Review: “Ms. Music: Jackie Alper – Her Story” at the Eighth Step at Proctors GE Theatre; Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

Andy Spence, at left, conducts the ensemble

Spirits of folk heroes hovered over the Eighth Step stage Saturday – Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Ronnie Gilbert, Nina Simone, Utah Phillips  – all friends of the late, great Jackie Alper. Nine area musicians honored Alper, our own folk-music Forrest Gump, as Eighth Step host-impresario Margie Rosenkranz describes her. A forest of microphones and instruments, the stage looked like a music store; facing them out front sat Andy Spence like the conductor she was Saturday. Spence and Sarah Dillon wrote the the two-part tribute in songs and stories, working since January through books, interviews and song research.

Margie Rosenkranz

It held together wonderfully well; though some singers sounded stronger than others, some players, too. But it all felt strong in the spirit of the much-loved and admired singer, activist and radio voice.

Nearly-packed – as it was during the Step’s 2007 Alper memorial – the place had the easy warmth of a family reunion; some hadn’t seen each other since Alper died. Part hootenanny, part progressive issues rally, part hero tribute, it felt both universal in its message and personal in its delivery as the performers brought themselves, fully. Rosenkranz called it “a gathering of the clan.”

As Spence told me last week, the two-part tribute sketched Alper’s life in her own words that Ruth Pelham collected in a 2000 interview, plus published recollections by Seeger, Gilbert and a dozen other sources, notably Alper’s son George. Previously committed elsewhere, he couldn’t attend.

Ruth Pelham, narrating, above; Greg Giorgio, below

First-set narration sketched Alper’s long life, launched in an impoverished New York City childhood that powered her contributions to both social movements and music. Pelham recited recollections in Alper’s own words; Greg Giorgio framed them in history: the Depression, WWII, the “red-scare.” Alper declined the star-making opportunity to join the Weavers to work in legal defense of progressive activists.

Songs fit and filled out this framework; Pelham delivering “The Greenhorn Cousin,” written by Alper’s father Jacob Leiserowitz, with very old-New York flavor and Kate Blaine’s bluesy “Frankie and Johnny” providing rootsy-period flavor. Union organizing songs dominated, however, Blaine strong in “Union Maid” and Toby Stover challenging anyone on the fence between boss and workers with “Which Side Are You On.” Narration painted all this in very Jackie terms: When a paddy wagon took her away from a demonstration, her mother yelled, “At least I know where you’ll be tonight,” a night when Jackie took up cigarette smoking in jail.

Kate Blain, above; Toby Stover, below, George Wilson, background

At intermission, the performers smiled their way into the dressing room, happy laughter audible in the theatre as fans greeted each other on the stage in a happy schmooze. In the lobby, activists staffed tables full of signs, brochures, stickers and buttons.

Intermission schmooze onstage, above; folksingers Cathy Winter and Ruth Pelham, below

As Spence explained in an interview last week, she built the second set on the principles Alper’s buttons proclaimed. Some wear their hearts on their sleeves, maybe; but Alper proclaimed them in buttons crowded onto her vest. 

Spence cleverly built the narration and music around these messages, as performers periodically popped up in a whack-a-mole relay of principle, reciting a button each, then sitting as another performer intoned another button. This amused, enlightened and punctuated song and story sequences that – like the first-set songs – used blues or pop songs to punctuate activist material.

Stover demonstrated the folk process in “Round & Round Hitler’s Grave,” setting scornful messages by Guthrie, Seeger and Lampell to “Old Joe Clark.” Blues by Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee and Leadbelly, and “Old Jim Crow” – which Alper wrote with jazz-blues giant Nina Simone – were more than entertaining period pieces; the singers clearly meant them from the heart.  

Ruth Pelham, Kate Blain, and Toby Stover

But nothing else in the show packed the punch of “Singing for Our Lives,” written by Holly Near and sung at first in close harmony by Stover, Pelham and Blain. When the men joined in – fiddler/banjoist/12-string guitar player George Wilson, guitarist/dobro player Michael Slik, bassists/guitarists Howard Jack and Charlie Rhynhart, singer/narrator Greg Giorgio and pianist Alan Thomson – this grew wings, a mighty chorus.

