Review: Sarah Hanahan Quartet at A Place for Jazz; Friday, October. 4, 2025

The high energy and fearless enthusiasm of wild youth can carry musicians only so far.

Twenty-something alto saxophone prodigy Sarah Hanahan brought more to A Place for Jazz Friday: deeply intense love of music, all music; performing power beyond her (28) years and skilled, united, all-in band mates.

Sarah Hanahan Quartet, from left: pianist Caelen Cardello, alto saxophonist Sarah Hanahan, bassist Matt Dwonszyk and drummer Sam “Bang-Bang” Bolduc

Sarah Hanahan, alto saxophone

The evening felt richer than those elements might imply. Interpreting how all this means jazz is in good young hands instantly proved far less significant than the sheer fun the music delivered.

Hanahan, pianist Caelen Cardello, bassist Matt Dwonszyk and drummer Sam “Bang-Bang” Bolduc treated a happy crowd to a high-intensity two-set show, mixing mostly new tunes built on classic-tune strength with classic tunes rejuvenated by fresh energy. While most in the seats seemed a generation older than those onstage, the many SUNY Schenectady Community College music students present seemed just a scant decade younger than the band. Engaged throughout, they supplied supportive shout-outs in a feed-back loop that helped the music build moods and momentum.

Caelan Cardello, piano

Hanahan’s own “Call to Prayer” hit hard and fast, a fanfare blast, like Pharaoh Sanders often played, then stacked solos on the grooves. The best were by Hanahan – restless, explosive riffing reinforced by eager repeats – and McCoy Tyner-like hammered chords and circular patterns from Carmelo’s piano. 

Hanahan quietly sang the next title: Gary Bartz’s “I’ve Known Rivers” over Dwonszyk’s bass intro, then a Horace Silver-like groove lifted off the stage, Hanahan leaning her body to cue chord changes, then laying out as the trio built from restrained phrasing to pure, joyous fire. Episodic structure made a firm but shifting foundation for this sonata-form exploration that ended as it began, with voice and bass; wild peaks subsiding into peace. 

“Rivers” also made plain Hanahan’s debt to 80-something alto giant and composer Bartz, who played agelessly at SPAC’s Saratoga Jazz Festival in late June. Like Bartz, she played with a smooth tone, assertive phrasing, at speed, and used repeats to build tension.

Hanahan introduced her players with affection, repeating their names like a carnival barker. She said she’d met Cardello in Joe Farnsworth’s band and shanghai’ed the hyper active pianist for her own crew before noting he returns to A Place for Jazz with singer Tyreek McDole Nov. 7. She praised Dwonszyk’s rainbow-like bass playing and told how a random sign in a midwestern bar inspired drummer Bolduc’s nickname “Bang-Bang.” 

Explaining her affection for standards, she mellowed deep in the calm lyricism of “Stardust,” a compelling ballad expression. She played with soft-spoken vibrato, hummed through the horn, quoted “You Are My Sunshine” near the end and turned fire-fingered Cardello loose in a gorgeous solo that jacked the tempo, then subsided.

The second sets was all straight-ahead, and big fun.

“Crash Out” flew on pounding piano chords as Hanahan played fast scalar runs on the same racing pulse and several times quoted a riff borrowed from ‘Trane’s “A Love Supreme.” She urged bassist Dwonszyk to play “Higher! HIGHER!” so he plucked the strings below the bridge while also tapping high on the neck; one-man counterpoint. When drummer Bolduc elbowed his tom heads to change the pitch, she called, “Make it SING! – and he did. 

Matt Dwonszyk, bass; above; Sam “Bang-Bang Bolduc, drums, below

When she recalled talking with students about swing and the blues in her afternoon master class, one called out song titles they’d discussed before she introduced David “Fathead” Newman’s “Hard Times,” a swinging blues that shared the propulsion of the classics the student cited. This flowed hard, delicious momentum powering a cozy riff that flexed and flew. Cardello’s percussive chords and zippy glissandos inspired echoes in Hanahan’s own phrasing; again using repeats as if the tune had developed wild centrifugal force and sky-high runs.

“I can’t go much higher than that!” she gasped before asking the most obvious question possible: “Want one more?” then citing her affection for 80s pop to introduce Tears for Fears’ bouncy “Everybody Wants to Rule The World.” This upbeat melodic strut proved perfect for Hanahan’s pulsating power as she ranged from a big deep whomp to re-quoting “A Love Supreme;” also perfect for energetic very Tyner-like piano, surging bass and big-clatter-wherever-it-fits drumming, like prime Tony Williams.

Hanahan’s contagious enthusiasm engaged the audience easily, both speaking and playing. She pumped up the energy in her happy band and an audience that caught her mood from the first and rode it with her all the way.

First recognized by the jazz press as a promising prodigy newcomer, then accomplished artist, who’s clearly arrived, in the five-star praise of last-year’s “Among Giants” debut album, Hanahan came to A Place for Jazz as a shining star who lit up the place and people.

Set List 

Set 1: 7:33 – 8:36

Call to Prayer (Hanahan)

I’ve Known Rivers (Bartz)

Stardust (Carmichael)

Set 2 8:58 – 9:27

Crash Out (Hanahan)

Hard Times (Newman)

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes)

A Place for Jazz continues with saxophonist Leo Russo’s Sextet Oct. 17 and concludes with singer Tyreek McDole – remember: Cardello plays with him – Nov. 7. http://www.aplaceforjazz.org.

Review: The BEATrio – Bela Fleck, Edmar Castaneda and Antonio Sanchez at Universal Preservation Hall; Thursday, October. 2, 2025

Antonio Sanchez called BEATrio “world’s most unlikely band” Thursday at Universal Preservation Hall, claiming fans have “never seen this” – a trio of his drums with Bela Fleck’s banjo and Edmar Castaneda’s harp. His claim stood strong as the unprecedented band overwhelmed the capacity crowd in a brilliantly intuitive, jazz-complex explosion of their self-titled album, released in March, plus extras from Fleck’s vast output.

