AXEL TOSCA
Three time Grammy-nominated Axel Tosca is a highly talented Cuban jazz pianist and composer who has gained recognition for his virtuosic performances and innovative compositions that blend elements of jazz, classical music, Hip-Hop and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Born in Cuba in 1983, Tosca grew up in a prestigious musical family. His mother is the renowned Cuban Trova singer Xiomara Laugart and his father is Cuban folk singer-guitarist Alberto Tosca. Introduced to guitar at age four, Tosca was also playing piano by age seven and soon joined his parents on stage playing his first show at Casa de las Americas.
Along with performing with his parents, he attended music school. One of his beloved teachers was Miriam Valdez, the daughter of Cuban piano legend Bebo Valdez and sister of Chucho Valdez. This first-class education enabled him to gain a wide range of experiences. Tosca has since become a sought-after performer, collaborator, and session musician, working with a diverse range of musicians and groups including jazz greats like Roy Hargrove and Steve Turre, Dennis & Swing, the Afro-Cuban All-Stars, Bobby Carcases, Teresa Garcia Caturla, Jose Miguel Crego, and more. Along with classical music, jazz, and Latin traditions, he also discovered hip-hop and played with The Roots when they toured Cuba. There is no limit for this visionary pianist, composer, producer, arranger and musical director.
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MARTA SÁNCHEZ
Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, pianist and composer Marta Sánchez is actively working in the contemporary creative music scene in New York City and around the globe. Charting a significant path through her innovative and original music, she has reached an international audience, gaining significant global recognition.
Marta has toured the United States, Europe, South America, and Central America, performing as a leader or as a sideman at prestigious venues and prominent festivals such as the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, Jazzaldia in San Sebastian, Inntone in Austria, Eurojazz in Mexico City, Eurojazz in Athens, Jazz Festival Vitoria Gasteiz, Winter Jazz Festival in New York, and Madrid, among many others. In the United States, she has performed at some of the most prestigious clubs including the Carnegie Hall, Blue Note, Village Vanguard, Birdland, Roulette, Dizzy’s Jazz, The Jazz Gallery, The 55 Bar, Smalls, Mezzrow among many others.
Furthermore, Marta has been actively collaborating with other artists, playing and recording in David Murray’s Quartet, Maria Grand’s duo, and the Anna Weber and Angela Morris Big Band, among others.
The Band: Marta Sanchez – piano | Harish Raghavan-bass | Ofri Nehemya – drums
Two Shows: 7:00pm & 9:00pm
Cover: $35.00
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JOE ALTERMAN
Atlanta native Joe Alterman expresses a certain upbeat naivete, with a broad smile and bright eyes that make you feel welcome. One would not guess that this is a man hailed by greats; Ramsey Lewis describes his piano playing as ‘a joy to behold’. Les McCann states ‘As a man and musician he is already a giant’.
Journalist Nat Hentoff championed three of Alterman’s albums, as well as his writing (Joe wrote liner notes to three Wynton Marsalis/JALC albums, calling one of Joe’s columns “one of the very best pieces on the essence of jazz, the spirit of jazz, that I’ve ever read, and I’m not exaggerating.”
7pm & 9pm Cover $40 The Club Reservations Not Available Please arrive 20-30 minutes before shows. Bar open from 5pm to 2am never a cover to enjoy cocktails or relax in our historic art deco music room after 10pm.
Joe Alterman Trio | The Next Generation In Jazz
Nathaniel Schroeder – bass | Marlon Patton – drums | Joe Alterman – piano
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Junior Mance was born Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. on October 10, 1928 in Evanston, Illinois. When he was five years old, he started playing piano on an upright where his father taught him to play stride piano and boogie-woogie. With his father’s permission, he had his first professional gig in Chicago, Illinois at the age of ten when his upstairs neighbor, a saxophone player, needed a replacement for a pianist who was ill.