George Wilson, above; Michael Slik, below

Howard Jack, above; Charlie Rhynhart, below; Kate Blain, foreground

Charlie Rynhart

Alan Thomson, foreground

The men took their turn in the life-summing-up “Starlight on the Rails” before Pelham summed up Alper’s later life, fighting Lewy Body Dementia while advocating for staff in her nursing home. Pelham sang Malvina Reynolds’s “Magic Penny” as compassion and love in song.

To choose the evening’s single, brightest star, it would be Pelham who sang and spoke in compelling conviction and read the crowd beautifully. When she heaped scorn on “red-scare” bullies McCarthy, Nixon and Roy Cohn – mentor of a certain amoral real-estate swindler – she looked up as boos filled the room. Then she repeated Cohn’s name to more ridicule.

The rousing closer “If I Had a Hammer” united all the voices and as Spence rang on cue the bell that lay at her feet throughout. More laughs, then a standing ovation.

Without leaving and after a short consultation, they encored in a strong repeat of “Solidarity Forever” to the familiar tune of “John Brown’s Body.”

This was a family reunion, a hootenanny, a progressive-issues rally, a hero tribute, “a gathering of the clan” – a clan including leaders and fans of the Eighth Step, Caffe Lena, Old Songs, and WRPI; institutions Jackie Alper supported and that hold her memory close.

The Songs and who Sang Them – From Spence’s program

ACT ONE

Come and Go with Me Howard

On the Picket Line Ruth

Frankie and Johnny Kate

 There is Power in the Union Charlie

Brother, can you spare a dime Michael

Talking Union George

Di Grine Kuzine (The Greenhorn Cousin) Ruth

Solidarity Forever Howard

Union Maid Kate

ALMANAC MEDLEY (Jackie was a member of the Almanac Singers, a predecessor of the Weavers, and the Priority Ramblers, likewise.)

Union Train George

Which Side Are You On? Toby

Get thee behind me, Satan  George

 ACT TWO

I Never Will Marry Kate & Toby

I’m a-looking for Home George

Round and Round Hitler’s Grave Toby

Overtime Pay Alan

Walk’n My Blues Away Charlie

How Long Blues George

Reuben James Michael

Wasn’t That a Time? Howard, Toby, Ruth

Good Night Irene  George & Ruth

Old Jim Crow Toby

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy George

Singing for our Lives Toby, Ruth, Kate

Starlight on the Rails Howard, Charlie, Michael

Magic Penny Ruth

If I Had a Hammer Howard et al

Solidarity Forever Everybody

Spence’s Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Margie Rosenkranz, who encouraged me to do this project.

Thanks to all the folks who shared their knowledge of Jackie, especially her son, George Alper and her local friends Mabel & Ruth. Thanks to Ruth Pelham, Kevin Roberts, Michael Eck, Alan Thomson, Don Person, Greg Georgio, Sarah Dillon and Marsha Lazarus and Kathleen O’Conner for their memories.

Andy Spence, foreground, with Greg Giorgio

Credits

Producer & Director: Andy Spence

Writing and Script Editor: Sarah Dillon

Interview with Jackie in 2000 by Ruth Pelham

Program: Dan Roesser

Tabling in the Lobby

Performer photos by Joe Alper, Jackie’s husband

Sarah Craig, standing, of Caffe Lena, tabling in the lobby

Ruth Pelham sings atop a stool, with Alan Thomson, left, and George Wilson

Eighth Step board member Ed Guider urges membership support for Caffe Lena, Old Songs and the Eighth Step

Preview: “Ms. Music: The Jackie Alper Story” at the Eighth Step at Proctor’s GE Theatre, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

How to distill a long, musically and politically active, admired and heroic life into a words and music show shorter than a season-long TV mini-series?

Saturday’s Eighth Step premiere of “Ms. Music: The Jackie Alper Story” represents the triumph in a shared struggle by two leaders of the folk community who’d worked for decades with the activist, singer, radio host and guiding spirit. 

