Preview: Sunday Schenectady Matinees (Wish I could hit both…)

Both afternoon concerts in Schenectady Sunday honor eminent women musical and cultural heroes. In showtime order, area jazz stars honor our late great piano goddess Lee Shaw at the Carl B. Taylor Auditorium at SUNY Schenectady County Community College Music School; and a stage full of folksong players and singers celebrate another late, great – Jackie Alper – at the Eighth Step at Proctors Addy Theatre. 

Lee Shaw. Wikipedia photo

The Lee Shaw Centennial Tribute stars, alphabetically: guitarist Mike DeMicco, pianists Dave Gleason and Nick Hetko, drummer Jeff “Siege” Siegel and bassist Rich Syracuse. They’ll play a tribute show with extras, honoring a giant talent in a tiny frame. Oklahoma-born Lee Shaw settled hereabouts with bassist husband Stan in the 1960s and galvanized the jazz scene. They led bands and played everywhere, until Stan died. Then Lee continued amazing audiences from stages large and small, mentoring many musicians including John Medeski and recording albums fans treasure to this day. 

Sunday’s tribute will include excerpts from Susan Robbins’s documentary on Shaw, “Lee’s 88 Keys,” plus live performances. A tiny dynamo, she took over every stage she played, but she confessed to being so nervous about performing at the Saratoga Jazz Festival that she donned two left shoes before the gig.

The last group Shaw led up to her death in 2015 co-starred Siegel and Syracuse, who still often perform as a team. They played with Hetko at the recent Eddies Hall of Fame show at Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs that honored Shaw and other musicians and music scene notables.

Presented by A Place for Jazz, it’s also both a season announcement event and a season-ticket sale. A Place for Jazz supports music education through a scholarship program and Sunday’s show will feature Lee Shaw scholarship award winners in an opening set led by school faculty member and trumpeter Dylan Canterbury.

Show time is 2 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $25 and season memberships will be on sale as well. Different membership levels provide different ticket packages. At $125-$249, buyers receive tickets to all seven shows in the fall 2026 season (five tickets at full price, plus 2 bonus tickets). Buyers at $250-$374 get 14 tickets on the same formula: 10 purchased tickets and four bonus. The same math applies at $375, $500 and $1,000 levels. 

Again, Sunday’s Lee Shaw Centennial Tribute begins at 2 p.m. $25. http://www.aplaceforjazz.org.

Jackie Alper – another physically small, culturally enormous star – arguably cast as imposing a shadow as Shaw. At 3 p.m., the 8th Step at Proctors presents “Ms. Music: The Jackie Alper Story” in Proctors upstairs Addy Theatre. 

Jackie Alper. Photo provided. Famed for the many political buttons she always wore, Jackie could sometimes be heard coming into a room as they clicked together.

A repeat performance of last November’s premiere, this features the same extraordinary cast – an area ensemble like the Lee Shaw crew. Again, alphabetically, it’s Kate Blain, vocals; Greg Giorgio, vocals and narration; Howard Jack, vocals and bass; Ruth Pelham, guitar, vocals and narration; Mike Slik, dobro, steel guitar and vocals; Charlie Rhynhart, guitar, bass and vocals; Toby Stover, keyboard, percussion and vocals; Alan Thompson, piano and vocals; George Wilson, fiddle, banjo, 12-string guitar and vocals.

Researched and assembled over a year’s work by Old Songs founder Andy Spence and her successor Sarah Dillon, the project culminates work 8th Step impresario Margie Rosenkranz began years ago. The production combines songs Jackie Alper sang, wrote and introduced to folk fans thorough her “Mostly Folk” WRPI radio show – with narration summarizing her extraordinary career as creative catalyst, activist and guiding light.

I knew Jackie Alper for decades, including non-stop talk on road trips; and I still learned amazing things from the premiere performance. To sum up, she sang with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson; she worked with the archivist Lomax team presenting shows and preserving history; she introduced area folk fans to new music – and new-to-us old music – on her decades-long “Mostly Folk” WRPI-FM “Mostly Folk” show, and she supported every progressive political and social movement from the Depression-wracked 30s through the turbulent 60s to her passing in 2007.

Andy Spence conducted the premiere performance of “Ms Music: Jackie Alper,” confidently keeping everyone on track in a complex presentation combining narration with music; tales and tunes spun together in a fine flow.

Andy Spence, left, conducts the ensemble that honored Jackie Alper last November. My photo

Show time Sunday is 3 p.m. General admission $32.21, Gold Circle front and center $51.76. 518-346-6204 www.proctors.org 

When Jay Ungar, a fiddler and singer in his 70s, announced plans to play “hits of the 60s” Saturday at Caffe Lena, it didn’t sound terribly surprising. But then music-and-life partner Molly Mason clarified – “the EIGHTEEN-60s” – it made perfect sense and shaped the musical history lessons they performed to a capacity crowd.

