Celebrate Jazz Journalist Association (JJA) Jazz Hero Award Recipient Eugenie Jones for her community work in jazz promotion, education, and outreach !!!
Eugenie Jones is an award-winning American singer/songwriter, producer, and legacy activist. Her 2022 release Players ranked #30 on Jazz Week’s Top 100 Albums for 2022. She was also a first-round Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy® contender and ranked #7 on Jazz Week’s Top 50 charts.
On her independent label, Open Mic Records, Jones has successfully produced three projects and has earned recognition as an Earshot Jazz Vocalist and the Year Award recipient while also being the first-ever vocal recording artist to receive the Earshot Jazz Recording of the Year Golden Ear Award.
As a warm, engaging singer with an electric stage presence, 2022 found Jones praised by jazz legends and favorably reviewed in every major jazz publication, including DownBeat, JazzTimes, Jazzlz, and many others.
KNKX Radio’s Robin Lloyd will present the award on behalf of JJA.
The evening features a tribute to the era of American but also Italian swing. Immortal songs such as “Why don’t you do right?”, “On the sunny side of the street” but also “Looking for you”, “Ma l’amore no” and many others, for an evening with an exquisitely vintage flavor.
Experience an 3 hour evening of entertainment that offers together a jazz concert, an excellent candlelit dinner and a night tour in the center of Rome, all aboard a historic tram from the ATAC collection, restored and rearranged as a restaurant and concert hall traveling.
Tramjazz — Piazza di Porta Maggiore (parking platform, at the tram terminus)
Located at Artour Sas of Rossella Taverna & C. – Via Giorgio Vasari 14, 00196 Rome – P.I. 16376741001.
Kathleen Bertrand will be kicking-off the Balzer Theater’s Summer Live At The Balzer Jazz Series for a one night performance delivering her classic vocal stylings as only she can do. The evening is curated by pianist, composer and producer Tyrone Jackson. Joining the singer will be Phil Davis, Chris Burroughs, Terrell Montgomery and Rod Harris Jr.
Spend a very special evening and as we celebrate Father’s Day!!!
Ted Lewis was born Theodore Leopold Friedman on June 6, 1890 in Circleville, Ohio. His first instrument was the piccolo, however, he also learned to play the C-melody saxophone but was known principally as a clarinetist throughout his long career.
He was one of the first Northern musicians to imitate the style of New Orleans jazz musicians who came to New York in the 1910s. He first recorded in 1917 with Earl Fuller’s Jazz Band, a band attempting to copy the sound of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
His earliest clarinet recordings were not very good but as his career gained momentum he refined his style under the influence of the first New Orleans clarinetists Larry Shields, Alcide Nunez, and Achille Baquet who relocated to New York.
By 1919, Lewis was leading his own band, and had a recording contract with Columbia Records. At the start of the Roaring Twenties, he was being promoted as one of the leading lights of the mainstream form of jazz popular at the time. He hired musicians Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Frank Teschemacher, and Don Murray to play clarinet in his band. Over the years he hired trumpeter Muggsy Spanier and trombonist George Brunies as he led his band to be second only to the Paul Whiteman band in popularity.
One of his most memorable songs, Me and My Shadow, had usher Eddie Chester mimicking his movements during his act. He then hired four Black shadows, the most famous being Charles “Snowball” Whittier, making Lewis one of the first prominent white entertainers to showcase Black performers, albeit in stereotypical ways, to be onstage, on film, and eventually on network television.
Remaining successful through the Great Depression, Ted adopted a battered top hat for sentimental, hard-luck tunes. He kept his band together through the 1950s and continued to make appearances in Las Vegas, Nevada and on the popular television shows of the decade. He would go on to perform in the early talkie films by Universal Studios and Columbia Pictures.
Clarinetist, bandleader, and singer Ted Lewis, transitioned in his sleep from lung failure on August 25, 1971 in New York City. He was 81. His memorabilia resides in The Ted Lewis Museum, created by his wife Adah, located across the street from where he was born in Circleville.
Join MOCA for an unforgettable evening of Jazz at MOCA, featuring Cuban-born, singer-songwriter Leslie Cartaya. Her unique sound – a dynamic blend of Caribbean, Afro-American, Afro-Latin and Latin American rhythms – first found voice in her debut album “No Pares,” and further evolved in her sophomore work “Llevame Contigo.”
Not just a solo artist, Cartaya also brings her unique energy to the Afro-Cuban Funk band “Palo” and leads an all-female ensemble, Sexta Clave. With a new record and live concert on the horizon, Cartaya’s musical journey is one to watch.