At Roosevelt College in Chicago he signed up for music classes but discovered jazz was forbidden and left before the school year was finished. Mance first played and recorded with Gene Ammons in Chicago in 1947 while he was enrolled at Roosevelt. While on tour in Chicago, Lester Young saw him playing with Ammons and had him sit in. He ended up recording with Young for Savoy Records that year, and reunited with Ammons to record with Sonny Stitt for Prestige Records in 1950.
Drafted into the Army in 1951, two weeks before shipping out to Korea from basic training, Cannonball Adderley helped Mance score a position in the 36th Army Band at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he remained as the company clerk. Back in Chicago after being discharged two years later, Junior immediately started working at the Bee Hive Jazz Club in Chicago. He backed Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and Sonny Stitt among others.
Parker encouraged Mance to move to New York, and in 1954, he recorded with Dinah Washington, touring with her over the next two years and learning accompaniment technique from her arranger, Jimmy Jones. From a live session recorded in 1954 in Los Angeles, California that included him, Washington, Clifford Brown, Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson, Herb Geller, Harold Land, Richie Powell, Keter Betts, George Morrow, and Max Roach, EmArcy released two LPs, Dinah Jams and Jam Session.
The Fifties saw Junior joining Cannonball Adderley’s first civilian band, making several recordings for EmArcy/Mercury and supported Dinah Washington on her In the Land of Hi-Fi album. He would go on torecord with Johnny Griffin, James Moody, and Wilbur Ware. Then he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band. By the end of the decade he recorded his debut as a leader on the Verve label.
Over the course of his career he would record with Capitol and Atlantic, and Sackville record labels. He continued to record and perform during the next three decades. As an educator he taught at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music for 23 years, counting Brad Mehldau and Larry Goldings among his students before retiring in 2011.
From 1990 to 2009 Mance was part of the all-star group called “100 Gold Fingers” which frequently toured Japan. The rotating lineup included Toshiko Akiyoshi, Monty Alexander, Geri Allen, Lynne Arriale, Kenny Barron, Joanne Brackeen, Ray Bryant, Bill Charlap, Cyrus Chestnut, Gerald Clayton, Eric Reed, and twenty-two others with bassist Bob Cranshaw and either Alan Dawson or Grady Tate on drums.
Pianist and composer Junior Mance, who suffered from Alzheimer’s and a fall, died on January 17, 2021 from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 92 in New York.Acquaint an inquisitive mind with a dose of an Evanston pianist who is in the company of musical genius around the world as a member of the jazz canon…Acquaint an inquisitive mind with a dose of an Evanston pianist who is in the company of musical genius around the world as a member of the jazz canon…Acquaint an inquisitive mind with a dose of an Evanston pianist who is in the company of musical genius around the world as a member of the jazz canon…Acquaint an inquisitive mind with a dose of an Evanston pianist who is in the company of musical genius around the world as a member of the jazz canon…
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Mark Finkin was born to deaf parents in New York City on October 9, 1949 and has been making music since he was five. He started playing at Carnegie Hall at the age of seven and went on to study at Music and Art High School in New York City and later went on to the Midwest to study at The College of Emporia for music. He moved to Maui, Hawaii where he studied composition and piano at The Atlantic University.
Returning to New York City after several years on the island, he recorded with Boris Midney, a Soviet alto saxophonist who took Mark and his group Windmill under his wing. Performing in the New York, New Jersey area he relocated to Florida. While in Florida he honed his craft and recorded and performed with Music of the Spheres who fused laser light and sound to the Miami Space and Transit Planetarium.
Once again Mark returned to New York to settle in Saratoga Springs where he has been performing in and around the Capital district. He has played with Barry Manilow, Alexis Cole, Sherry Saba, Michael Panza, Larry Levine, Mike Wick, Sharron Edwards and Ron Mayfield to name a few.
Finkin’s talent lies beyond jazz as he has written the music for the local production of Popeye Canfield, is the pianist for the inspirational Christian group Revealer, and has played piano at The Lodge in Saratoga Springs for the last six years during the Saratoga, New York racing season.
Pianist Mark Finkin continues to perform, compose and record with Las Manos and his daughter Alexis Cole.