They’ve built a long career of reaching past vintage sounds to the emotions behind old tunes and by crafting timeless new ones.

It all started conventionally enough Saturday in a warming-up medley of reels and hornpipes, Ungar’s spry fiddle leading Mason’s supportive guitar. Then, after their cozy pastorale “Backyard Symphony,” they moved into the living-history mode that dominated their two-set show, citing their decades-deep collaboration with documentarian Ken Burns. His films survey history by integrating long-ago events with right-now concerns, a prismatic perspective that perfectly suits their down-home music.

Introducing “Blue River Waltz” from Burns’s celebration of national parks, Mason suggested a closed-eyes canoeing reverie; the song’s message urges reverence for the land, a recurring theme. So was the Civil War, a hit for both Burns and Ungar-and-Mason in their “Ashokan Farewell.” A few songs later, Ungar would wryly note they wouldn’t play that just yet, after a run of 1860s “hits.” He noted a spunky fiddle tune had been re-named in its time to honor “Lincoln and Liberty” before going all red, white and blue with “Rally ‘Round the Flag” and “Battle Hymn Of the Republic.” Here fans first hummed along then sang in a subdued but sincere chorus.

Mason sang Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times” in compelling simplicity, trusting the words to carry the feel, after Ungar noted John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died within hours of each other, the same year Foster was born. 

They celebrated maple sugar shacks in rustic folkloric style, then cited how combining Catskills ethnic traditions yielded the Irish-Jewish amalgam they called “Celto-Klezmer” for another spirited paring of “Vladimir’s Steamboat” – no, not THAT Vladimir, Mason assured us – and “Wizard’s Walk” before closing the first set with the serene “Peace on Earth.” Ungar explained he and Mason had separately developed the two motifs they combined into this elegant tune, noting “they’re married, like us.”

Caffe kitchen manager and volunteer coordinator Paul Machabee added his fiddle to the mix after the break in a tuneful guest spot that fit well in a medley of dance tunes like the first-set opener. 

When Mason forgot her lyrics in an ode to old-fashioned farming, they cruised past this rough spot instrumentally, then she recited the missing verse. “The Mountain House” (for Mohonk Mountain House) cruised just as smoothly, as did “Monastir,” Ungar’s family saga of loss and displacement in WWII Europe. Their intro to “Love Song to a River” also cited troubles in the prickly person of jazz violinist Joe Venuti. Ungar recalled seeing Venuti at the Caffe where he taught Ungar and Matt Glaser some riffs then scared them by bringing them onstage to play. Mason cited his stern injunction during a lesson to “make believe you have a soul” – a harsh intro to a serene song.

Waltzes flowed together late in the second set including “Prairie Spring,” “Midnight on the Water” and “Bonaparte’s Retreat” – basis of Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown.” Some Bob Wills Texas swing held that party mood, especially “San Antonio Rose.” Then they settled into the exquisite melancholy of “Ashokan Farewell.” Few songs we’ve all hard so many times wear as well.

They hadn’t gotten far offstage after this climactic number before they came back to encore with Leadbelly’s “Relax Your Mind.” Swapping his fiddle for mandolin, Ungar played it seriously but they sang it for laughs. 

Their dynamic was calm and cozy; their set list more a menu than a map as they periodically paused to discuss what’s next. Mason played solid, simple support to Ungar’s fiddle leads and seldom soloed, switching to piano occasionally and once drawing applause for a flashy glissando. Mostly their music felt like well-aged flannel, smooth and comforting.

Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s Caffe Lena show Saturday is deservedly sold out, simplifying the otherwise tough choice folk fans would face between that show and singer-songwriter Anne Hills the same night at the Eighth Step.

Hills emerged in the same bustling 70s Chicago folk scene that nurtured the late, great John Prine and Michael Smith; both died in 2020. Like both, the strength of Hills’s art is clarity of expression in her writing, but she also sings with compelling beauty in her vocal sound, like Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Hills recently performed in “You Got Gold,” the Eighth Step’s Prine tribute, singing several of his songs, reminiscing about early days in Chicago and commenting on the documentary film “You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine.”

Anne Hills. Photo provided

Over a stellar career, Hills has proved both a compelling soloist and able collaborator with top contemporary folk heroes. With Tom Paxton and Bob Gibson in Best of Friends; with Cindy Mangsen and Priscilla Herman in TRIO; and with Mangsen, Steve Gillette and Michael Smith in Fourfold, she has harmonized with the best onstage.

Hills also performs heartfelt tributes, notably to Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs; and she brings songs of Michael Smith to the Eighth Step Saturday. Her new “Every Town” is her second album of Smith’s songs; of course it features ace collaborators including Gillette and John Gorka. Her 25 albums include numerous co-credits.

Al Powers. Photo provided

She sings with pianist Al Powers – see, another collaboration – Saturday at the Eighth Step at Proctors, in the cozy upstairs Addy Theatre, served by an elevator and wheelchair accessible. The nearby Broadway Garage offers free parking.

