scores of exceptional artists who needed  a place to develop their music, but without a good piano, they couldn't go the whole distance that their talent demanded. Sauter Pianos  is providing the essential element they deserve as performers, and to lift Zinc Bar to the level that it deserves as a venue, so it can continue  to connect with the sophisticated audience in New York that wants to grow with new artists and new ideas. The impact of this is going to be  life-changing for so many people."

"New Dimensions in Latin Jazz" opens with pianist Emilio Solla's Tango Jazz Conspiracy on Tuesday November 2nd. The month long  series, occurring every Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday, features 2010 Latin Grammy nominee Fernando Otero (best classical album), as well as ensembles led by Grammy-nominees Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto and Cuban guitarist/vocalist Juan-Carlos Formell.  The series will also present groups led by pianists Dario Boente, Elio Villafranca, Emilio Solla, Manuel Valera, Osmany Paredes and Robert Rodriguez, as well as bassist Pedro Giraudo's sextet.

Peter Becker of Noble Art Pianos, representing Sauter Center - East calls the series "One of the most exciting movements in contemporary music --  a musical renaissance being created by a new generation of Latin American composer/bandleaders living in New York who are re-defining the
parameters of contemporary jazz . So many of these artists' works are informed by a rigorous classical training, and that's part of what makes their music many-faceted and dynamic."

Another of the venues to benefit from this extraordinary relationship with Sauter is Barbes -- the ultra hip Brooklyn club known for its eclectic  programming will be receiving an upright Sauter 122 Schulpiano in December. Though Barbes has a piano, its limitations prevented owner  Oliver Conan from realizing his vision: "I have wanted to present solo piano concerts for a long time," Conan says, "but the piano here just wasn't  of suitable quality. The Sauter will give me the opportunity to stretch out and produce some of the concerts I've always wanted to do, concerts you  won't see anywhere else in the city."

The Sauter piano company, based in Spaichingen, in Southern Germany has an impressive lineage going back to the earliest  days of the piano: the company's founder, Johann Grimm, worked as an apprentice at the Stein piano company in Vienna, and while there  helped build two pianos for Beethoven. Grimm founded his own company in 1819, the company was inherited by his nephew, Carl Sauter, and  has remained in the ownership of the Sauter family ever since. Today's Sauter pianos maintain the original tonal qualities that delighted Beethoven,  but many also have a sleek contemporary design crafted by Peter Maly. Sauter is the favorite piano of classical musicians Eugene Mursky, 7 time Grammy-winning gospel artist Andre Crouch and the celebrated jazz pianist Jose Negroni.

Sauter Pianos is actively developing relationships with music venues and organizations that would benefit from the use of an excellent piano, and is planning to participate in a variety of musical presentations in 2011.

"New Dimensions in Latin Jazz" was founded in 2007 as an ongoing Monday night performance series at Jazz Standard by Dita Sullivan, an activist for Afro-Caribbean and Latin American popular culture. Sullivan recognized the evolving new movement of jazz composers from Latin America as a  potential musical renaissance in New York . "Here we had an explosion of music created by the unbelievably courageous innovations of artists who had come from all over Latin America -- yet many of them, though they lived in New York, weren't known to the serious jazz venues," Sullivan says. "The mission of the series was to open doors onto the panorama of music being created by a new wave of Latin American jazzistas now based here. It was thrilling to give the New York debut to the quartets led by great pianists like Elio Villafranca and Osmany Paredes, and equally exciting to share  the entire wave with an audience eager to embrace it.

"Latin jazz expresses the cultural kinetics of the Americas. This new Latin jazz isn't a subset of jazz, it's the new manifestation of jazz ˆ a rebirth and at the same time, an authentic continuation of the true, original jazz which emerged from the cultural nexus of the Gulf of Mexico. Jazz owes so much to the music and ambience of New Orleans Creoles: Jelly Roll Morton and so many others of Afro-Caribbean-French- Spanish descent, from Sidney Bechet to Johnny St Cyr, Paul Dominguez, Kid Ory and Armand Piron. So in a way, this series brings it all back home. New York in 2010 has a lot in common with New Orleans in 1910."

Schedule:
Wed Nov 17th: Fernando Otero Quintet
Thurs Nov 18th: Juan-Carlos Formell & Johnny's Dream Club
Tues Nov 23rd & 30th: Pedro Giraudo Sextet
Wed Nov 24th & Thurs Nov 25th: Osmany Paredes Quartet
Wed Dec 1st: Dario Boente & Proyecto Sur
Thurs Dec 2nd: The Rodriguez Brothers CD Release of "Mood Swings"

For more information visit http://www.zincbar.com

For information about Sauter Pianos: http://www.sauter-pianos.de/
For information about the artists: http://www.myspace.com/newdimensionsinlatinjazz
and http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54491691766