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Athenaeum Jazz at the Studio

Kate McGarry's "Less is More" Trio
School of the Arts Studio
4441 Park Blvd., San Diego
March 6, 2010, 8 p.m.
Members $19/nonmembers $24

Jazz vocalist Kate McGarry’s “Less Is More” Trio makes its San Diego debut, featuring Keith Ganz on guitar and Clarence Penn on drums. The trio is touring in support of McGarry’s latest CD, If Less is More…Nothing Is Everything, Grammy-nominated as the Best Jazz Vocal recording of 2008.

 

Jazz at the Athenaeum Winter 2010

January 27, 7:30pm – Ignacio Berroa Quartet
February 10, 7:30pm – Holly Hofmann/Bill Cunliffe/Ken Peplowski
February 18, 7:30pm – Trio da Paz
February 25, 7:30pm – Eric Vloeimans “Fugimundi” Trio

The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library announces its winter Jazz at the Athenaeum series, which includes two local debuts. The series features internationally acclaimed musicians in the library’s intimate space. Tickets for the series are $68 for members and $88 for nonmembers. Single tickets are $19 for members and $24 for nonmembers. Tickets are available now.

Thanks to San Diego Brazil Carnival for their support of Athenaeum Jazz.

The series opens on Wednesday, January 27, with the Ignacio Berroa Quartet, featuring top Afro-Cuban jazz drummer Berroa with Ben Wendel on saxophone, Otmaro Ruiz on piano, and Carlos Puerto on bass.  Berroa’s previous Athenaeum appearance was at The Neurosciences Institute with pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba.A native of Cuba, Berroa swiftly rose to become a first-call drummer after moving to the U.S. in 1980. His extensive credits include work with Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Ron Carter, Slide Hampton, Gilberto Gil, and Ivan Lins, among many others. The New York Times said, “If you want to understand the new Latin jazz – which is one of the almost measurably vital things going on now in jazz – you might as well start with the drummers. This makes Ignacio Berroa quite important.”

A special CD release concert by flutist Holly Hofmann and pianist Bill Cunliffe will take place Wednesday, February 10. Hofmann and Cunliffe are celebrating their nearly 20-year musical partnership with a brilliant new recording entitled Three’s Company. One of the album’s guest soloists, Ken Peplowski, joins them for this live performance. A favorite with Athenaeum audiences, Holly Hofmann is one of jazz’s leading flutists. JazzTimes said, “[she] possesses one of the most exquisite flute tones in jazz…a sure technique, inventive ideas, a secure sense of swing and a broad emotional range.” Bill Cunliffe last appeared at the library in 2008 with Frank Potenza’s organ trio, and was also conductor for Hofmann’s June 2008 “Jobim with Strings” program at Qualcomm Hall.  One of the top jazz pianists on the West Coast, Cunliffe was a winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition and has earned Grammy nominations for his work as a composer and arranger. Hofmann and Cunliffe are joined by Ken Peplowski, known for extraordinary mastery of both the clarinet and the tenor sax, who made a memorable debut at the library in 2007 with Howard Alden.

Thursday, February 18, brings a San Diego debut by one of the top ensembles in Brazilian jazz, Trio da Paz, comprised of guitarist Romero Lubambo, bassist Nilson Matta, and drummer Duduka da Fonseca. Lubambo last performed at the library in 2004 with vocalist Luciana Souza, and da Fonseca was drummer for the memorable 2000 Neurosciences appearance by Quarteto Jobim-Morelenbaum Formed in 1990, the Trio da Paz redefines Brazilian jazz with their harmonically adventurous interactions, daring improvisations and dazzling rhythms. JazzTimes explained, “Paz is Portuguese for peace. From all that peace comes the boundless energy that describes the Trio's playing: Da Fonseca's tireless Brazilian syncopations, Matta’s equally percussive, driving bass lines and Lubambo's lilting, soaring lyricism.”

The series concludes on Thursday, February 25, with another San Diego debut by one of Europe’s leading  jazz groups, the Eric Vloeimans “Fugimundi” Trio, featuring Vloeimans on trumpet, Harmen Franje on piano and Anton Goudsmit on guitar. The Rotterdam-based trio is on tour to promote its latest CD, Live at Yoshis, recorded at the Oakland jazz club in 2008. Vloeimans studied jazz and classical trumpet at the Rotterdam Conservatory and the New School in New York City, where he also performed as part of the Frank Foster and Mercer Ellington big bands. JazzTimes called him, “A first-rate improviser possessing a depth of jazz experience,” and “a warm-toned modernist whose inside-outside trajectories unfurl with brassy abandon.”

 

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