Showtime is 7:30 p.m., doors at 7 and onstage meet and greet at 6:30 with gold circle seating – admission $45. Otherwise, $28 in advance, $30 general. 518-434-1703 8thstep.org or through Proctors box office 518-346-6204.

Jon Dee Graham reportedly disliked the label often applied since his passing: “Greatest songwriter you’ve never heard of” –  but it’s still likely true.

Thanks to the Austin Chronicle for the photo here, by Jana Burchum, and some facts in this post.

More influential than famous, the Austin music master died Friday after numerous health challenges that sometimes made him miss his three-decades deep weekly residency at the Continental Club. His son William would cover for him on dates he couldn’t make, and was by his side when the 2005-2006 Austin Music Awards honored Graham as its Musician of the Year. Father and son recorded an album together more recently; release date unclear.

With semi-star bands the Skunks, and the True Believers (with brothers Alejandro and Javier Escovedo), Graham was widely credited with helping weld punk brute force to rootsy country lyricism in a late-90s amalgam that inspired dozens of bands. He released his debut solo album at 38 in 1997, when True Believers broke up. 

My own sole exposure to Graham onstage came when he toured with the Alejandro Escovedo Orchestra, the vast performing force led by Graham’s former band mate in the True Believers.

They played Troy’s Revolution Hall, filling the stage from end to end, just days before the Rolling Stones played what’s now the MVP Arena on their 2005-2006 A Bigger Bang tour.

That came 20 years after I’d last seen them play a ragged show (Buffalo) and a somewhat better one (Syracuse); so I really didn’t want to go. Neither did anybody else around. I tried to hand off the review assignment, mainly because the Alejandro Escovedo Orchestra was set to play Revolution Hall – and I knew that would be great.

I really didn’t know HOW great though.

That spring night, I stood in the tech booth at the front of the Revolution Hall balcony, above the stage but no more than 40 feet from it. The Orchestra was 13 pieces strong, including two cellos and two violins; Mark Andes (from Spirit!) played bass, and both Graham and Escovedo’s longtime band mate David Pulkingham played guitar.

The Orchestra was celestial, earth-shaking, brain-melting deluxe. But first, two opening acts.

Michael Eck opened; he’d once operated a cash register at Austin’s Watermelon Records, right next to Alejandro Escovedo’s; they were old friends. Eck stood below the stage, on the audience-level floor of Revolution Hall. He sang and played solo; strong and authentic.

Graham played next, and I doubt anybody knew or cared who he was. But, then, he took over the place so completely, all by himself, that jaws dropped open. Everybody shut up in utter awe and disbelief, and clapped our hands raw after that first song. 

Graham stalked to the front of the stage. He planted his hands on his hips. He scanned us with blazing eyes and allowed, “Well, I should think SO!”

After that, who cared about the decrepit, decadent old Rolling Stones?

As noted, I grumbled my way to that gig because nobody else would take the assignment.

I picked up my press ticket – $351 worth, and one of only four press tickets granted for this show. And I watched those decrepit, decadent old Rolling Stones tear the roof off. 

Everything worked. The room was right-sized: 15,000, versus the ridiculous-for-music scale of Buffalo’s Rich Stadium and Syracuse’s Carrier Dome. The music completely filled it and then some. Not just volume, either – energy and commitment. This was the tour right after drummer Charlie Watts’s cancer scare and they all seemed grateful that he was alive and they all were, too. They managed to communicate that glorious feeling with the music.

The two best shows here that year, and probably for three to five years or more in either direction, had happened in just three days.

Now Charlie is gone, and Jon Dee Graham, too. 

So, the lesson is: Go to the show. 

Yeah, go.

Catherine Russell Saturday, March 28 at Caffe Lena; Two shows in the Peak Jazz Series sponsored by Joe and LuAnn Conlon in memory of Corinne Simmons

Car trouble and a dental problem kept me from getting to Saratoga Saturday for either of Catherine Russell’s two shows. (Painless, so far; but ugly – thanks for asking)

At showtime, glum, I remembered my subscription to Caffe Lena TV that live-streams shows fans with car trouble and dental problems can’t get to.

At first, I bumbled, failing to connect. When things started working, 20 minutes in, only bassist Tai Ronen and pianist and accordion player Ben Rosenblum flanked Russell onstage; guitarist, Matt Munisteri nowhere in sight.

Catherine Russell Sings at Caffe Lena – on My Desk

They were swinging “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing,” a light-footed romp Rosenblum’s piano set aglow with an antique but lively aura.

They slowed into Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’,” a mellow, rocking blues shuffle with Rosenblum switching to accordion under Russell’s torchy, belted vocal that used repeats to let things cool down. After, she said she wanted Rosenblum to “put a little energy in it!” Big laughs.

