The Cornelia Street Cafe Hosts A Variety of Musicians This Weekend 8/13-15

Fri. Aug. 13th, 9PM & 10:30PM
ANDERS BERGCRANTZ QUINTET
(Anders Bergcrantz, trumpet; Adam Kolker, saxophones; Michael Eckroth, piano; Ron McClure, bass; Victor Lewis, drums)

Anders Bergcrantz Quintet is a brand new constellation put together for this event and for many more performances to come. Old friends & new friends getting together to create some serious music. The band leader is from Sweden and the rest of the musicians from the US. An All Star band with a lot of passion and focus, performing jazz music at its best!

Anders Bergcrantz grew up in a family of jazz musicians and is one of the foremost trumpet soloists in the world today and the favorite player among many jazz stars all over the planet. He is truly a unique and virtouso trumpeter with a fat and beautiful sound.

Anders Bergcrantz has received a great number of fantastic awards and prizes all around. Twice he received the foremost Swedish Jazz award "THE GOLDEN RECORD"; twice he has been voted "JAZZ MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR". His latest release "About Time" was voted "Best Jazz CD of the year" by Swedish Radio's listeners, among loads of other great acknowledgements and very recently (September 2009) received this years Swedish/French award Django d'Or in the category; CONTEMPORARY STAR OF JAZZ.

Adam Kolker is a multi-talanted performer, composer and arranger. He performed and recorded with latin-jazz artist Ray Baretto from 1994 through 2002 (with whom he received two Grammy nominations). He also has appeared and/or appears regularly in New York City with such groups as the Village Vanguard Orchestra, the Maria Schneider Big Band, Bruce Barth, Kenny Wheelers Large Ensemble. He has recorded with Bruce Barth, John Herbert, Peter Herborn, The Story, among many others.

Michael Eckroth was born May 30, 1975, ND. Raised in a musical family, he started piano lessons at four years of age. Eventually studying and performing in Brazil and Cuba, Eckroth´s career, though centered in straight ahead jazz, has been deeply influenced by Latin American music. Eckroth is a highly respected pianist, working as sideman with many jazz stars, and is a member of the John Scofield Quartet. Eckroth is also performing and recording as a leader.

Ron McClure studied with Don Sebesky, and worked in the Buddy Rich Sextet in 1963 and Maynard Ferguson's big band and Herbie Mann concurrently in 1964. He then assumed the bass chair in the Wynton Kelly Trio vacated by the late Paul Chambers in 1965 (frequently accompanying guitarist Wes Montgomery). Thereafter, he joined the Charles Lloyd Quartet with Keith Jarrett and Jack de Johnnette, spanning 1966-69. In the greater part of the 1970s, Ron engaged himself in an association with saxophonist Joe Henderson, with whom he joined Blood, Sweat & Tears. Henderson and McClure recorded four albums together. In the 1980's, McClure joined Quest, led by David Liebman, which included drummer Billy Hart and pianist Richie Beirach. McClure and Anders Bergcrantz has worked and recorded several times together in NYC and Europe.

A super star, Victor Lewis has been one of the most respected and loved jazz drummers of the world since the mid-seventies. His work with Woody Shaw, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, among many others, is now part of jazz history. Victor Lewis is a modern, tasteful, hard swinging drummer with capacity to play any style of jazz. He is also a fantastic composer and band leader of his own.

 

Sat, Aug. 14th, 9:00PM & 10:30PM
HEAVY METAL DUO
(Ray Anderson, trombone; Bob Stewart, tuba)

The Heavy Metal Duo, Bob Stewart and Ray Anderson, explodes brass playing to another dimension. Product of a 30 year musical friendship, the Duo weaves blues, jazz, folk songs, spirituals and originals into a wondrous tapestry. Deeply versed in the essence of swing and occasionally sounding like an entire brass band, Stewart and Anderson cover the entire history of the music, from earliest parade ground marches to latest sonic sculptures.
"The two synchronized their prodigious talents on "East St. Louis Toodle-oo", "Wade In the Water", "John Henry" and even The Four Tops' "Sugar Pie Honeybunch", retelling every tale in ebullient and hauntingly personal fashion." David Adler, All About Jazz, NY.