BEATrio, from left: Bela Fleck, banjo; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Edmar Castaneda, harp

Their first two songs came from the album; but the trio stretched them onstage from “Archipelago” at under six minutes and “Pellucidar,” just over seven, to nine and eleven minutes, respectively; inventive and complex. If paid by the note, those guys would have owned the building, and the town.

Both openers flexed tight ensemble power, the former a Latin groove, the latter a bristly hesitation beat with longer, more questing solos. Things opened up still further in “Throw Down Your Heart,” Fleck’s sparse solo banjo riding variations into a Bach-y sequence before Sanchez and Castaneda jumped into its cascading melodies, more Grateful Dead-like in rock-fugue repeats and modulations than how Fleck played it with his all-star African band in 2008. 

Each player introduced a section of the two-hour show, their obvious mutual admiration sometimes edged with humor, then led that stretch in one of their own compositions. 

Sanchez went first, describing the band as a collective, a democracy, before an extended, joyously noisy drum solo launched his “Kaleidoscopes” (five and half minutes on record, 14 onstage Thursday). He soloed mostly on toms and kick until Fleck and Castaneda joined in, then he shifted into the upper registers where banjo and harp flew, engaging snares and cymbals as the band exploded into full formidable strength. At times his kick drum hit micro-perfectly with the low notes (long strings, where the red string sits in the photos) booming from Castaneda’s harp. Other times, they tugged or compressed the beat, no seams or slack. Up top, fleet banjo riffs welded with blinding-fast treble harp lines and cymbal splashes.

Antonio Sanchez

Fleck noodled his oblique way into “The Star Spangled Banner;” more melancholy than Jimi’s fierce Woodstock riff-bombs and machine-gun rage; this introduced “Hooligan Harbor,” a rocking groove under a long-line melody.

Next, Castaneda spoke somberly of a challenging time after a broken hand jeopardized his music-making, livelihood and family. His “Whispers of Resilience” sketched a serene mood; not resignation but recovery, maybe the most emotionally direct tune all night. Feeling vividly and visibly powered the energetic, animated and engaging Castaneda.

Edmar Castaneda, above; Bela Fleck, below

Fleck spoke last, after “Walnut and Western” bopped around extra elements including “Rhapsody in Blue,” a breathtaking banjo exploration of this familiar orchestrated jazz classic. 

He introduced “Cloak and Dagger” with a funny, self-deprecating tale of trying to write a tango, only to hear from Castaneda that it was not a tango, but a cha-cha. When he asked Sanchez what he thought of the new cha-cha, the drummer countered that it was a danson, not a cha-cha. Fleck added that fans compliment him on the samba before noting lots of his music defies description. Praising his band-mates, as they both had done, he expressed his gratitude for playing with guys like these, then corrected himself: “They’re the only guys like these” – true of himself as well.

Tango, cha-cha, danson or samba, this Latin-y number inspired Fleck’s most explosive playing, fierce grimaces (about seven of ten on the John Mayer scale) attesting to its riff challenges. Like the openers, this flew fast and far on unity in ensemble runs and ear-popping solos. 

Fleck’s astonishing ability to transform conventional banjo language of crisp tight rolls that exploit the instrument’s short note-decay time has found a new and thrilling context in BEATrio as he concentrates as much on rhythm as melody and harmony, a seriously exciting band.

Unanimous tumult brought them back onstage for “Touch and Go,” a vintage Fleck bluegrass-y number in which jazzy counterpoint, zippy counter-rhythms and a quote of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” focused wild and wonderful energy from “the only guys like these.”

Set List

*Archipelago

*Pellucid

Throw Down Your Heart

*Kaleidoscope 

*Hooligan Harbor

*Whispers of Resilience

*Walnut and Western 

*Cloak and Dagger

* From “BEATrio” – all were generously stretched far past their recorded durations

Encore: Touch & Go

The crowd, before the show

Previews: Weather changes mean venue changes as music moves indoors. This weekend brings one of the season’s last shows-under-the-sun: Caffe Lena at SPAC on Saturday. Indoors, there’s plenty.

Virtuoso BEATrio at Universal Preservation Hall Thursday

Edmar Castaneda in August at Proctors in a Music Haven presentation. Michael Hochanadel photo

Does Edmar Castaneda live here now? He played Music Haven’s gala in late August at Proctors, then the Lake George Jazz Weekend in September.

The jazz harp pioneer returns in very fast company. 

BEATrio, from left: Edmar Castaneda, harp; Bela Fleck, banjo; Antonio Sanchez, drums. Shervin Lainez photo supplied.

Thursday at Universal Preservation Hall, Castaneda plays with the newly formed (last year) BEATrio world-music combo with banjoist Bela Fleck and drummer Antonio Sanchez.

Fleck also plays here often, with fantastic bands including the Flecktones, symphony orchestras, banjoist wife Abigail Washburn and all-star crews in many styles and traditions. BEATrio is the latest of many and one of the most intriguing.

Since Earl Scruggs’s “Beverly Hillbillies” theme inspired Fleck right through his NYC TV screen, Fleck became the most versatile and ambitious banjoist since Scruggs himself. Through dazzling virtuoso skill and wide-open collaborations, Fleck has won 19 Grammys in categories from historic to innovative, classical to country to jazz to folk to world-beat to roots to pop. Highlights here have included duos at the Van Dyck with jazz pianist Chick Corea and Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain, and a show at RPI’s EMPAC with top traditional African players on his award winning “Throw Down Your Heart” album and film.

The BEATrio promises similar fireworks.

Colombian-born Castaneda is to jazz harp what Fleck is to omni-banjo, a startlingly fresh stylist pioneering a new tradition in varying formats. He led a nine-piece world-jazz combo at Proctors, then a trio at Lake George; and has recorded with Japanese jazz pianist Hiromi, French harmonica wizard Gregoire Maret and Cuban saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera.

Mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez is their peer in talent and curiosity. Pat Metheny told me when he first heard Sanchez, from outside a New York jazz club, he thought he was hearing two drummers and was shocked to find Sanchez making all those beats alone. Like Fleck, Sanchez played with Corea, plus multitudes of jazz greats; but his most impressive achievement may be the Golden Globe-nominated score for director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Birdman (2014).