Jackie Alper. Photo provided

“I’ve had a terrible time writing about this, terrible,” lamented Eighth Step impresario Margie Rosenkranz, who’s presenting the show Saturday at the Eighth Step at Proctors GE Theatre. “Jackie was the Forrest Gump of the folk world; she was in all the hot places.” 

“In the research of this show, I learned way too much,” agreed Spence, now-retired chief of Old Songs and partner with Sarah Dillon in the year-long writing of what she calls a folk musical. “She was a friend to all of us and she helped all the folk organizations in the area,” said Spence. “She pointed the way, how to think about how music effects peoples’ lives.”

“We talked about Jackie all the time,” said Rosenkranz of co-launching the project with Spence. “Andy and Sarah Dillon picked up the ball when I went to do my (Eighth Step fall and winter) season,” now underway through December.

In the show’s program booklet, Spence cites eight source books including by Weavers Pete Seeger and Ronnie Gilbert, plus others about Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and Scott Alarik’s posthumous Jackie tribute in Sing Out magazine. Spence also acknowledges 11 interview sources including Jackie’s son George and many musicians, notably Ruth Pelham whose interview with Jackie provided the narrative structure for the first act of the two-part show. Those segments are prefaced as “in Jackie’s words.”

Guided by Buttons of Belief

Spence found her path through too much information in the button collection Jackie wore on her vest. Those buttons told “what she believed in,” Spence explained. In the program’s second half, “We tried to put in the things that she wore on her buttons.” As Rosenkranz notes in the concert news release, they include “War is not the Answer,” “Peace Through Music,” “If You’re not outraged You’re Not Paying Attention,” “My Karma Ran Over My Dogma” and “Buttons are Not Enough.”

The program cover shows Greg Artzner’s button collection that paralleled Jackie’s, with messages supporting peace, justice, love and community.

The program lists songs the cast of nine will perform, expressing those values, plus the choruses for each so all can sing along. They’ll sing gospel, blues and folk, including “Old Jim Crow” which Jackie co-wrote with jazz giant Nina Simone.

“This kind of music and singing brings people together,” said Spence. “What I’m hoping is that we have a swelling of pride in this country…and we can survive this,” she said, noting current political and social strife. 

Hard Times, Saved by Song

Jackie lived through similarly troubled times: the Great Depression, WWII, the 1950s red scare/McCarthy-ism and the 1960s folk-scare that was largely a progressives’ reaction.

Fellow folksinger Paul Robeson was a Greenwich Village grammar school classmate and sang at the infamous Peekskill riots years later when KKK thugs attacked a free folk concert, throwing stones at their bus as they fled. Pete Seeger told me that afterward, “I combed the broken glass out of my children’s hair.” Rosenkranz said, “He also picked up one of the stones they were throwing and built his hearth around it” in his hand-built Beacon home. Laughing, she added, “Isn’t that just vintage Pete?”

Between growing up in New York and arriving in Schenectady with husband Joe in 1950, Jackie sang with the Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie and other folk revival pioneers, and with the equally progressive Priority Ramblers while working with folklorist Alan Lomax in the Office of War Information in Washington during WWII. Returning to New York, she presented concerts by Guthrie, Seeger, Leadbelly and more through People’s Songs. Their fees, Spence found: $15 a concert. “Ms. Music” features songs by all these giants. 

A Weaver, for a Time

Jackie was in the original lineup of breakthrough folk stars the Weavers before returning to DC to organize the legal defense of artists and activists the McCarthy Hearings targeted in the “red scare” days. She nominated her friend and room-mate Ronnie Gilbert, whose contralto voice resembled Jackie’s, to replace her after just one concert; and moved to Schenectady when typesetter husband Joe left his printing career in New York to become a photographer, risking this life change after a deadly diagnosis of kidney disease.