Munisteri arrived then, Russell decrying travel troubles as he plugged in and joined the intro to “Fortune Telling Man,” a lively musing on possible infidelity: her man is a fiddler, was he “fiddling around?” Russell sang her suspicion with wry fatalism.

Noting our days getting longer, she fired up “(There Oughta Be a) Moonlight Saving Time,” a happy love ballad with Munisteri in graceful Joe Pass lyrical mood and Rosenblum definitly putting energy in it at the piano; both earned applause.

Russell introduced “At the Swing Cats Ball” by recalling she’d found this 1938 party number, composed by her bandleader father Luis, while clearing out her mother’s home. No sadness here: big fun at a brisk tempo, engaging melody and joyful spirit in superb solos by accordion and guitar.

Russell praised radio where she first heard “If it Ain’t One Thing It’s Another,” cheerful piano underlining lyrics of trouble following us around. Everybody soloed, then ganged up on the song.

She revved up in Ray Charles’s bouncy “Ain’t That Love,” a spunky blues with a high, swooping vocal and sharp solos.

Slow guitar introduced the wistful “My Ideal,” a musing quest for love with Russell’s voice expressing hope – a bit naive, maybe – then disappointment, then optimism, her emotional range as impressive as her mastery of melody. 

She said a student introduced her to “Now You’re Talking My Language,” the 1937 Chu Berry and Hot Lips Page jump-blues romp. Everybody soloed, to happy applause; including a rare bass breakout by Ronen. Another antique followed, “You Stepped out of a dream,” starring Rosenblum’s accordion and a subtle fade Russell sang to great effect.

Things turned bawdy in the sly kiss-off “You Got the Right Key, But the Wrong Keyhole,”* a slow-drag blues of mismatched lovers. Munisteri got awed applause for an extra-fine solo of rapid single-note runs chasing the melody around.

Russell told the audience: “Without you, this is a rehearsal!” Then she closed, all happy upbeat, by claiming Nat King Cole’s spry “Errand Girl for Rhythm” for her own.

No encore after the 5 p.m. first show; they had another show, at 8.

As the Caffe emptied and refilled, I thought Russell may be the most superbly deserving Nepo kid this side of Rosanne Cash, whose band Russell sang in years ago at the Egg. Russell did cite her father Luis, composer of tunes in each show. On her own terms, backed by a cozy ensemble as skilled as she is, Russell is one spectacularly effective singer and a tasteful curator of a vintage repertoire. She said she doesn’t sing anything newer than 70 years old (her age at her next birthday), and she doesn’t need to.

I watched the second show, curious to see what was different from the first.

They opened with the upbeat “Now You’re Talking My Language;” they’d played it later in the first show. Other first-show songs also hit in the second, but Russell also chose different songs by composers whose tunes she sang in the first show.

Bluesy guitar set up Junior Wells’s shuffle “You Sure Look Good to Me,” Russell’s voice strong in exultant “Hey, BABY!” shout-out, then a skat chorus amid emphatic, seething swing.

They seemed looser in the second show, Munisteri’s guitar showing, even more closely than earlier, how elegant jazzman Joe Pass and brash T-Bone Walker are riff cousins of a sort. A brisk, brash pianist, Rosenblum was even more impressive rocking around the accordion. Steadfast, tasteful, Ronen gave the drummer-less band plenty of rhythm.

In “Exactly Like You,” Munisteri briefly quoted “Take The A-Train” as everybody onstage looked around and grinned.

Guitar introduced “Reaching for the Moon” at a tempo too fast to feel yearning, but blinding fast accordion erupted out of the groove to own the song, until Munisteri reclaimed it, and equal applause.

“I’m Walkin’” rocked stronger with Munisteri than it had without him in the first show, and Russell rolled from staccato skatting into a big, belted finish.

In her father’s “Bocas Del Toro” about seaside landscapes in his native Panama, Russell and the band went Latin, Rosenblum’s accordion and Munisteri’s guitar alternating single-note runs with chords. They followed with another Luis Russell tune, the straight-ahead “At the Swing Cats Ball,” stripped down at the end to Russell’s voice and Ronen tapping his bass.

In Ray Charles’s rocking “I Don’t Need No Doctor” Russell’s high notes handed off to Munisteri’s low chords; they teamed up again at the ending in fast repeats fading away.

The kiss-off “I Just Refuse to Sing the Blues” combined defiance with the pain of love lingering past its time, Munisteri at his most lyrically delicate.

Aiming “Don’t Advertise Your Man” to “the ladies,” Russell cruised through the Sippie Wallace cautionary tale that Bonnie Raitt made a big hit, first offering advice, then warning she might not be trustworthy, either. Guitar and piano pulsated with melodic energy in emphatic rhythms here.