“I tend to find people to collaborate with who are the only person who plays that way,” says Fleck in his website bio. “I connect with people over rhythm…The rhythm is so compelling between Antonio and Edmar that I can roll, like on a bluegrass song, and have it sound perfectly natural.”

Fleck, Castaneda and Sanchez play Thursday as the BEATrio at Universal Preservation Hall (25 Washington St., Saratoga Springs). 7:30 p.m. $79.50-$40.50. 518-346-6204 www.proctors.org.

Saxophonist Sarah Hanahan at A Place for Jazz

In a season of saxophones at A Place for Jazz– three of five shows star saxophonists – Sarah Hanahan stands out as a young woman (28) unafraid to tackle tunes nearly every saxophone colossus before her claimed and played, explored or exploded. Her playing on alto has the fluid, joyful bounce of Charlie Parker and Jackie McLean: The beat is having fun, the notes happy to hear each other. 

Sarah Hanahan. Photo provided

Thursday at A Place for Jazz, she brings top credentials and critical praise. 

Trained at the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the Hartt School of Music of the University of Hartford (B.A., 2019) and The Juilliard School (M.M., 2022), Hanahan’s debut album “Among Giants” won a five-star review in Downbeat and a spot on the magazine’s list of Best Albums of the Year for 2024; and she was named Number One Rising Star on Alto Saxophone in it’s 2025 Critics Poll.

In addition to leading her own trio, she also plays in the Mingus Big Band.

The Sarah Hanahan Quartet plays Friday at A Place for Jazz in the Carl B. Taylor Auditorium of the SUNY Schenectady County Community College music school. 7:30 p.m. $25 at the door, cash or check. www.aplaceforjazz.org.

Mustard’s Retreat at the Eighth Step

David Tamulevich wears several hats, like stellar singer-songwriter and savvy country music publicist Lance Cowan. Tamulevich was a performer before becoming artist manager for folk stars John Gorka, Ani DiFranco, Stan Rogers, Kate Wolf, Greg Brown, Dar Williams, and Ellis Paul, He hit the road in 1975 with Mustard’s Retreat, originally a trio, now a duo. They’ve made more than a dozen albums, though they toured sporadically as Tamulevich busily represented other artists.

Mustard’s Retreat; Libby Glover, left; and David Tamulevich. Photo provided

Friday, he returns to the Eighth Step, a frequent tour stop, like other regional venues including the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival – and such national-caliber venues as the folk showcases at Wolf Trap, Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center. Mustard’s Retreat is now a duo of Tamulevich with Libby Glover, armed with a stage full of instruments and deep bags of songs and stories. 

He calls their music “defiantly hopeful,” and expresses “joy and fun, mystery and wonder, then heartbreak and resiliency…it’s celebrating life.”

7:30 pm., doors at 7. $26 in advance, $28 on Friday; $40 front and center. 518-346-6204 http://www.proctors.org.

Caffe Lena at SPAC

Saturday brings the return of Caffe Lena at SPAC; a free outdoor multi-act show at SPAC’s Charles R. Wood Stage. During late-June’s Saratoga Jazz Festival presented by GE Vernova, it becomes the Charles R. Wood Jazz Discovery Stage. Saturday’s slate features mainly folk or folk-adjacent artists.

Unlike LiveNation events, fans can bring in chairs and blankets for the free event. Doors open at 11:30 a.m.

Noon: Aleksi Campagne. Bilingual Canadian fiddler and singer-songwriter

1:10 p.m.: Farah Sirah. Time Out New York hails the Jordanian cross-cultural singer as “the Norah Jones of the Middle East.

2:20 p.m.: Tom Chapin. Triple Grammy-winning singer-songwriter with 27 albums and key role in National Geographic Explorer TV series

3:30 p.m.: Chatham County Line. Harmonizing bluegrass/Americana trio with four albums that topped Billboard’s Bluegrass Chart

4:40 p.m.: Misty Blues. Powerhouse Berkshires blues band with 17 albums and tour dates here, across Canada and the UK

Caffe Lena at Caffe Lena

Also Saturday, at 7 p.m. and as part of the Saratoga Book Festival, Caffe Lena presents author/musician Tom Piazza in “John Prine: A Night of Song and Stories” celebrating Piazza’s book Living in the Present with John Prine. New Orleans-based novelist and essayist Piazza is a Yaddo alum and four-time winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Writing. He was working with Prine on an autobiography when Prine died of COVID in April 2020. 

WAMC’s Joe Donahue interviewed Piazza for a Roundtable segment available at www.wamc.org.

Review: Janis Ian at Caffe Lena; Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025

Janis Ian performed a sweet/sad swan song Saturday at Caffe Lena without singing a note, except on the screen where her “Breaking Silence” bio-documentary film showed before a Q&A and meet-and-greet.

Singer-songwriter Janis Ian, left, and Caffe Lena Executive Director Sarah Craig

Caffe Executive Director Sarah Craig led the Q&A, scurrying through the crowd with a mic for fan-questioners, like Phil Donahue back in the day. For many fans, the main event was meeting Ian at the merch table. There she signed albums, many dating from her 1960s and 1970s early fame, and listened graciously as fans poured out their hearts to the iconic singer-songwriter whose tour promoting the film may be her last.

Before showing the film, Craig asked who had delayed seeing the film until Saturday’s event, although it’s streamed on PBS’s American Masters series since June. Many in the mostly boomer crowd claimed they’d waited, and the experience felt fresh again in warmly welcoming company, even though I had seen it. 

“Breaking Silence” shares its title with her 1992 album, an uncommonly candid expression, even for the open-book Ian. It traces her artistic and personal journey in eye-opening detail through onstage performances, interviews with peer artists (she has very, very few of those) and with Ian herself; plus well-staged re-enactments. From precociously ambitious folkie who learned literally at Pete Seeger’s knee to early teen-aged success in the 1960s Greenwich Village “folk scare” to rapid achievement and influence, it’s a vivid story of oscillating ups and downs, creatively and personally. 

No spoilers here; go watch it; after reading this.

