Music
Highly Selective Listings
Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events
A thoughtful, discerning, and carefully compiled list of the most notable, promising and unique musical events for the month of March in New York City.
WINTERJAZZFEST
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyIt’s the first night of the Winter Jazzfest and a sold-out show. I’m looking forward to Colin Stetson who I’ve heard twice before and want more of, also the Ex, whom I haven’t heard in years. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a fan, just curious.
Winter Jazzfest
COLOR AND GROOVE:
Winter Jazzfest 2016
By Marshall Yarbrough
Arriving at (le) poisson rouge a half-hour after doors for the opening night of the Winter Jazzfest, I sat in the bar area watching the venue fill up and waiting for feeling to return to my fingertips. Next to me, a pair of young Chinese women with Xs on their hands and braces on their teeth, across the room a British couple with a whole bottle of wine—so an international crowd, both sober and festive. There was the familiar opening-night buzz in the air that made my pre-show impatience more bearable.
Winter Jazzfest
Cinematic Indulgence, Rewarded
By Daniel GoldI began my night on Saturday, January 16, with a legal PED—a double espresso—in anticipation of my first Winter Jazzfest marathon: twelve venues, seven hours, and 100-plus groups. By morning, instead of a 26.2 decal for the butt of my jeans, I had a knotty hangover and a move-the-decimal-one-to-the-right-size credit card bill. Notes on some damn good jazz performances, too.
Winter Jazzfest
Rova’s Electric Ascension
By Chris NelsonWinter Jazzfest concluded with the New York City premiere of Rova Saxophone Quartet’s Electric Ascension, a 21st-century reincarnation of John Coltrane’s Ascension—Trane’s 1965 paean to freedom and expression. Electric Ascension brought together an all-star cast of improvisers to channel the spirit of Coltrane’s seminal album, which Coltrane himself never performed live.
Winter Jazzfest
Diary of a Mad Composer
By George GrellaI want to get the facts out of the way first: the New York City Winter Jazzfest is one of the finest festivals of its kind. It’s the jazz event that this city—the center of the jazz universe—deserves: it expands across the history of the music, from trad to free to fusion, and when it reaches outside of jazz it ignores smooth pop and diluted rock, blues, and folk in favor of musicians who work with improvisation: Colin Stetson, Bill Laswell, the Ex, Dither, Kaki King. Jazz is not commercial music, and the non-jazz in the festival is in no way commercial filler.
