A mainstay of the New York City scene with admirers worldwide, Ehud Asherie brings many selves to the piano bench: the dazzling jazz improviser with an astonishing range from ragtime to the present and future; the composer of surprising melodies; the living embodiment of Brazilian piano music with a special love for Ernesto Nazareth.
Category: Jazz
Connie Han Trio
Pianist and provocateur Connie Han has created an edgy blend of modern and traditional jazz with her incendiary Mack Avenue Records debut CRIME ZONE. At 26, this young lioness is on a fast-climbing trajectory to jazz stardom with rave reviews from the New York Times, Jazziz magazine, Downbeat magazine, and more. The New York Times describes her as “the rare musician with fearsome technical chops, a breadth of historical knowledge and enough originality to write tunes that absorb your ear easily.” Weaving in and out of the
tradition, Han pays tribute to McCoy Tyner, Mulgrew Miller, and Kenny Kirkland with her own unique edge and fire at the piano.
Brandon Coleman
Bending the future of sound, taking ivory and ebony to destinations unknown, is keyboard maestro, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger and astral traveler Brandon Coleman. A regular fixture with Babyface, Donald Glover, Flying Lotus, and Kamasi Washington’s band, Coleman represents a new chapter in the evolution of jazz and funk fusion.
Coleman’s latest electronic funk odyssey, Interstellar Black Space, launched in May 2022. He explains, “I wanted to write some music that reflected how I felt about time, space, and celestial energy. I love space movies like Interstellar and The Martian—and I thought to myself, if I was traveling through space what would I want to hear? I wanted to create some astral Negro music.”
Marquis Hill: New Gospel Revisited
One of the finest trumpeters in jazz today, Marquis Hill is also a composer and bandleader whose comprehensive vision highlights the unity and continuity within the musical heritage of African Americans. On acclaimed albums like his latest, Modern Flows Vol. II, and his 2016 breakout project, The Way We Play, Hill and his working band, the Blacktet, use their next-level musicianship and deeply interactive dynamic to break down the barriers separating bop, hip-hop, R&B, and electronic music. At ArtPower, Hill performs from his latest album, a live reinterpretation of his 2012 debut album New Gospel.
Cyrille Aimée
Winner of the Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition and a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition, Cyrille Aimée is a riveting performer of new world jazz. She is all about finding herself in each and every moment! Aimée returns to ArtPower to perform new, original songs and music from her roots around the world, always with a focus on groove. In three different languages and with an international band who met in New Orleans, this show is sure to make your heart dance!
Joel Ross ‘Parables’
Joel Ross continues refining an expression that’s true to his sound and his generation. In 2019, the vibraphonist-composer issued his anticipated Blue Note debut, Edison Award-winning record KingMaker to eruptive critical acclaim, followed by his 2020 release Who Are You? which features his band Good Vibes at their most synchronous. New York Times critic Giovanni Russonello praised the album for the ways it “speaks to a new level of group cohesion…more tangle, more sharing, more possibility.”
He returns to ArtPower as bandleader with The Parable of the Poet, his third release for Blue Note Records. The album explores feelings self-awareness— confidence, doubt, regret and forgiveness—through storytellings and retellings.
CANCELED: Kandace Springs
“A voice that could melt snow”—Prince
If Kandace Springs‘ new album Indigo sounds like something new, that’s because it is. Simple while funky. Classic but contemporary. Straightforward in the way it breaks down complex ideas and genres. And, at the end of the day, undeniably human. That said, it isn’t quite a rebirth for the Nashville-born artist, who after stints living in New York and Los Angeles has returned back home to Music City. She’s long had that lithe and smoky voice and an intensely expressive mastery over the piano.
She sings from her latest album, The Women Who Raised Me, a loving tribute to the great female singers who inspired her to begin her journey towards becoming one of the premier jazz/soul vocalists of our time. The album will feature her unique interpretations of songs that she first heard growing up in Tennessee, and ranges from such classic icons as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Carmen McRae, through 60’s legends Nina Simone, and Dusty Springfield, and up to modern masters such as Sade and Lauryn Hill.
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot, who the New York Times describes as “a deceptively articulate artist who uses inarticulateness as an expressive device,” has released 25 albums under his own name over a 40-year career, exploring everything from the pioneering jazz of Albert Ayler to the Cuban son of Arsenio Rodríguez. His solo release,“Silent Movies”(Pi Recording 2010) has been described as a”down-in-mouth-near master piece” by the Village Voice and has landed on several Best of 2010 lists including the LA Times and critical praise across the board, and 2014 saw the monumental release: Marc Ribot Trio Live at the Village Vanguard(Pi Recordings), documenting Marc’s first headline and the return of Henry Grimes at the historical venue in 2012 and included onBest of 2014 lists such as Downbeat magazine and NPR’s 50 Favorites.
2021 is filed with a flurry of activity and releases including Ceramic Dog’s HOPE, recorded during the pandemic, plus two reissues on vinyl for the first time: 1993’s long out-of-print Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus & Silent Movies (2010). Additionally, Marc’s first collection of writings, Unstrung: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist, will be published by Akashic Books this August with an audiobook also in the works, and Marc’s original score for limited series documentary, Queen of Meth, will premiere on the Discovery Channel
Makaya McCraven
Makaya McCraven is a beat scientist. The bleeding edge drummer, producer, and sonic collagist is one of Chicago’s savviest cultural players and a multi-talented force whose inventive process & intuitive, cinematic style defy categorization.
French-born but raised in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts by expatriate musician parents, McCraven studied Jazz at the University of Massachusetts Amherst under the mentorship of jazz luminaries Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, and Yusef Lateef, and eventually went on to develop his chops in Chicago’s burgeoning scene.
His breakthrough album In the Moment was released with International Anthem Recording Co. (IARC) in 2015 and received widespread acclaim, proving to be a dramatic statement by McCraven that quickly launched him into the vanguard of not only Internationally-known jazz artists, but also a niche genre of next-wave composer-producers blurring the boundaries of jazz & electronic music.
His recent releases, the DJ-style mixtape Highly Rare (IARC, 2017) as well as an internationally recorded Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape) (IARC, 2018) have been well received globally, leading to increased bookings in some of the world’s best clubs, theaters, and festivals alongside the likes of Corey Wilkes, Bobby (Baabe) Irving (Miles Davis), Ari Brown, and Bernie Worrell.
McCraven is currently on tour and most recently released Universal Beings, a 2xLP album featuring an A-list of “new” jazz players from New York, Chicago, London & Los Angeles.
Sean Jones “Dizzy Spellz” featuring Brinae Ali
Dizzy Spellz offers an Afro-futuristic lens exploring the intersection of cultural and spiritual dilemmas within the African Diaspora through the music of Dizzy Gillespie. From his coming of age through racial and social dynamics in the Deep South, creating and curating the bebop movement in New York, to his spiritual journey to Africa and his delve into Afro Cuban music and the Baha’i Faith, Dizzy was very much ahead of his time. Sean Jones (trumpeter/musical director) and Brinae Ali (choreographer/tap dancer/vocalist) have teamed up to create a piece that fuses elements of jazz, tap, Hip Hop, and BeBop to articulate the social vernacular of the African-American experience.