In the Q&A that followed the two-hour film, Ian gently steered questioners away from worshipful praise for her music’s impact on their lives to matters at hand, as framed by the film. 

She spoke of the stage as not a safe place, citing the courage it takes to perform where anything can happen, from patrons booing, or worse, to blithely leaving after finishing their pizza. She told of being driven offstage by organized-bigot protests at an early concert, but returned to finish the show, a crucial lesson in persevering in service to her artistic vision and purpose.

Other lessons followed; how drive and talent opens doors; how today’s political and social struggles take persistence, and the optimism she finds in seeing younger artists coming up who sing the same values of acceptance, honesty and courage that power her songs.

Now 74, acknowledging Saturday that “I have more behind me than in front of me” and that health challenges now prevent her from performing or recording – but not from writing – she seldom seemed nostalgic. She did, however, show warm affection for how heroes in the cultural centers of Greenwich Village, LA’s Laurel Canyon and San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury had nurtured her career and life.

Technical insights about writing, making records and performing included such practical tips as writing in rhythm to let listeners recover from heavy lines, and “Don’t fuck the band.” 

Fans inspired by her as a bisexual Jewish woman now married to a woman and a stubbornly creative force who struggled in a male-dominated industry and society expressed grateful awe at her courage. 

When the half-hour Q&A ended, Ian told Sarah Craig, sitting beside her onstage, “I love coming here” – to the Caffe where she’d often performed. 

Before playing cozy Caffe Lena, Ian had also performed at SPAC, where Alice Cooper and Judas Priest played Saturday.

Ian had played that same big stage, opening for Kris Kristofferson; late 1970s, early 1980s.

After her opening set, Kristofferson invited us writers backstage – a strong physical presence then, a tanned, fit, blade of a man after a month training with Muhammad Ali at the boxer’s Poconos camp. 

Radiating energy and confidence, he was nonetheless genuinely cowed by the daunting prospect of following Ian onstage.

His career strong with plentiful hits, he could afford a strong band and brought a mighty crew to SPAC: drummer “Slammin’ Sammy” Creason, keyboardists Donnie Fritts and Glen Clark (of the great duo Delbert and Glen), guitarist Stephen Bruton, multi-instrumentalist Billy Swan, and bassist Tommy McClure – all killers.

Even with all that – honed charisma, big hits, killer band – Kristofferson was terrified of going on after Ian, who had played with just another guitarist.

He was awed by her songs and said he feared his own wouldn’t measure up. His humility felt totally genuine and really touching.

Onstage, he told the audience all this; how he was awed by her talent, her songs and her presence.

When my turn to meet Ian at the merch table came Saturday at Caffe Lena, I handed her a note about what Kristofferson had said, rather than hold up the fans behind me to tell her. And I handed her the CD booklet to “Breaking Silence” for her to sign, noting my brother Jim Hoke played on it. 

“Ah, Jim – he’s great; Jim’s the best,” she said, and pointed to other albums on the merch table he’d played on with her.

“One of the saddest things about not recording any more is that I don’t get to work with Jim.” 

Yet, even on this farewell tour of sorts, Janis Ian seemed a happy presence, a tiny woman of enormous presence, power and achievement, whose songs and singing, words and voice, remain to inspire, to teach, to awe.

Preview: Kemp Harris at the Eighth Step at Proctors; Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025 (The Addy Theatre, 432 State St., Schenectady)

Singer-songwriter Kemp Harris plays his Eighth Step debut this weekend after making music for decades. The under-the-radar artist has perhaps been overlooked, like NRBQ, for example, because he makes more than one kind of music.

Kemp Harris. Photo provided

All About Jazz hailed his “Edenton” album, named for his segregated North Carolina hometown and recorded with now-departed gospel-soul singing Holmes Brothers, for its diverse covers. The pub reported “Donny Hathaway’s ‘Tryin’ Times’ is a hypnotic blues vamp, rolling along in a place where Howlin’ Wolf would have felt at home.” The review also singled out Harris’s versions of Willie Nelson’s country classic “Night Life” and the gospel jewel “Didn’t It Rain.”

Downbeat, another jazz pub, also sang Harris’s praises for “Edenton,” citing it as “Earthy, insightful, haunting…sacred and profane. Harris is in perfect communion with the Holmes Brothers and his earthy band.”

A retired teacher and gay Black man, Harris is a northeastern transplant. He’s made big-city scenes, composing music for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. He set up a songwriting residency at Boston’s Wang Theatre, and presented master classes at Berklee College of Music on Artists as Activists – along with Chad Stokes of the band Dispatch and members of the Urban Bush Women dance troupe.

Activism also shaped his new album “The America Chronicles” whose song titles illuminate the concerns inspiring his jazz/R&B/soul/gospel tunes: “Ruthie’s,” “Don’t You Hear Them America,” “Tulsa,” “Edenton,” “Standing Your Ground,” “Down,” “In For the Kill,” “This Is America,” “America/Border Song” and “Goodnight America.”

This is music and message working together at a high level, aimed at hearts and minds. It’s tough truths, written more in sadness than in anger; hard tales to tell at times, and sung with wise, pained tenderness. Like Randy Newman at his most devastatingly wry, and Joni Mitchell at her most sweetly hopeful, Harris sees his flawed, beloved country clearly and his aim at those flaws is true. Sometimes you can hear humor, but you always hear the truth in his words and voice.

Harris sang “Goodnight, America” to wide acclaim on Wanda Fischer’s “Hudson River Sampler” (WAMC) edition of Phil Ochs Song Night, and an audience vote selected him as winner of the Falcon Ridge 2024 Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase.

Freebo, Bonnie Raitt’s former longtime bassist, produced and arranged Harris’s songs on “The America Chronicles,” whose recent release will be celebrated at the Eighth Step Saturday. They recorded at the aptly-named Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with Harris at the mic and the piano and Freebo playing bass, plus Clayton Ivy, organ; Will McFarlane, guitar; Justin Holder, drums, and singer Alice Howe.

At the Eighth Step, Harris will play piano, with harmonica player Adam Osgood.

