Jack Jeffers and the New York Classics Appearing at Minton's NY 1/25

The era when Monday-night big bands were ubiquitous is well behind us, but the reason has little to do with that old saw about the difficulty of keeping a large ensemble together. It's much more about Gotham's embarrassment of riches, i.e., just how many choices there now are on a night when orchestral jazz was once pretty much the only game in town.

Versatile tuba and bass-trombone player Jack Jeffers has spent his career in big bands, though not necessarily the Monday-night variety. The veteran's résumé is filled with spit-and-polish outfits run by heavies like Count Basie and Maynard Ferguson, the kind of groups that were so in demand they needed Mondays off. Fittingly, Jeffers doesn't call his 16-piece amalgam the New York Classics for nothing; you'll have no trouble recognizing pieces such as Ellington's "Mood Indigo," Mingus's "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat" and Jobim's "Corcovado."

And yet, the brassman's vision doesn't stop there. He's been in solidarity with avant-polymaths like drummer Warren Smith and Rahsaan Roland Kirk's pianist Sonelius Smith for more than three decades, which explains why Jeffers's soloists tend to come at both the familiar tunes and his originals from an inventively off-kilter base. Of course, bluesiness is every member's modus operandi, something that almost goes without saying when you're gigging for the denizens of a resurrected Harlem haunt like Minton's. - K. Leander Williams

Jack Jeffers and the New York Classics
16 Piece Orchestra
Minton's Monday, January 25th
206 W 118th St, New York, NY 10026
BETWEEN ST. NICHOLAS A ~ ADAM CLAYTON POWELLSL
SUSWAY: 2.3.C TO 116TH ST
http://www.mintonsuptown.com/

Zinc Bar Wednesday, February 3rd
82 WEST THIRD STREET ( BETWEEN SULLIVAN & THOMPSON STREETS )
GREENWICH VILLAGE, NYC
212-477-9462 ZINCBAR.COM
SETS AT 9:30 , 11 PM , 1 AM
http://www.zincbar.com/

Musicians:
Saxophones: David Lee Jones, Marcus Miller, James Stewart, Salim Washington, Don Slatoff
Trumpets: Junior Vega, Mack Gollehan, Reggie Pittman, Don McIntosh
Trombones: Jack Jeffers, Clarence Banks, Alvin Walker, Stafford Hunter,
Sonelius Smith: Piano
Bryce Sebastien: Bass
Warren Smith: Drums