In Slim Gaillard’s bouncy calypso “Make It Do,” Russell sang of adapting to changes in fates and places, blithe and flexible rather than resentful or resisting. She updated its auto/lifestyle references from Cadillac versus Ford to Mercedes versus Toyota. This stretched more than most, its tropical beat was fun, all around.

Russell’s last notes at the end of her closer “Errand Girl for Rhythm” were high as any in ether show.

Russell’s next album, recorded live at Jazz at Lincoln Center, will include songs she also sang Saturday at Caffe Lena, really well.

The next show in Caffe Lena’a Peak Jazz Series stars guitarist Charlie Ballantine on April 30.

* Here I have to mention NRBQ’s similarly titled rocking romp “You Got the Right String, Baby, But the Wrong Yo-Yo.” You knew if I could make an NRBQ connection, I would.

From left, Tal Ronen, bass; Bob Rosenblum, piano (also accordion); Catherine Russell, vocal; Matt Munisteri

First Show (Connected to the live stream late: 5:20 p.m.)

The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing

I’m Walkin’

Exactly Like You

Fortune Telling Man

Moonlight Saving Time

At the Swing Cats Ball

If it Ain’t One Thing It’s Another 

Ain’t That Love

My Ideal

Now You’re Talking My Language

You Stepped out of a Dream 

You Got the Right Key but the wrong Keyhole

Errand Girl for Rhythm 

6:24 end

Second show 8:09 start

Now You’re Talking My Language

You Sure Look Good To Me

Exactly Like You

Reaching for the Moon

I’m Walkin’ 

Bocas Del Toro 

At the Swing Cats Ball  

I Don’t Need No Doctor

I Just Refuse to Sing the Blues

If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another

My Ideal

Ain’t That Love 

Don’t Advertise Your Man

Make It Do

Errand Girl for Rhythm 

9:23 end

Review: Empire Jazz Orchestra Thursday, March 26, 2026 at SUNY Schenectady County Community College Music School Carl B. Taylor Auditorium

“Not bad, for just one rehearsal,” noted Bill Meckley, including his 18-piece Empire Jazz Orchestra (EJO hereafter) in his claim Thursday. Reviving EJO on a visit from his Kentucky home felt like a labor of love on both sides of the bandstand at the SUNY Schenectady County Community College music school Carl B. Taylor Auditorium. His hand-picked crew of area jazz virtuosos followed him through musical history in two sets heavy on vintage tunes, but sparkling in the spirit of shared expertise, united in the moment.

Bill Meckley announces, above; and conducts, below

Meckley conducted the stage-filling crew in kinetic glee, crediting both composers and arrangers, giving shout-outs to soloists including former colleagues in the music school, notably reeds player Brett Wery and trumpeters Dylan Canterbury and Vito Speranza.

First up, “Max,” Jeff Hamilton’s spirited tribute to Max Roach, arranged by John Clayton, hit as a happy, roaring blues shuffle with standout tenor break from Kevin Barcomb and riff-swapping coda, drummer Bob Halek holding his own with full-band clamor.

Kevin Barcomb, above; Bob Halek, below

Oliver Nelson’s “Emancipation Blues,” another blues, followed, launching from a slow brass hymn into swinging dialog of saxes and trombones that slid under Dylan Cantertury’s sky-high trumpet break like a firm floor. Canterbury co-starred also in “A Night In Tunisia,” its familiar melody launching from Otto Gardner’s bass; Brian Patneaude’s bustling tenor and Ken Olsen’s agile trombone also took big bites.

Dylan Canterbury, above; Otto Gardner, below

Meckley then told how Thursday’s reunion show benefits scholarships to the music school he once led, urging the sizable audience to donate via QR code in the printed program and buy CDs on sale in the lobby. He said many music students work nights, explaining how scholarships fill in the financial voids on concert nights when they miss out on paid work.

Colleen Pratt came on to sing “On a Wonderful Day Like Today” (Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley), rambunctious and upbeat, with a tasty Barcomb tenor solo.

Colleen Pratt

A big brassy blast revved “Makin’ Whoopie,” sly and sweet in band-member Jim Corigliano’s arrangement and Pratt’s torchy vocal. She closed her first-set contribution in the jittery rush of “Johnny One Note,” another Corigliano chart.

The band paved a smooth road for alto saxophonist Keith Pray to cruise in “Geller’s Cellar” (Maynard Ferguson, Ernie Wilkins), a slippery slow shuffle with mellow sax blend, blunt brass blasts and spirited riff swapping before Pray’s dazzling cadenza. (Pray leads his own more modernist Big Soul Ensemble at the Cock ’N’ Bull the last Tuesday of each month, among other ensembles, but is also a flexible sideman.)

Keith Pray, above; Brett Wery, below

Benny Goodman’s “Let’s Dance,” maybe the most antique-sounding selection all night, also set a mellow massed sax sound, cushioning music school faculty member Brett Wery’s clarinet.