Speaking of the new album, Harris told Americana UK magazine, “At the end of the day, I’m an old Black man telling stories and spreading love.”

“Scary times,” mused Eighth Step executive artistic director Margie Rosenkranz of  the volunteer-run Eighth Step. “We need voices like his.”

Show time for Kemp Harris and Adam Osgood Saturday at the Eighth Step in Proctors The Addy Theatre is 7:30 p.m., doors at 7.

Tickets: $28 advance, $30 on Saturday, $45 Gold Circle (front and center) Other than Gold Circle, seating is open: first come, first served. 518-473-0723 or 346-6204. www.8thstep.org or www.proctors.org

Review: Porchfest No. 3, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025

Rock trio Nice Hockey wrote their “City of My Dreams” about Montreal, but Saturday those words fit a north-side Schenectady neighborhood in and around its historic GE Plot. There seven porches – well, six plus a church – hosted 14 musical acts in the third annual Porchfest, a nomadic, free-music festival that draws ever-larger crowds.

Nice Hockey, above; Kevin Carey Group below

Looking down from a Wendell Ave. porch wide enough for his seven-piece jazz combo, keyboardist Kevin Carey pronounced the throng below on portable chairs or blankets to be three times larger than last year’s; the weather was equally perfect for both.

A bit before noon, the Backyard Brass, one of three brass ensembles, played classy tunes on an Avon Rd. side porch. Formed as a COVID-era hobby band, they’ve outlasted the plague through happy persistence, aiming their five trumpets Saturday at a somewhat rocky “Masterpiece Theater” theme to start. They played smoother in the peppy syncopated “America” from “West Side Story,” then a mellow “Shenandoah” as the audience grew.

Backyard Brass, above; Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra, below

Brass Abbey followed a few blocks away on Douglas Rd., a polished, playful crew whose early numbers I missed to catch Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra – our best musical party on wheels – who started at the same time (noon) on Rugby Rd. A Latin rhythm section with a crisp jazz horn section and strong singers, the Orchestra plays everywhere, all the time, achieving a muscular swing in cha-cha, meringue and Cuban tunes that got folks dancing.

Brass Abbey

After a happy taste of Latin, walking down Rugby, right on Wendell and left down Douglas Rd., I caught Brass Abbey in a clever medley of patriotic flag-wavers before injecting Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” with quotes including TV themes (“Get Smart”!) and other surprises, a fun Name-That-Tune puzzle.

Vocal Jazz Vanguard, above; from left: Kaitlyn Fay, Dave Shoudy (bassist), Jeanine Ouderkirk and Mowgli Gianitti. Below, John LeRoy, left, Dave Shoudy, Jeanine Ouderkirk (obscured) and Kaitlyn Fay

Nearby (east in Douglas, a short block north on Wendell) the Vocal Jazz Vanguard – singers Kaitlyn Fay, Jeanine Ouderkirk and Mowgli Gianitti, plus pianist Jon LeRoy, bassist Dave Shoudy and drummer Cliff Brucker – shuffled through the Great American Songbook with exciting results. The Lambert, Hendricks and Ross classic “Centerpiece” united all three voices in bluesy swing, or vice versa. Solo or harmonized, the singers worked wonderfully well with the players.

A more subdued mood settled over the crowd on Stratford where the meditative, quiet classical duo of two Melanies – flautist Chirignan and pianist Hardage – cast a serene spell, gentle and sweet. Like chamber music in miniature, the pieces had an inviting calm grace.

Above, The Chirignan-Hardage Duo; Melanie Chirignan, flute, left; and Melanie Hardage, piano. Below, Unken Brew, from left: Bruce Thompson, Sam Katz and Dave Liebman

Back on Rugby, Unken Brew went for rowdy bluegrass zip, bluesy depth and, as guitarist-singer Dave Lieberman announced, “enough stomp to keep the bears away,” scanning the shady streets in mock alarm. With mandolinist Sam Katz and guitarist/dobro player Bruce Thompson, Katz revved the Flatt & Scruggs antique “100 Years From Now” and they never looked back, a spirited set with stringed-things playing as precise as their harmonized vocals. 

Kevin Carey’s Grpup, nearly as big as Torres’s Latin Orchestra, brought similar strength to Carey’s modernist-but-melodic jazz compositions in small/big band style. Top players gave all-in sections a brisk cohesion and soloed over the moon. While Carey’s piano led strong, saxophonists Keith Pray (alto) and Matt Steckler (tenor) got the most spotlight time, with trombonist Phil Pandori and trumpeter Omar Williams also holding their own. Bassist Dave Shoudy switched from acoustic bass with the Vocal Jazz Vanguard to electric with Carey and stayed right where he was, playing busier than he had with the singers and linking tight with drummer Dave Berger. The mellow swing of “Easy In Blue” set up the complex, episodic “D.O.A.,” Carey letting his soloists fly before tapping his head to bring back the main melody.

Above, Kevin Carey Group horns, from left: Phil Pandori, Matt Steckler, Keith Pray, Omar Williams

Smaller scale, decidedly Latin, Bossamba leaned into the Antonio Carlos Jobim songbook as Maggie McDougall sang in English or Portuguese with equal fluency. Pianist Wayne Hawkins led in one of his own Brazilian-inspired instrumentals as McDougall admired from the sidelines and bassist Lou Pappas and drummer Mark Foster dug deep in this complex number. She reclaimed her lead spot with Jobim’s classic “Photograph.”

Bossamba above, singer Maggie McDougall, below

Porchfest’s silliest band, Signature Brass, brought Oktoberfest fun to the corner of Rugby and Ardsley, wearing lederhosen and dirndl and going gleefully oompah in smile-pumping party songs. Tunes felt like a toast of celebration – and not just “The Chicken Dance” – although “Ein Prost” didn’t excite the can-can dancing that leader-trumpeter-Porchfest organizer Steve Weisse hoped to ignite. They played it straight, and really well, Sousaphone player Jeremy Pearson pushing from below and Weisse carrying the melodies up top.