Jackie Alper, Ronnie Gilbert and Pete Seeger at Jackie’s 1994 retirement celebration at the Eighth Step. Photo provided

In 1960, Joe and Jackie met Bob Dylan at the newly opened Caffe Lena; one of many folk and jazz stars he’d photograph for publications and record companies. (See Photo Pass, below.) Meanwhile Jackie began volunteering in area folk venues the Eighth Step and Old Songs as well as Caffe Lena, serving on their boards. She also hosted “Mostly Folk” on WRPI for 23 years; when she retired in 1994, Seeger played her retirement celebration at the Eighth Step.

Rosenkranz said longtime folk artist and booking agent David Tamulevich, who played the Eighth Step recently, agreed that “this region is, if not the most active folk music community in the country, it was then.” When Jackie was on WRPI every week, “Jackie had an enormous amount to do with that,” Rosenkranz added. 

Friends in Song, from left: Ruth Pelham, Jackie Alper, Ronnie Gilbert, Jacke’s daughter Jaye, and (partly obscured) Margie Rosenkranz – all singing at the original Eighth Step on Willett St. in Albany. Photo provided

Active in all directions during that time, Jackie fostered artists both established and just emerging while also working for Schenectady City Schools and managing Joe’s photo archives after his too-early death. Spence said, “The whole second half (from 1950 to her death in 2007) was tough to write…because we knew how many (artists) she liked,” and whose music is in the show.

Rosenkranz supported Jackie in her long decline with Lewy Body Dementia, just as Jackie visited Lena Spencer of Caffe Lena and read to her in the hospital after the fall that ultimately took Lena’s life. And just as Jackie was widely known as “the fifth Weaver,” she joked that Rosenkranz was her fourth child, after son George and daughters Jaye and Jeri, the latter two now deceased.

Packed with Tunes

Songs outlive their makers and good songs stay good; and “Ms. Music: The Jackie Alper Story” is packed with tunes. The first half is framed by Ruth Pelham’s invaluable 2000 interview and the second by the ideals that inspired Jackie’s decades of creativity and activism, non-stop work that earned her 2024 induction into the Thomas Edison (“Eddies”) Hall of Fame.

The cast of “Ms. Music: The Jackie Alper Story” are all veteran area artists; most played in Andy Spence’s previous “folk musicals”(See Folk Musicals, below) – Kate Blain, vocals; Greg Griorgio, vocals and narration; Howard Jack, bass and vocals; Ruth Pelham, guitar, vocals and narration; Charlie Rhynhart, guitar, bass and vocals, Michael Slik, dobro, steel guitar and vocals; Toby Stover, keyboards, percussion and vocals; Allen Thomson, keyboards and vocals; and George Wilson, fiddle, banjo and 12-string guitar and vocals.

Show time 7:30, doors 7. $26 adv., $28 on Saturday, $40 front and center. 518-346-6204 www.8thstep.org

BACKSTAGE PASS

Backstage at a Peter, Paul & Mary concert at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, I mentioned to Mary Travers that Jackie was there, waiting at the loading dock area with other fans hoping to meet the stars. 

Mary jumped up, asked “Where?” and took my hand. We swept along a long hallway from the dressing room to where fans waited. Mary was a majestic, rapid-rolling presence so I felt like the engineer of a freight train, moving fast, as we approached the fan throng. When we got to Jackie, Mary dropped my hand and I basically disappeared as she took up Jackie in a warm hug and they reminisced about being Village neighbors.

PHOTO PASS

My friend George Alper, Jackie’s son, once offered to share some family snaps. I knew George’s late father Joe Alper had been a photographer so I said, “Sure, what have you got?” He handed me contact sheets one at a time, each a single print collecting an entire roll of 35 mm black and white negatives in tight rows. One showed George, about five years old, in his pajamas, building a castle of blocks on the floor…with Bob Dylan. 

When Dylan came to Schenectady and Saratoga Springs for his first gigs outside the Village, he couldn’t afford a hotel after his Caffe Lena debut, so Jackie and Joe put him up at their place along with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo. They’re shown walking in the snow together in the Village on the album cover of “The Freewheeling Bob Dylan.”) The Alpers welcomed Dylan and Rotolo to their home at 1620 Brandywine Ave., half a mile from where I now sit; a building we in my family revere by bowing to it whenever we drive past.

