Preview: Chuck Lamb/Ria Curley Quartet at Jazz on Jay, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025

Jazz on Jay wraps 2025 Thursday with arguably the most honored artist of this great season.

As the late, great jazz piano giant Dave Brubeck said in 2011, “Chuck (Lamb) is an extremely creative, harmonically interesting, rhythmically exciting pianist and one of the best improvisers I’ve heard in recent times!”

Ria Curley and Chuck Lamb at the piano. Photo provided

Thursday, Lamb leads a quartet with singer-pianist, music and life partner Ria Curley plus bassist Brad Monkell and drummer Sam Zucchini. They’ll play “mostly originals with perhaps a few standards mixed in,” as Lamb explains, specifying his original jazz and fusion instrumentals plus Curley’s “jazzy vocal r&b/pop/rock.” 

For two decades, Lamb has played with Brubeck’s sons in the Brubeck Brothers Quartet: bassist and trombonist Chris Brubeck and drummer Dan Brubeck, and guitarist Mike DeMicco. The quartet has played festivals around the world, but its tours and handful of albums comprise just one chapter in Lamb’s creative journey.

His late-70s/early-80s jazz fusion band Dry Jack recorded two albums that Rolling Stone’s “History of Music” hailed as “one of the premier, cutting edge bands of the electric jazz movement.” His later albums include a tribute to Dave Brubeck and a collaboration with Jorge Gomez who recently performed with Lamb and Curley at Putnam Place in a Caffe Lena presentation.

As artist-in-residence, host and lead performer of the monthly “Jazz at Caffe Lena” series, he has hosted and performed with jazz notables including vibraphonist Joe Locke, saxophonists Chico Freeman, Dick Oatts and Cliff Lyons, and guitarist Vic Juris. 

Meanwhile, Curley has earned renown as singer, songwriter, actor, dancer and visual artist who shows in New York galleries. She has toured in equity productions of “Godspell,” “Grease,” and “Roaring 20s Musical Review;” and she’s acted in TV dramas including “As The World Turns,” “Guiding Light,” and “Loving.” Credited as associate executive producer of the Grammy-nominated CD box set of Frank Sinatra’s Columbia recordings, she has also made two solo albums.

Their “Between the Shadows” instrumental appears in comic Hannah Einbinder’s HBO special “Everything Must Go” and three Lamb instrumentals appear in Dimitris Athiridis’s documentary film “Exergue on documenta 14.”

Chuck Lamb. Photo provided

In addition to national and international acclaim, Lamb and Curley have also been honored here at home.

They received an Artist Grant from Saratoga Arts in 2024. That same year, Lamb was honored as Jazz Artist of the Year at the Eddies Awards and Curley’s song “Wanna Be There” was nominated for Record of the Year.

Onstage, as Lamb explains, “Improvising is a big part of this music, and we plan to have at least one improvised solo on every song.”

The Chuck Lamb/Ria Curley Quartet perform Thursday as the 13th and last Jazz on Jay show for 2025.

Jazz on Jay free concerts are noon to 1:30 p.m. at Jay Square, the new park space opposite Schenectady City Hall. The rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors, 432 State St. Seating is provided indoors at Robb Alley, but patrons are invited to bring their own seating and refreshments to Jay Square.

Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District and sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, The Schenectady Foundation, Price Chopper/Market 32, MVP Health Care, Schenectady County, Schenectady City Hall, and Proctors Collaborative. This blog is a series media sponsor.

Review: Edmar Castaneda World Ensemble, and Brian Melick & Friends at Music Haven in Proctors on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2025

Before Edmar Castaneda brought the harp back into jazz a generation after Alice Coltrane, few made jazz on its many strings. When he cracked the code by playing busy bass lines on the long low strings with zippy melodies on the treble short strings, those who’ve followed mainly play in small bands.

Edmar Castaneda

At Music Haven in Proctors Sunday, he led a big band, his World Ensemble. Before calling the roll by player and country, Castaneda showed off uncanny speed, restless melodic invention and pulsating rhythm in a breathtaking intro-eruption before anybody else played a note. Then everybody played lots of notes in the dense, staccato suite “Tabom.” First, Rogerio Boccato (Brazil) hit a repeating triangle figure, then a groove-and-solos machine formed. From stage right they were keyboardist Helio Alves (Brazil); flautist Itai Kriss (Israel), trombonist Ryan Keberle (US), saxophonist Birsa Chatterjee (India), chromatic harmonica player Yotam (Switzerland), drummer Julian Miltenberger (US) and Castaneda playing the most amazing stuff, stage left.

All but Miltenberger soloed in that first strong number, percussionist Boccato strapping on a small bass drum whose pitch he controlled so it was in tune.

Rogerio Boccato

The Astor Piazolla/tango-inspired “Ventarron” earned its title (“strong wind” in English), an agitated sound storm with Castaneda and Alves’s piano in harmony (different notes, hitting in the same place). Then came all-in horn section bebop before Yotam’s harmonica led a downshift; then the bebop took over again and drums and percussion owned the coda.