Signature Brass, above; Chicken-dancing fans, below

Above, Steve Weisse toasts the crowd; below, Nice Hockey rocks the same porch

Next, Nice Hockey rocked on bassist Chad Rogers’s own Rugby and Ardsley porch, bringing the most joyful mood of the whole fun day as kids from toddler to kindergarten age danced, jumped and ran around in a dust-raising happy frenzy of music-pumped energy. Parents – the same folks who did “The Chicken Dance” there – enjoyed their kids’ happy motion, and the band’s. It felt like neighborhoods should do.

Chad Rogers

In 2024 Porchfest, the COVID-positive Rogers had to play from his own living room, looking through its bay window at his bandmates. Saturday, he joined guitarist Eric Ayotte and drummer Harrison Schmitt on the porch where they started with “Siren Swell” about the scream of ambulances passing on Rugby, a busy route to Ellis Hospital. Even that song sounded happy – and so did others about taking nights off to relax from over-busy lives, how life is better together and how to keep toddlers entertained.

Eric Ayotte of Nice Hockey, which also plays as the Eric Ayotte Band

The music did that, for everybody, in the most rocking and upbeat set that whole sun splashed day. The most stylistically varied and best attended Porchfest yet, it felt like a neighborhood should feel, on a perfect afternoon.

On foot, 12,000 steps, starting at my house just blocks from the nearest porch-stage, I still didn’t manage to see everything. I missed the young fiddlers of the Empire State Youth Orchestra CHIME program, blues-jazz-rockers the Evidence, the innovative jazz group Yolanda Bush Cool Water Collective and the Calvary Choir and Musicians.

But the music I did catch all worked just fine, and I appreciated the two porta-johns and two food set-ups.

And, oh yeah – meanwhile, Union football won their first game of the season just half a block west of the Douglas Rd. porch-stage. There, hosts Barbara and Tony opened their home – bathroom, drinks and snacks – to the players. And another host, away for the weekend, had friends open her home and porch to players and fans.

ENCORES:

After playing with Kevin Carey’s Group, Matt Steckler played Saturday at Stella Pasta Bar with his new MS Organ Trio with Jon Leroy, organ (he played Porchfest with the Vocal Jazz Vanguard) and Pete Sweeney, drums.

Nice Hockey plays the Schenectady Green Market at noon today (Sunday).

Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra celebrate 45 years together on Nov. 1 at Universal Preservation Hall.

Joe Jencks At the Eighth Step

Troubadour Joe Jencks opens the Eighth Step’s 58th season Saturday in Proctors cozy The Addy theater (upstairs at 432 State Street, Schenectady).

Singer-songwriter Jencks headlined WAMC’s Wanda Fischer-hosted On the Road version of Hudson River Sampler in August at Music Haven; a spot he earned through fine area shows so frequent he seemed to live here. Actually, a Chicagoan, he’s a constant presence in folk, alternative and Americana radio through prolific recordings: 10 solo albums and three with harmonizing trio Brother Sun.

Joe Jencks singing at Music Haven

At Music Haven, Jencks sang lyrics he adapted from Pete Seeger’s inspirational 1955 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. As Jencks sang, Seeger stressed his right to sing for anyone. Jencks echoed Seeger’s defense of cherished freedoms, and dropped a verse of Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer” into his song.

In a similarly strong message song, dual US and Irish citizen Jencks praised South Africa’s pluralism before hailing his grandfather Felix Kilbride’s courageous immigration here in the sentimental “Rose of Tralee.” Jencks said Kilbride arrived via Ellis Island before recounting the horrifying recent arrest of Hopi tribal people in Arizona for failing to produce green cards. This set up the pro-immigration “Lady of the Harbor” – Lady Liberty. Many fans knew Jencks’s words and sang along here and in “Bells of Freedom.” Jencks reached back to historic prison recordings as source for his “Take this Hammer,” a tool of hope and defiance.

Jencks never went preachy. He’s just too good a musician for that; too skilled and subtle, with a robust guitar and strong, low-pressure voice. His original lyrics had the same topical bite as vintage sources that inspired him, powered by compassion and principle. In other words: folk music of heartfelt authenticity and virtuoso skill.

Joe Jencks sings Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Proctors The Addy. Tickets: $28 in advance, $30 at the door, $45 priority (center front). www.8thstep.org 518-434-1703

The Eighth Step season continues with Kemp Harris Sept. 27, Mustard’s Retreat Oct. 3, Tom Rush with Matt Nakoa Oct. 18, Whispering Bones: An Evening of Ghost Stories Oct. 28, Ms. Music: Jackie Alper Nov. 1, John McCutcheon Nov. 14, and “Very Slambovian Christmas” (holiday show by the Slambovian Circus of Dreams) Dec. 6.

Seven Porches, 14 Bands on Saturday

Schenectady’s third end of summer Porchfest offers a migratory music experience free to fans wandering the city’s tree-shaded GE Plot neighborhood.

All photos from Porchfest 2024

The two busiest porches, at 1095 Ardsley Rd. and 1183 Stratford Rd., each host three acts; so staying at one porch works, too. 

While parking is less dense/problematic than some might expect, most wanderers roam from porch to porch on bicycles, scooters, skateboards, roller-blades or just on foot. Google Maps locates the two most distant porches at 18 minutes apart on foot, just less than a mile. Food trucks by the Broken Inn and Greek On the Run serve on Rugby Rd. and Ardsley Rd. while porta-johns also await.

The music ranges from Gospel by the Calvary Choir and Musicians to classical with the Chirignan-Hardage duo, blues by The Evidence, Latin-jazz dance music by Alex Torres and his Latin Orchestra, jazz by players and singers including brass bands Signature Brass, Backyard Brass and Brass Abbey. One plays in alpine lederhosen with happy oompah oomph and features trumpeter Steve Weisse. He auditions porches and performers and rounds up support by the American Federation of Musicians (all musicians are paid), the Mohawk Valley Society for Live Music, the Music Performance Trust Fund, Mona Golub, the Schenectady County Legislature Arts and Culture Fund, Stewart’s Shops and the Schenectady Foundation.