FOLK MUSICALS

Andy Spence pioneered the words and music format that shapes “Ms. Music: The Jackie Alper Story.” Her first such effort, “The Visitors – the history, music and songs of the Adirondacks” (2009) featured story-teller/poet Joe Bruchac, troubadour Dan Berggren and others. Spence followed with “The Civil War: A Musical Journey” (2012), her first with narration. Her “Down with the Rent: The Anti-Rent Rebellion of New York State” (2014) inspired UAlbany professor Nancy Newman’s “Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York,” recently published by SUNY Press. Then came Spence’s “Forward Into Light: The American Women’s Suffrage Movement in New York State in Song & Story” (2017), and its shortened version “New York Women: Singing for Suffrage” (2017), and “The Remarkable, Irresistible Erie: Snapshots & Voices” (2023).

Review: Ensemble Connect at Skidmore’s Arthur Zankel Music Center on Friday, October. 24, 2025

Young music students of the Ensemble Connect fellowship program connected a near-capacity audience (admitted free) to four modern chamber-scale short pieces Friday; each of two halves establishing different moods and atmospheres.

Two ensembles took the Zankel stage at first; both in business-like black. A string quartet opened with “Da pace Domine” (Give peace, Lord) Arvo Part’s solemn near-dirge mourning the 2004 Madrid terrorist attack. Its minimalist power packed the same poignant punch as the great rocker Willie Nile’s outraged/sad tribute for the same victims, with his harrowing line “Cellphones ringing in the pockets of the dead.” Part’s slow, low chords rose and grew more complex before subsiding, with little rhythmic development to build quiet, hypnotic effect.

Part’s earlier (1964) “Quintettino”(little quintet) packed woodwinds around French horn in a lighter, more varied three-movement miniature; like “Da pace Domine,” it was only five minutes long. This built in deliberate momentum from a staccato start, almost nervous in its restlessness, into slower, sparser passages with solos springing up from the familiar blended feel.

Then the stage was re-set for Leos Janacek’s nostalgic sextet “Mladi” (Youth); written at 70 in a sentimental evocation of his homeland and family. This began with a hearty bustle, the feel of a city in its kinetic counterpoint. A bass clarinet dialog with the other winds evoked the melancholy of parting from home and family to study music, but a lively march-style Vivace with bright oboe and piccolo restored the piece’s fundamental sentiment. Animated low passages spurred the slower finale before density and tempo increased, rose and fell, quietly resolving.

After intermission, the “Piano Quintet in G Minor” of Dmitry Shostakovich set a more emotive and expressive tone. The three first-part pieces all presented confident precision to be expected from elite Conservatory players; this single composition that comprised the second brought something more personal and propulsive. 

All the players wore black in the first half, while those in the second – who had all played in the first half – wore bright colors. Their body language was more expressive, leaning and shifting in rhythm, raising their bows after bravura phrases.

The piece offered plenty of opportunity for such expression, and for smiles; as a slow Prelude with stratospheric violin passages and plaintive feel flowed into a slightly faster Fugue that flowed low and sparse through exposed piano and cello solos, slowing and growing more solemn as the quintet reassembled. The Scherzo built on blend, syncopation and brief pizzicato energy, the piano pulsating emphatically.

The lovely Lento, lyrical and light, set up a spirited finale alternating quiet, gliding, dance-like passages with assertive piano, then subsiding into serene, sparse, valedictory farewells. Another spry dance of piano and violin brought things home.

A standing ovation, a curtain call; then the players left the stage to chat in the aisles with Skidmore music students.

“Connect” is quite correct; a complicated pedigree as a program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education; with support from the family of Beverly Sanders Payne (Skidmore 1959) and her late husband David B. Payne.

A two-year fellowship program, Ensemble Connect unites students of elite music programs including the conservatories Colburn, Eastman,, Juilliard, Curtis, Manhattan, New England, Peabody, Shepherd, Stony Brook, USC and Yale.