Andrea Tierra and Edmar Castaneda

Castaneda then dismissed all but Alves and spun the charming tale of spotting a beautiful woman singer at a Queens jam session, instantly announcing they’d marry and doing so just 20 days later, all by way of introducing singer Andrea Tierra, his wife of 21 years. She sang in a strong alto, holding her own with harp and piano in the passionate trio “Piedra y a Camino.”

The band back at full strength, a Caribbean dance flavor powered her next tune, “Raza,” but her strong voice carried its protest message even without translation, sharing the spotlight with Keberle’s best trombone break all night.

Ryan Keberle

Castaneda paid tribute to Cuban saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera in “Arpaquito,” a breakneck romp featuring teenaged son Zamir playing high-speed maracas in hot horn riffing. Kriss’s flute and Castaneda soloed brilliantly here while Keberle’s trombone swapped fours with Chatterjee’s tenor sax, bop style.

Itai Kriss, above, and Birsa Chatterjee, below

Zamir Castaneda, left; Julian Miltenberger and Edmar Castaneda, above; Yotam, below

“La Vie en Chande” syncopated a brisk dance beat in full flight, flute, tenor, trombone and drums handling the solos as Miltenberger seemed telepathic with Castaneda, feeling when changes would hit and riding them. 

Tierra returned to sing their closer, “Eclesiastes,” about gratefully enjoying moments with those we love, even in tough times. Built on a complex riff, this was both big, bustling groove and solo showcase, especially by Castaneda who launched it with a churning ostinato then soloed the thing out past the Milky Way. It subsided into a cozy bridge before exploding again, harp, harmonica and voice just soaring, dramatic.

In Castaneda’s solo here, in fact, throughout, the band all watched him closely, not for cues to solo or go back to the head; they were as amazed by his playing as everybody else. His jazz energy fused well with the Latin folk inspiration of many songs. Dance tunes evoked swirling skirts and feet hammering cobblestones while bebop blasts went all 52nd Street.

Strong Local Opener

Brian Melick & Friends opened in a charming, internationally appropriate, if smaller scale, virtuoso display of top area talent. 

Brian Melick

Melick started solo at the molded clay udu drum, making deep swoops of “Udu Play Clay.” He then introduced his collaborators in duets. Flamenco guitarist Maria Zemantauski kept pace with Melick’s udu in her percussive fingers-flying “Rosita.” Keyboardist (and leader of world-jazz combo Heard; Melick is a member) Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius conjured Montreal snow in “Cote Des Nieges,” Melick’s lacy, tinkling hand percussion evoking bright flakes falling over her graceful melody. Singer Shiri Zorn recited a poem on love versus solitude to introduce “Alone Together,” a complex jazzy, torch-song with recorded voice tracks harmonizing her voice as Melick underscored everything with woody cajon riffs.

Maria Zemantauski, above; Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius, below

“Pinto Varano” united the four, Zemantauski all flamenco zing, Melick punctuating with the metallic clang of an orchestral anvil, Kasius’s keyboard exploring rhythm and melody and Zorn singing sweet but bluesy.

Shiri Zorn

They left everyone wanting more, with impressive skill and disparate creative visions coming together in a meeting of musical minds, the six hands of Melick, Kasius and Zemantauski and Shiri Zorn’s remarkable voice, though her expressive hands added to its effect.

The pre-concert Music Haven Summer Social, above, a paid admission meet-up, with catering, filled the adjacent Key Hall, with Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy and NYS Senator Jim Tedisco presenting proclamations to both Music Haven Producing Artistic Director Mona Golub in honor of the free concert program’s 35th season and CEO Anne Putnam of Fenimore Asset Management, honored as Music Maven of the Year for her volunteer efforts and other support for Music Haven.

From left, above: Anne Putnam, Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy, Music Haven Producing Artistic Director Mona Golub. Below, from left: Putnam, NYS Senator Jim Tedisco, and Golub

NYS Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara and Mona Golub

During intermission, NYS Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara echoed those sentiments with proclamations and praise for Golub and Putnam.

Sunday’s show was Music Haven season’s first event to be moved into the Proctors rain site all season. Nine concerts, a festival and two films took place in Central Park while a third film. “Wicked,” closes the season on Friday, Aug. 29.

MORE HARP, MORE CASTANEDA

On Sunday, Sept. 14, he plays Lake George Jazz Weekend in Shepard Park with his quartet; likely singer Andrea Tierra, saxophonist Birsa Chatterjee, and drummer Julian Miltenberger.

Then, on Thursday, Oct. 2, he plays Universal Preservation Hall (a Proctors Collaborative venue) with banjoist Bela Fleck and drummer Antonio Sanchez. The trio released its debut album “BEATrio” in March and has been touring off and on since.

And, since nearly all eight members of Castaneda’s World Ensemble lead or play in other bands, Sunday’s Music Haven at Proctors show was a rare treat.