All this support means PorchFest is free to fans; so we can all sample stuff we’ve never heard of. I recommend this. Like something? – stick around. Or, not? – just drift; something else is right around the corner. For example, in the past, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the inventive pop group Nice Hockey, and expect more surprises Saturday. 

Ignore the loud cannon shots that signal scores by the Union College football team, playing close by the Douglas Rd. porch that presents two jazz groups.

Check www.schenectadyporchfest.org for who’s playing when, on which porch and how to find them.

Jazz Dessert

Stella Pasta Bar serves a jazz dessert Saturday: the newly formed MS Organ Trio. MS is prolific, restless reeds player and composer Matt Steckler, who forms a new band every few minutes. OK, I exaggerate; but he often creates fresh contexts for his compositions.

The MS Organ Trio is Steckler, saxophones and flute, Jon LeRoy, organ; and Pete Sweeney, drums. Show time is 6 p.m. for this free-admission weekly showcase. Steckler says they play “Right after Kevin Carey’s group at Porchfest!” 

FYI, Stella Pasta Bar is at 237 Union St., Schenectady; it’s the bar and dining room space downstairs from the Van Dyck Music Club, which has also resumed presenting live music.

Jazz fans face a tough choice Friday between two cool shows. There’s no wrong one: guitarist Peter Bernstein Quartet at A Place for Jazz, OR drummer Ari Hoenig in Caffe Lena’s Peak Jazz series.

A Jim Hall protege at New York’s New School, Bernstein hit the big-time when Hall invited him into a guitar showcase at the 1990 JVC Jazz Festival with Pat Metheny, John Scofield and others.

Peter Bernstein. Photo provided

That same year, Bernstein joined saxophonist Lou Donaldson’s band, then (drummer Jimmy) Cobb’s Mob. He played with organist Larry Goldings and drummer Billy Stewart in what the New York Times called “best organ trio of the last decade.” He’s released nine albums and a DVD, “Live at Smoke,” as a leader and played with Sonny Rollins, Lee Konitz, Wes Montgomery, Tom Harrell, Joshua Rodman, Diana Krall, Nicholas Payton and Eric Alexander.

Hall hailed Bernstein’s “attention to the past as well as the future,” while Donaldson noted “Some people just have it…Peter just knows it all.” Bernstein’s recent albums include the tribute “Monk” (2009) and “Solo Guitar – Live at Smalls (2013).” 

Friday, he plays A Place for Jazz with David Hazeltine, piano; John Webber, bass; and Joe Strasser, drums; in the Carl B. Taylor Auditorium in the music school of SUNY Schenectady County Community College. 7:30 p.m. $25 at the door, cash or check. http://www.aplaceforjazz.org.

Ari Hoenig. Photo provided

Hoenig follows innovators, notably hard-bop pioneer Max Roach, who punched big holes in the notion that drummers can’t, or shouldn’t, lead bands. Hoenig emphasizes melody in his playing, in small bands where each player must reaches beyond their instruments’ traditional roles.

Friday at Caffe Lena, Hoenig drums with pianist Gadi Lehavi and bassist Ben Tiberio, the same trio that released “Golden Treasures” (2022) and Tea for Three” (2024).

On more than 120 albums as leader and sideman, Hoenig has developed his melodic style with stars including Joshua Rodman, Shirley Scott, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Chris Potter. 

He plays Caffe Lena (47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs) Friday as part of the Caffe’s Peak Jazz Series, sponsored by Joseph and Luann Conlon, in memory of Corinne Simonds. 8 p.m. Tickets: $27.15 (members), $30.40 (general) and $15.20 (students and children). 518-583-0022 www.caffelena.org.

Seriously Sad Caffe Lena Note: 

Monday night, the Caffe lost Joel Moss, longtime sound engineer for live streaming. Grammy winner as producer or engineer, Moss was a reassuringly confident, super-competent musical technician; also a sweet, quietly witty presence that made him a friend to everyone who crossed his path.

Joel Moss, the late, great. Photo provided

When New Orleans-style jazz clarinetist Evan Christopher played Caffe Lena some seasons ago, he recognized Moss from playing a Los Angeles session Moss had produced. Awed, Christopher asked to be introduced to Moss.

Moving from Detroit to Los Angeles in 1969, Moss produced or engineered records for Little Richard, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Johnny Cash, the Eagles, Talking Heads, Red Hot Chili Peppers and too many more to list.

By 1986, he ran LA’s Record Plant and Paramount Pictures studio where he produced film and TV scores.

Later, in New York, he made Broadway cast recordings and won a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album for the Lin-Manuel Miranda/Quiara Alegria Hudes smash  “In The Heights.” Nominated 11 times, Moss won seven Grammy Awards, including for Ray Charles’s last album. He also won an Academy Award, was nominated for two Emmy Awards and was inducted into the 2022 Capital Region Thomas Edison (the “Eddys”) Hall of Fame.

In Saratoga, Moss produced the regional compilation “Saratoga Pie” and many other projects, and engineered hundreds of live streaming performances from Caffe Lena – where he had performed as a member of Detroit’s folk group the Hi-Liters not long after the Caffe opened. He was so modestly self-effacing you’d only know his achievements by talking with musicians.

“Joel, I’m incredibly grateful to have had you in my life and honored to have become good friends,” wrote Brian Malick on Facebook. “The world is a lot darker and colder today, but your warm loving beautiful spirit will be with us for the rest of our days… Blessed to have been in the music with you more times then I can count, and thank you for a truly remarkable inspiring legacy of work.”

“Joel was a fierce, loving, impassioned force of a man” wrote Lecco Morris. “He was always buzzing — with the beauty of his current project, his anger and hope for the state of the world, his belief that making incredible things together would chip away at the ugliness of the world and lift people up…He was utterly disinterested in anything except beauty and honesty, and would tirelessly support anyone and any project that he believed in….So honored to have spent so many working years on so many projects with such a dauntless, pure artist as Joel. My love to (wife, photographer and music lover) Terri-Lynn Pellegri, who hung the sky for Joel. In his honor we have to make true, beautiful things, without compromise.”

Amen and amen.