Friday’s performance culminated a weeklong residency with numerous community concerts and workshops at Skidmore and elsewhere.

Future events of the Skidmore Music Department and Office of Special Programs include the Skidmore and Bennington Folk Festival Nov. 8, SURROUND: Julie Doiron Nov. 9 and a dozen additional performances through mid-December by both student and professional touring artists.

Review: Tom Rush and Matt Nakoa at the Eighth Step at Proctors GE Theatre, Saturday, October 18, 2025

A year ago, Tom Paxton (88) played the Eighth Step on his farewell tour; on Saturday, Tom Rush (84) played a low-key, subtle but strong show proving he has miles, and albums, still to go.

Paxton had played with the Don Juans, singer-songwriters Don Henry and Jon Vezner. They were to play Caffe Lena this week, until Vezner’s illness cancelled that show. But we digress.

Rush played Saturday with the generation-younger skilled singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist Matt Nakoa in a two-set show, each shining in solo spots as well as polished but unfussy duets.

Tom Rush, right; and Matt Nakoa

Recorded bluegrass antiques greeted the mostly boomer crowd filing into Proctors black-box GE Theatre; then Rush followed Margie Rosenkranz’s introduction to the stage and went straight for the funny-bone with the wry, fatalistic, bouncy “Making the Best of a Bad Situation.” 

Matt Nakoa joined in for “Glory Road” – written 54 years ago but un-recorded until Nakoa as producer put it on “Gardens Old, Flowers New,” Rush’s 19th album since 1962. Nakoa shifted to a grand piano and synthesizer for “I Won’t Be Back At All.” This somber farewell moved slower than the preceding mid-tempo numbers and was the first of several to address aging and loss. That theme didn’t dominate, however, as Rush riffed through covers and originals, folk, blues and rock; and Nakoa shifted from guitar to keyboards and back. Rush spoke-sang its sad lyric, then spiced the chorus with a skat-yodel.

Rush introduced songs with stories, noting he’d met Joni Mitchell in 1966 and begged her for tunes to fill out an album two years overdue to set up her “Urge for Going.” Later he enviously marveled that Jackson Browne wrote “These Days” while only 16, adding “I hate him!” Self-deprecating, sly, he noted 7.5 million YouTube plays of “The Remember Song” hadn’t earned him a dime, but sounded genuinely grateful that “No Regrets” had put two of his children through college. This paean to fading memory also set up a tasty joke; after mourning misplaced keys, glasses, planner, his face went all mock-confused as the next verse should have arrived. As if forgetting the words, he just kept strumming until the audience got it.

His first set featured two Nakoa solo songs, both well-made and played with an earnestness that contrasted nicely with Rush’s ease. Sandwiched between Rush’s antique blues romp “Drop Down Mama” and “The Remember Song” goof, Nakoa’s “Holding Out Hope” and “Lightning” felt charmingly sincere.

Rush wrapped both sets with story songs, the railroad epic “Panama Limited” in the first and the hometown-warm “Merrimack County” in the second. He played skillful, unflashy bottleneck slide in “Panama,” and noted that, for all the appeal of his older tunes, “I’m writing better stuff, since” – a forward-looking assertion of purpose that would jump-start his second set.

He sang “Ladies Love Outlaw” in bold, assertive strength as he retook the stage, cueing Nakoa’s piano solo, “Let it happen, Cap’n” then asking “You done?” as he resumed singing. “These Days” eased back, into a warm poignance. Then, sounding every bit the Harvard English major he’d been when he started his career in Cambridge coffee-houses, he described the folk process as “musical Darwinism” – old tunes get new parts as succeeding generations sing them. This launched “The Cuckoo,” spiced with Nakoa guitar solos.

Nakoa’s second-set spot featured the cartoon-soundtrack piano piece “Tumbleweed Tango” that playfully went variously Latin until he raised his arms in flamenco-style triumph.

Rush took over for “What’s Wrong With America?” – perfect for No Kings Day with its mock lament that “the poor have too much and the rich don’t have enough.” The populist in Rush combined with the jokester to beautifully scornful effect as the crowd sang or laughed along.

