TATIANA EVA-MARIE & AVALON JAZZ BAND

Tatiana Eva-Marie, is a Brooklyn-based singer and bandleader. Born and raised in Europe in a professional musical family, a Swiss-French composer and a Romanian classical violinist, Tatiana Eva-Marie grew up equally fascinated by her father’s New Orleans jazz records, and her mother’s heritage of Klezmer and Gypsy folk music.

Nicknamed “the Gypsy-jazz Warbler” by the New York Times and acclaimed as a “millennial shaking up the jazz scene” by magazine Vanity Fair, Tatiana Eva-Marie returns to explore the music of composer Django Reinhardt through her own original arrangements and lyrics in her latest project “Djangology”, a tribute inspired by her French and Romanian Gypsy heritage and her love for the Parisian art scene of the 1920s to the 1960s.

Acclaimed by such publications as the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times, and Tatiana performs regularly in New York City, and around the world, with performances at The New Orleans Jazz Festival, Jazz Aspen SnowMass, SummerStage NY, Riverboat Jazz Festival (Denmark), Bahrein Jazz Festival, Le Méridien (Paris), Tanzcafe Arlberg (Austria), Jazz aux Sources Festival (France), Le Bal Blomet (Paris), Cully Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing, Deva Jazz Festival (Romania) and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

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ARTISTRY & SOUL: AN EVENING WITH GREGORY PORTER

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Gregory Porter was raised in Bakersfield, California, and he cites the Bakersfield Southern gospel sound, as well as his mother’s Nat King Cole record collection, as fundamental influences on his own sound. In 2013, he released his breakout Blue Note debut Liquid Spirit, which sold more than a million albums and earned Porter his first Grammy Award, with NPR declaring him “America’s Next Great Jazz Singer.” His 2016 follow-up, Take Me to the Alley, won Porter his second Grammy for Best Vocal Jazz Album and established him as his generation’s most soulful jazz singer-songwriter. His 2021 release Still Rising collected new songs, covers, duets and a selection of his favorite songs. Concertgoers can expect to hear a selection of material from across Porter’s Grammy-nominated and Grammy-winning albums.

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VANESSA RUBIN QUARTET

New York City vocalist extraordinaire and 2020 NAACP Image Awards nominee makes a one-night-only return.

Vanessa’s journey to becoming a jazz singer could be said to have begun at an early age. She was characterized by her mother as always being “a very vocal child,” and knew Vanessa would, “do something with that big ol’ mouth of hers.” Coming from parents who valued academia, discipline and hard work, that “something” was meant to be law school. Attaining a BA from the The Ohio State School of Journalism in 1979 was not a disappointment. However, her decision to pursue a career jazz singing did come as a surprise. Vanessa’s fascination with language coupled with her passion for music, especially jazz, pointed her on a collision course toward jazz performance.

Her “a-ha” moment came during a college beauty pageant at which Vanessa was accompanied by a very young, and even then, a very capable Bobby Floyd of Columbus, Ohio. Her first performance of a jazz evergreen, the Billie Holiday original “God Bless The Child,” garnered both rousing applause and the winning talent award. Most importantly though, it awakened what Vanessa describes as “her calling.” “I fell in love with the moment, the music, the audience and the effect it had on them and me,” Rubin remembers.

Vanessa’s first gigs began around 1980 in small clubs around Cleveland such as Tucker’s Place, Bob’s Toast of the Town, Lancer’s Steak House, Club Isabella, The Native Son and The Teal Lounge. Some early band mates included Wynn Bibbs, Skip Gibson, saxophonist and arranger Willie Smith, Neal Creque, Matthew “Chink” Stevenson and, later, the uniquely soulful organ quartet of The Blackshaw Brothers with Cecil Rucker on vibes. “We worked 8 days a week all over Cleveland catching the tail end of what was left over from the good old days,” Rubin recalls. After two years, Rubin was anxious to set her sights on New York where she earnestly and humbly soaked up the tutelage of many veterans like Pharaoh Sanders, Frank Foster and Barry Harris.

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GWENYTH HAYES QUARTET

Bassist and vocalist Gwenyth Hayes’ hybrid reinterpretations give due respect to classic songs and soul covers from many genres and eras. They center around her sultry voice, groove-oriented bass lines and tight instrumental arrangements. This approach serves to reinvent popular soul, jazz, soft rock, and blues standards with a sensual and contemporary feel. Gwenyth’s sound appeals to diverse audiences and is meant to be reminiscent to many generations.

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VANESSA RUBIN

Revered as both a torchbearer and a storyteller, jazz vocalist Vanessa Rubin possesses a voice hailed for crystalline clarity, hearth-like warmth and playful lioness sass. The Cleveland native brings a wealth of diverse influences to her vocal performance from both the Trinidadian/Caribbean roots of her mother and traditional jazz by way of her Louisiana-born father. Additional homespun influences include the melodic bell tone clarity of a young Capital Records recording artist, Nancy Wilson, the fire of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, the sweet sounds of trumpeter Blue Mitchell as well as her love of the Motown Sound…especially girl groups like the Supremes.Revered as both a torchbearer and a storyteller, jazz vocalist Vanessa Rubin possesses a voice hailed for crystalline clarity, hearth-like warmth and playful lioness sass. The Cleveland native brings a wealth of diverse influences to her vocal performance from both the Trinidadian/Caribbean roots of her mother and traditional jazz by way of her Louisiana-born father. Additional homespun influences include the melodic bell tone clarity of a young Capital Records recording artist, Nancy Wilson, the fire of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, the sweet sounds of trumpeter Blue Mitchell as well as her love of the Motown Sound…especially girl groups like the Supremes.

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