Then they stretched out to close the first set in a medley of arranger Sammy Nestico’s charts on Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” a highlight film of sorts with “Summertime” in both Latin and straight-ahead renditions, trombones as transition to “I Loves You Porgy” – all adding up to a 12-minute flow of familiar melodic charm and fresh re-invention.

A similar roadmap shaped the second set, “Bright Eyes” (Louis Prima, Bill Holman) an upbeat full-band blast kicking open the door for Brian Patneaude’s eloquent/elegant tenor.

They slowed way down for “Goodbye, Porkpie Hat” (Charles Mingus’s tribute to Lester Young), Barcomb’s tenor edging toward Young’s trademark tasty restraint before brass and reeds tag-teamed this tender ballad.

Dylan Canterbury stepped up front to solo in Duke Ellington’s “Concerto for Cootie” (another tribute, to Duke’s longtime trumpeter Cootie Williams). Like Barcomb in “Porkpie,” Canterbury adopted Williams’s plunger mute technique here, shifting to open trumpet to swap riffs with the whole crew.

Pratt returned for “Minnie the Moocher” (Cab Calloway), and here the band’s solo rehearsal showed as she and the ensemble needed a restart to get on the same page. Vito Speranza’s trumpet kept things on track in a strong read of this bouncy novelty.

Like the first-set Gershwin medley, Pratt and band strung together a cheerful run of upbeat classics, singing strong through “Get Happy,” “Keep the Sunny Side Up,” “Bye-Bye Blues,” back to “Get Happy.”

Vito Speranza

Stepping front, trumpeter Speranza owned Ellington’s “Portrait of Louis Armstrong,” sounding like himself even while recalling Armstrong’s distinctive hesitation rhythm and playful rasp at the end.

“Nostalgia In Times Square” (Mingus, Ronnie Cuber) swung happy, all syncopated grace and counter-point energy, sparked by hot solos from Jon Bronk’s trumpet, Jim Corigliano’s tenor, Nick Lue’s piano and Bronk again.

Jon Bronk, above; Nick Lue, below

Meckley delivered end-of-show-style thanks, but then led an encore-style finale, summoning Pratt back onstage for “Come Rain or Come Shine,” a mellow blues with tempo shifts, slowing to an easy glide and whispery vocal.

The reunited Empire Jazz Orchestra, which Meckley had founded at SUNY Schenectady’s music school, played with a unity that belied its long hiatus – since Meckley’s 2015 retirement, with just one prior reunion in 2018.

Everyone seemed fully engaged in the often-complex arrangements; soloists respected their predecessors in the songs while remaining fully themselves. Although ailing guitarist Mike Novakowski was absent, it was a glorious sound, by a big and united ensemble, in support of a worthy enterprise, and it delivered a lot to like.

Mark Foster, percussion. above; Terry Gordon, trumpet, below

Thanks to John Oliver’s This Week Tonight for this banner. Other thanks appear below.

A Reminder: 

The Empire Jazz Orchestra (EJO) reunites Thursday at SUNY Schenectady County Community College for its first concert since 2018 – shown here in Rudy Lu’s photos. A truly all-star crew, EJO expertly plays historic jazz compositions by past masters and fresh material by contemporary artists including EJO members.

EJO last played in July 2018 at Music Haven in Schenectady’s Central Park. Rudy Lu photo

Thursday’s show presents such classics as “A Night in Tunisia” (Dizzy Gillespie), “Portrait of Louis Armstrong” (Duke Ellington), and “Let’s Dance” (Benny Goodman).

EJO stars 19 local jazz heroes; many lead their own groups and many teach next-generation jazz artists in area colleges and public schools.

Bill Meckley. Rudy Lu photo

Thursday’s reunion show is a benefit funding scholarships for the College’s Music School, which EJO founder Bill Meckley ran until his 2015 retirement. He leads this reunion concert. 7 p.m. in the SUNY Schenectady County Community College Carl B. Taylor Auditorium. $25 http://www.sunysccc.edu/ejo.

Rudy Lu kindly lent me these photos showing EJO’s 2018 show at Music Haven. A respected colleague and good guy, Rudy covers concerts for Mirth Films and New York State Music. I owe him big for these.

A Correction or Two:

In my review of Friday’s Caffe Lena show by Joy Clark and Buggy Jive, I mis-attributed sponsorship of the Caffe’s Bright Series, which is actually sponsored by Caffe supporters Kevin and Claudia Bright.

I also erroneously announced next Saturday’s Peak Jazz show. The quite wonderful Catherine Russell sings at the Caffe next Saturday. Two shows: 5 and 8 p.m. (doors open half an hour earlier) $75.92 members, $81.34 general. As part of the Caffe’s Peak Jazz Series, this show is supported by Joseph & Luann Conlon in memory of Corrine Simonds. 518-583-0022 http://www.caffelena.org.

Thanks to Caffe Lena impresario Sarah Craig for corrections.