Rush and Nakoa finished strong with the wistful farewell “No Regrets,” third song Rush ever wrote and covered by folk, rock, metal, even hip-hop artists. “Driving Wheel,” by contrast, was all regrets, but cloaked in delicious music, with Nakoa echoing Garth Hudson’s grand style in a soaring organ solo, beefy bass lines punching out from the other end of his synthesizer keyboard.

Rush set up “Merrimack County” with word-gems he collected from neighbors there, decorated with synthesizer drones and piano pointillism.

They didn’t bother leaving entirely before launching a rocking encore of “Bo Diddley,” whom Rush noted was among guests at his 2012 50th anniversary-in-show-business at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Rush and Nakoa rocked it for real, Rush dropping his mellow baritone into its lowest range for booming authority and going mock-pedantic near the end: “WHOM do you love?”

Rush first payed Symphony Hall in 1958; and he told the Boston Globe before his 2012 celebration there, “The artist plus the setting equal the experience, which is what people want.”

The Eighth Step, where he’s played since its days on Albany’s Willett Street church basement home, once again proved a comfortable, cozy setting for Rush’s easy-chair style, diverse repertoire, deceptively simple guitar picking, and Nakoa, an ace accompanist.

Set List

I: 7:34 – 8:35 p.m.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation (Rush solo)

Glory Road (Rush with Nakoa, guitar)

I Won’t Be Back at All (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

The Urge for Going (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

Drop Down Mama  (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

Holding Out Hope (Nakoa solo, guitar)

Lightning (Nakoa solo, piano)

The Remember Song (Rush solo)

Sienna’s Song (Rush solo)

Panama Limited (Rush solo)

Intermission 

II: 9:06 – 9:58 including encore

Ladies Love Outlaws (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

These Days (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

The Cuckoo (Rush with Nakoa, guitar)

Tumbleweed Tango (Nakoa, piano [no vocal])

What’s Wrong with America (Rush solo)

No Regrets (Rush solo)

Driving Wheel (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

Merrimack County (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

Bo Diddley (Rush with Nakoa, piano)

Previews: Brian Patneaude, Leo Russo, Tom Rush

When jazz drummer-pianist Cliff Brucker composed “Schenectady Is The Place,” he might have been predicting this weekend, alive with two jazz saxophone shows – Brian Patneaude Thursday then Leo Russo Friday – followed by a Saturday show by folksinger Tom Rush.

Thursday night, tenor saxophonist Brian Patneaude leads his Quartet at the Van Dyck Jazz Club, upstairs from Stella Pasta Bar (237 Union St.)

Thursday’s show of original Patneaude tunes and jazz classics marks a return for the saxophonist and his longtime drummer Danny Whelchel; they played in the Van Dyck’s 90s house band for weekly jams. Patneaude’s Quartet also celebrated the release of its debut album “Variations” (2003) there.

Brian Patneaude at Jazz on Jay in July 2024. Michael Hochanadel photo

“I have fond memories of hearing many of my biggest musical inspirations there,” says Patneaude, “including Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Chris Potter, Dave Holland, Brian Blade and so many more.” Note Patneaude mentioned Brecker first; his own kinetic, controlled style resembles Brecker’s smoothness and drive. Patneaude also played the Van Dyck with Keith Pray’s Big Soul Ensemble during the big band’s long residency there. (He’ll play with Pray Tuesday, Oct. 28 at the Cock ’N’ Bull in Galway, the big band’s new home, since COVID.)

At the Van Dyck Thursday, Patneaude and Whelchel will play with pianist Rob Lindquist and bassist Jerod Grieco. Patneaude says, “We couldn’t be more excited to return to this legendary stage!” 

Showtime is 7:30 p.m., dinner service at Stella Pasta Bar begins at 4 p.m. Admission is $15, advance; $20 at the door. 518-630-5173 http://www.stellapastabar.com/vdmc.