Described by critic Gary Giddins as "one of the most compellingly original trombonists," and declared "the most exciting slide brass player of his generation" by the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Anderson is by turns a supremely lyrical player and bold texturalist, a warmly natural-sounding soloist and footloose innovator. He has led or co-led a daunting assortment of tradition-minded and experimental groups, big bands, blues and funk projects and even a trombone quartet. He is recognized as an original and compelling composer and has recorded more than 80 of his own compositions with these groups. He has also demonstrated his special supportive skills on a remarkably wide assortment of albums by Anthony Braxton, David Murray, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Dr. John, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Luther Allison, Bennie Wallace, Henry Threadgill, Barbara Dennerlein, John Scofield, Roscoe Mitchell, the New York Composers Orchestra, Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra and others.

Bob Stewart has toured and recorded with such artists as Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Carla Bley, David Murray, Taj Mahal, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Arthur Blythe, Freddie Hubbard, Don Cherry, Nicholas Payton, Wynton Marsalis, Charlie Haden, Lester Bowie and many others both in the United States, Europe and the Far East. "The Tuba, as you know, was phased out of most ensembles around 1923 with the introduction of the "walking" upright bass. Since then it has only been in the last 20 years that composers and arrangers have begun hearing the instrument. As a result, there are more instances in which the Tuba appears in ensemble work."

Bob Stewart is bridging the gap between 1923 and the present by bringing the Tuba back into the modern ensemble as the bass in the rhythm section and as a horn available for melodic lines and soloing.
Cover $10

 

Sun Aug 15th 8:30PM
TANYA KALMANOVITCH, TED REICHMAN AND ANTHONY COLEMAN
(Tanya Kalmanovitch, violin, viola; Ted Reichman, accordion; Anthony Coleman, piano)

Violinist/violist Tanya Kalmanovitch, accordionist Ted Reichman and pianist Anthony Coleman frequently perform in the context of Boston's New England Conservatory, where Coleman and Kalmanovitch are on faculty in the department of Contemporary Improvisation. They'll improvise over works drawn from the musicians' own compositions, 20th century modernisms (jazz and classical alike), and stubborn popular song.
"Kalmanovitch is an exceptional musician. In soloing she thinks compositionally, with an expressive contrast between the astringent chromaticism of her lines and compositions and her warmly malleable tone. Her quartet shares an uncanny mutual awareness, characterised by sometimes austere beauty and a remarkable unity between the written and the improvised." Ray Comiskey, The Irish Times

"...if you spend five minutes with Ted, you know he's the kind of guy you'd want to hear ramble on a blog. Aside from being an awesome musician--check out his new disc, "My Ears Are Bent" on Skirl; it's a beautiful, eccentric and subtle record that exists in some harmonious nether-region between meticulous pop, electronica, jazz and classical music..." Hank Shteamer, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches

"Coleman is perhaps best known as a pianist in the avant-garde vein, with a taste for new music and prepared piano, as well as some of the new Jewish music of the Downtown New York scene. But most anyone who has heard him live has likely heard him indulge his stride fascination with at least a tune or two of Jelly Roll's best. It is a moving experience, which shows the depth and scope of Coleman's abilities. This is not easy music for the performer, but Coleman plays it with the grace and exuberance of a master." - Warren Allen, allaboutjazz.com
Cover $10

Mon. Aug. 16, 8:30PM
CORNELIA COMEDY FESTIVAL
(John Morrison, comedian; John Oliver, comedian; Wyatt Cenac, comedian; Pat Dixon, comedian; Leo Allen, comedian; Mark Normand, comedian; Sean Donnelly, comedian)
John Morrison hosts John Oliver, Wyatt Cenac, Pat Dixon, Leo Allen, Mark Normand & Sean Donnelly Cornelia Street Cafe
Cover $10 (plus $7 drink minimum)