Review: Joy Clark, and Buggy Jive on Friday, March 20 at Caffe Lena

“This is what church is trying to be,” Joy Clark announced Friday at Caffe Lena late in a show full of fervor and aimed at crafting a community. Performing with bass and piano alongside, the young Louisiana singer-songwriter and guitarist looked inward in songs blueprinting the construction of a self while opener Buggy Jive (a self-proclaimed Delmar recluse) looked outward, singing solo and scrambling pop culture elements into a kaleidoscopic brilliant blur.

Joy Clark, above; Buggy Jive below

Playing first, Buggy Jive cast a sardonic, skeptical light on religion in “Saving Myself for Sunday,” his complex humor contrasting with Clark’s engaging sincerity to come. “Hurry Up Please It’s Time” called out those who “ruin it for the rest of us” while “She Wants to Party While the World Burns Down” indicted escapism. An engaging soul-ballad sound cloaked this criticism in something kinder, like understanding or forgiveness; it didn’t reduce the sting, but somehow humanized it. In other words – and he sang lots of them, often in rapid rap-like torrents – humor and musical skill made commentary feel entertaining. He invited us all into the jokes.

Shaped with thematic ambition, crafted with cleverness, his tunes shuffled restlessly through several episodes each and multiple moods and influences; some Funkadelic riff-crash here, a Joni Mitchell short-story next, then curly echoes of Prince-baroque, and a straight-up Black Sabbath cover over there. At times it felt like stand-up, in a soulful voice, with guitar zip. He found a rhyme for “ephemeral,” looped his falsetto into a chorus and sang over it, like those multi-Buggy Jive videos where he gangs up on a song. He revved to a staccato word-flow, asked quizzically “What Do Y’all Know about Shakespeare?” in picaresque musing about a NYC stage-play pilgrimage, a tale stuffed with inside jokes.

Clark followed Buggy Jive’s one-man uproar with a quiet confidence and the simple moral force of sincerity, the courage of candor.

Joy Clark, center; with Tiffany Morris, left, and Jentleman Sharp

She sang most of her “Tell It To the Wind” album, which she has called “my story of how I learned to shine.” In her opener “Shine,” she sang of the isolation of not seeing herself, or other Black gay women, in a magazine or on a screen. This cultural erasure challenged her to be herself, an original, an assertion that felt more proud than forlorn, especially over Tiffany Morris’s sparse, spry bass lines and piano riffs in the songs’ seams from Jentleman Sharp.

Following with “One Step in the Right Direction,” she gained momentum on a path paved with hope. It also bore bumps, as in the pained break-up lament “All Behind,” her straightforwardly sweet voice going taut with grief. Redemption came through love of the natural world, a mystical and comforting place, in “Tell It to the Wind,” the album’s title track and a sort of rescue mission for feelings. She addressed “Love Yourself” to her 12-year old self, advising her “square peg in a round hole” person-in-the-making while engaging the crowd in a singalong.

She easily brought her sold-out crowd into the music with her, in singalong choruses or in clapping when Morris and Sharp heated up. Clark’s guitar brought fire and fervor in uptempo exhortations, as in the combustible break in “Love Yourself.” Or she cooled into delicate love-song finger-picking giving quieter voice to “Watching You Sleep.” And when she linked voice and strings in “Shimmering” – riffing and skit-singing in harmony with herself – she earned the sparse, slow song’s title; also a singalong.

While she credited making music in the evangelical church for launching her musical quest, she also acknowledged in “Guest” the need to step outside its walls into a different conception of herself, her voice soaring past the confining gravity of convention, expectation. 

She advocated a “fierce kindness, a rude kindness” to bridge from “Guest” about struggle into “Lesson,” about her nurturing grandmother’s acceptance as a role model, plugging in her electric guitar to syncopate its mid-tempo, gently emphatic message.

Everyone stood as she took off her blue Strat and looked around, happy, then quizzical before strapping her acoustic guitar back on for a stay-there encore of Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights.” This joyful salute to a patron saint of New Orleans music showcased Sharp’s only solo in the set for a mood of fond farewell.

At Caffe Lena Friday, Joy Clark and Buggy Jive wrapped a three-night tour; they played New York’s fabled Bitter End the night before.

Friday I shared a front table with Joseph and Luann Conlon, sponsors of the Caffe’s Momentum Series in honor of Thom O’Neil. Their Bright Series presents Andrea von Kampen tonight, and their Peak Jazz Series presents singer Allison Russell next Saturday.

Preview: The Empire Jazz Orchestra Reunion Benefit Concert Thursday, March 26 at SUNY Schenectady Community College

Call it an encore, a one-night-only reunion after nearly a decade.

Founder Bill Meckley leads the reunited Empire Jazz Orchestra Thursday at SUNY Schenectady Community College, bringing top area jazz performers to the same stage that was longtime home for the big band. Then and now, it plays both historic and forward-looking music, on a strong educational mission. It will benefit scholarships at the music school where Meckley first organized it.