Patneaude is a fan of Albany-born saxophonist Leo Russo, playing Friday at A Place for Jazz a few blocks from the Van Dyck. Along with saxophonist Nick Brignola, Russo inspired a new generation of area reed players.

Leo Russo. Photo provided

“I’ve always admired him. His playing is top notch,” Patneaude told the Times Union’s R.J. DeLuke before a 2018 show. “He knows every tune you can throw at him and even if he doesn’t know, he can navigate his way through it and play some of the most beautiful, lyrical improvisations you’ll ever hear.”

The Leo Russo Sextet plays Friday at A Place for Jazz in the Carl B. Taylor Auditorium of the SUNY Schenectady County Community College music department, with his saxophonist son Lee Russo, pianist Larry Ham, guitarist Mike Novakowski, bassist Pete Toigo and drummer Bob Halek. All are busy area pros (though Ham lives in the lower Hudson Valley), each playing in multiple bands. Most are also teachers, as Leo Russo was for 27 years in Troy public schools.

A shout-out here to Cliff Brucker who’s played with Russo since 1986 in bands large and small including the Full Circle group which Brucker organized to showcase Russo in the studio, then onstage. 

“When Leo turned 80…in 2016, I came up with the idea of getting him ‘on wax’ to document his playing,” Brucker said. They recorded at the College of St. Rose where Brucker was then teaching. They completed “Full Circle, Vol. 2” on Russo’s 81st birthday. The albums marked a career renaissance for veteran sax-master Russo.

Show time is 7:30 p.m. $25, $10 for students with ID. http://www.aplaceforjazz.org. Cash or check sales at the door, no credit cards.

A few years younger than Leo Russo (88), folksinger Tom Rush (84) returns Saturday to the Eighth Step at Proctors GE Theatre (432 State St.) – a frequent stop in a touring career deep as Dylan’s. 

Rush started performing in Boston-area coffeehouses while studying at Harvard, recorded his first album onstage at the Unicorn there in 1962 and hasn’t stopped for long since. 

Tom Rush. Photo provided

His low-key style has endured as a model of durability through unerring taste in selecting songs that fit his low-pressure voice. He trusts the songs to do the heavy lifting and simply releases them before us, which is why his voice has lasted so well. He’s credited with launching the 1970s singer-songwriter era by discovering songs by stars-to-be Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and others. An early peak “The Circle Game” (1968) remains his highest-charting album, introducing three Mitchell tunes, two by Taylor and one each by Browne, Charlie Rich and Billy Hill. “The Circle Game” also introduced two Rush originals other singers have covered since: “No Regrets” and “Rockport Sunday” – the latter lending its name to Rush’s COVID-era online series of homemade kitchen table videos of his songs.

That’s Rush’s gift, so obvious but so effortless-looking that it’s easy to overlook its power: Wherever he plays, from his woody north shore kitchen to Boston’s classy Symphony Hall and everywhere he plays on tour, he makes us feel we’ve just pulled up a chair at his kitchen table. He sits across from us with his six string, his easy voice and headful of top tunes and tall tales.

He’s invited us into that intimate performing style for decades of shows here, including the only concert I ever saw in Troy’s Proctors Theater. This was in 1974, a few years after “The Circle Game.” He brought cool folk-rock openers Orphan and Travis, Shook and the Club Wow, before George Carlin hired them as his longtime opener. Had to be fall: Rush wryly touted his “Ladies Love Outlaws” album as “a perfect holiday gift.”

His Eighth Step shows are year-after-year favorites. Once, during intermission, Eighth Step impresario Margie Rosenkranz brought me into Rush’s dressing room. He barely looked up from the book he was reading – large, hard-cover, Harvard-caliber – as she asked me to tote his two six strings onto the stage. I got a nice round of applause but I’ve wondered ever since what he was reading.

Berklee grad Matt Nakoa plays piano with Rush on Saturday at the Eighth Step. 7:30 p.m. $33 advance, $35 on Saturday; $60 front and center seating with 6:30 onstage meet and greet. 518-346-6204 www.proctors.org www.8thstep.org

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.