Review: Alejandro Escovedo at the Iron Horse, Northampton, Mass., Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025

Alejandro Escovedo, center; with Mark Henne, drums; and Scott Danborn, keyboards

Alejandro Escovedo peered around the recently restored/reopened Iron Horse Saturday. He said, “Everything changes” and proved it. He led a new band – he always leads a new band – but in mostly familiar songs. Young Texans drummer Mark Henne and keyboardist Scott Danborn – he played three, one producing thunderous bass – replaced Don Antonio, the Italian band heard on his “The Crossing” album and recent tours.

The new trio’s stripped strong sound rang loud and clear, thanks to road manager/sound engineer Brandon Eggleston. At our balcony table in the packed house, we could feel Danborn’s keyboard bass booming up through our feet while Henne’s four-on-the-floor drum beats – kick and snare, mostly – and feedback blasts from Escovedo’s guitar made exposed skin tingle. 

Scott Danborn, left, back to the camera; Alejandro Escovedo, and Mark Henne

Before he played a note, Escovedo set his music in place and time, telling a five-minute immigrant family’s kinetic history from Texas to California and back before launching at a roar into “Wave,” set in his birthplace, San Antonio. A later tune titled “San Antonio Rain” was set in surf-town California, but it made autobiographical sense, hinting at a geographically and culturally divided childhood. What was a displaced guy from a musical family to do but fall in love with punk rock, write songs like a heart’s road-map and sing them like life and death?

At 70, Escovedo’s shows have grown ever more autobiographical over time, so the honeymoon-hurricane valentine “Luna de Miel” (“honeymoon”) combined romance with a very real disaster threat both in his affectionate intro-dedication to wife Nancy and daredevil performance. He reached back to his second album “Thirteen Years” (1993) for his earliest tune Saturday; but everything shared consistently powerful sound and complete investment in the bone-deep songs.

The band played tight and dynamic after weeks on the road (Bearsville Theatre Thursday, Stone Mountain in Maine Friday). Everybody sang, and pretty well, while Danborn worked high and low, left hand on the bass-tuned keyboard, his right sculpting melodies in piano, electric piano and organ sonic colors.

Alejandro Escovedo, top; and Scott Danborn, below

The stop-and-go cadence in “Break This Time” hit with breathtaking precision as Escovedo, warmed up by his big guitar break in “Sometimes,” chainsawed through the chorus. Danborn put some Texas tang on it, echoing the curly organ break in “96 Tears.” 

Keyboard power also punched up the plaintive “Baby’s Got New Plans,” igniting a unified riff rush.

Things grew quiet(er) when Escovedo swapped to an acoustic guitar and launched a slow, soft intro to “Dear Head On the Wall;” he paused to describe it as concerning taxidermy and Buddhism, but then rocked it anyway, bass booming.

“Something Blue” from the Don Antonio “The Crossing” sessions traced a similar dynamic from wistful musings to assertive keyboard blitz; so did “San Antonio Rain” and the dramatic doom-struck very New York “Down in the Bowery.”

Mark Henne, left; and Alejandro Escovedo

Grabbing his electric guitar signaled a return to all out rock and roll force, as in the early songs, but bigger, fiercer as guitar feedback over a menacing keyboard drone built “Sally Was a Cop” into a mournful explosion of violence. Its peak left listeners too stunned to clap, so Escovedo guided the mood into a singalong.

This peaceful respite proved temporary as Escovedo revved the band, the place, and everybody with uptempo flat-out favorites that did what they always do – including a thrilling departure-less encore of “Always A Friend” and “Castanets.”

Folk Style Opener

Chris Gruen, right; and Paul Casanova

Vermont singer-songwriter Chris Gruen – yes, son of rock photographer Bob Gruen – set a quiet, thoughtful mood in a gentle, lyrically smart opener. He strummed or picked an acoustic six-string alongside electric guitarist Paul Casanova, a master of subtle and beautiful coloration whose delicate lyricism echoed the late great Jesse Ed Davis who, in a post-set conversation, he said he’d never heard of.

Paul Casanova

He didn’t have to; his playing was as original as it was lovely, spicing and spacing well-made songs including “Water Into Wine,” “When She Says,” “Heaven on a Car Ride” and “Mothers in the World.”

Chris Gruen

Alejandro Escovedo Set List

(I maybe missed a title or two near the end, swept away. Titles are listed with their source albums.)

Wave – By The Hand of the Father (2002) A Man Under the Influence (2001)

Sometimes – With These Hands (1996)

Break This Time – The Boxing Mirror (2006)

Luna de Miel – Burn Something Beautiful (2016)

Baby’s Got New Plans – 13 Years (1993)

Dear Head on the Wall – The Boxing Mirror (2006)

Something Blue – The Crossing (2018)

San Antonio Rain – Big Station (2012 – Chuck Prophet co-write)

Down in the Bowery – Street Songs of Love (2010)

Sally Was a Cop – Big Station (2012 – Chuck Prophet co-write; also on Live From Norfolk Street album, 2022)

Put You Down – With These Hands (1996)

Always a Friend – Real Animal (2008) 

Castanets – A Man Under the Influence (2001)

BACK PAGES

Two hours, door to door, from my Schenectady home to the Iron Horse

Taste of Northampton, a two-day afternoon food festival in downtown Northampton’s Armory Street Parking Lot off Main Street, packed dozens of food and beverage tent-booths and hundreds of diners into a happily clamorous and aromatic gathering. Eateries in that town of good restaurants pared down their menus for efficient prep and service. Live music, mostly Latin and/or soul, was OK, but unnecessary with Alejandro Escovedo on the Iron Horse menu.

I don’t know if he recognized me, passing close from the downstairs green room through the crowd to the stage where I lurked to photograph. But he fist-bumped me, like in Albany at The Egg, like at the Cohoes Music Hall (playing solo); like at Revolution Hall (big band) the same week the Stones played the Pepsi Arena after Charlie’s cancer scare, like back at the hotel after playing Chickie Wah-Wah in New Orleans.

Before the show

Opener Chris Gruen, left; and Paul Casanova

Escovedo’s set list from Friday at Stone Mountain. Though this was set on the stage, he detoured away early in the Northampton show.