“I was teaching at SCCC in the late 80’s and had been thinking about starting a band,” said Meckley recently from his Lexington, Kentucky home. 

A Place for Jazz (APFJ) founder/leader Butch Conn helped form the vision, and then-SCCC president Gabe Basil gave the green light.

“Butch knew I was interested in historic jazz and asked if I would put together a children’s concert,” said Meckley. “I formed an eight-piece group which I named the Empire Jazz Orchestra.” After two APFJ shows, Meckley expanded the octet into a flexible big band. 

Historic jazz scores formed Meckley’s EJO blueprint. “Many original scores of Duke Ellington and other important composers were becoming available for the first time.”

Meckley searched for vintage scores across jazz history. Noting Jazz at Lincoln Center published the The Ellington scores, he said other historical scores began to resurface, by Billy Strayhorn, Oliver Nelson, Jelly Roll Morton, Mary Lou Williams and Benny Carter. Early on, EJO played major Ellington/Strayhorn works including “The Far East Suite” and “The Latin American Suite,” also shorter pieces.

“Some music I found in weird places,” Meckley said. “The early Gil Evans scores, for example, which he wrote for the Claude Thornhill band in the 1940s, I got from Drury College in Missouri.” In addition to historic scores, contemporary transcribers are re-constructing vintage pieces; Joe Muccioli revived Gil Evans/Miles Davis big-band works including “Sketches of Spain” that the EJO plays.

Bill Meckley provided this EJO photo; he stands at left in gray jacket. This shows a past line-up, but many of the same players perform Thursday.

In Thursday’s reunion concert, EJO will play original scores of Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, John Clayton, Charles Mingus and Cab Calloway, plus Sammy Nestico’s big band charts on Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” 

“We will also be playing original music by EJO members Keith Pray, Dylan Canterbury and Jim Corigliano,” Meckley said. “Featured soloists will include SUNY Schenectady Jazz faculty members (saxophonist) Brian Patneaude and (trumpeter) Dylan Canterbury on ‘A Night in Tunisia;’ saxophonists Keith Pray and Kevin Barcomb and trumpeter Vito Speranza will be featured on Duke Ellington’s ‘Portrait of Louis Armstrong,’ (clarinetist) Brett Wery on Benny Goodman’s ‘Let’s Dance,’ and Colleen Pratt will be featured vocalist, singing music of Cab Calloway, Pat Williams, and others.”

The EJO roster Thursday: Keith Pray, Jim Corigliano, Kevin Barcomb, Brian Patneaude and Brett Wery, saxophones and reeds; Jon Bronk, Vito Speranza, Dylan Canterbury and Terry Gordon, trumpets; Ken Olsen, Gary Barrow, Ken DeRagon and Dan Cordell, trombones; Mike Novakowski, guitar; Otto Gardner, bass; Bob Halek, drums; Nick Lue, piano; Mark Foster, percussion; and Colleen Pratt, vocals.

Again recalling EJO history, Meckley noted how successful shows at APFJ and SCCC (in conjunction with the musicians union) led to what Meckley called “an extremely successful partnership.” When he approached SCCC then-president Gabe Basil about establishing EJO as a resident jazz repertory ensemble, they agreed the school would provide facilities and assistance with publicity and grant applications.

In EJO’s 20 years on campus, SCCC also funded EJO’s popular and influential Jazz Masters Series featuring guest stars including Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Dave Holland, Slide Hampton, Lew Soloff, David “Fathead” Newman, Randy Brecker and others.

Averaging two on-campus concerts annually, EJO played historic works large and small, including the Gil Evans/Miles Davis “Sketches of Spain” and “Miles Ahead,” plus the original Paul Whiteman version of “Rhapsody in Blue.” They also commissioned new music by visitors Rufus Reid and Bill Holman plus EJO members Keith Pray and Jim Corigliano. “The Holman piece ‘Nautilus’ was commissioned as a solo feature for Nick Brignola, a dear friend,” said Meckley, who recalled playing big-band charts of Frank Zappa music, “which I loved doing.”

Meckley retired from SCCC in 2015, closed down EJO and moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he leads the Lexington Brass Band, and plays trombone with the Lexington Chamber Brass and others. A Porsche enthusiast, he also instructs sports car race drivers, including at Watkins Glen.

Looking back through the decades of EJO, Meckley said, “I believe our first performance was at APFJ in 1997. We also played occasional festival performances, and we did the Price Chopper Mothers Day concert at SPAC one year.”

In 2018, the EJO reunited at Music Haven in an “Encore” concert.

Thursday marks another, at the Carl B. Taylor Auditorium of SUNY Schenectady County Community College – a benefit supporting scholarships to the music school Meckley once led.

7 p.m. $25 http://www.sunysccc.edu/ejo