LIC Notes

It's Tuesday night at LIC Bar – have you checked out or even hopped onstage for the LIC Jazz Jam yet?!

Since this past October, the LIC Jazz Alliance has hosted an extremely unique and welcoming kind of open jam jazz event at LIC Bar. Tonight is another round of the Jazz Jam from 8-11:30pm. There's no cover and a one drink minimum to enjoy 3+ hours (!) of live local jazz. Jazz guitarist Amanda Monaco, member of the LIC Jazz Alliance, weighed in on what the Jazz Jam experience has been like thus far, and shares her hopes for LICJA's future:

"The session has been quite a success so far. The atmosphere has been warm and inviting – like a cozy, fun party in someone's living room (only with a fully stocked bar). We've had musicians from all over Queens come to play, as well as neighbors who have come to listen. It's a unique session in that the house band (currently Broc Hempel, piano; Sam Trapchak, bass; Christian Coleman, drums and host) performs about 3 tunes and then opens up the session for the next 3+ hours. The music is continuous – no set breaks to speak of – and musicians are invited to stick around for the entire time as there is almost always more than one opportunity to play, as opposed to the usual 'wait forever, play one tune, get off the stage' routine that sadly accompanies other jam sessions. We also have a tradition of ending each session with the jazz classic 'I'll Remember April' and inviting all of the horn players back on stage for a rousing finale.

LICJA's goals in the next year are to supplement this weekly jam session with a monthly concert series in the neighborhood featuring LIC Jazz Musicians and their own groups. We are also on the lookout for a permanent space where we can provide jazz workshops and lessons to children and adults in the community, creating a space where LIC residents can come and learn about and enjoy this great music called jazz.

We are hoping that the jam session will continue to be a weekly event as we see it growing over the coming months and bringing the community together."

Special thanks to Amanda and LICJA for fostering a creative – and quite importantly, FUN – atmosphere for open jazz jams and improvisation right here in LIC. The LIC jazz community is growing and whether you're bringing instruments to play or just enjoying the music, you can be a part of it with this event at LIC Bar!

The weekly Jazz Jam will continue on Tuesdays through November – and hopefully beyond!

LIC Bar
45-58 Vernon Blvd, LIC
Jazz Jam from 8-11:30pm

* Top photo by Jesse Winter

There is nothing like watching a seasoned musician at his prime playing the music he loves. Such was the case at Live at the Gantries when we went to catch Andy Statman, one of this generation’s most acclaimed clarinet and mandolin players. We seem to be perpetually blessed with stellar weather and an even better crowd every time we head to see a live act at the Park and that night was no exception. Every New Yorker needs an excuse to celebrate on a hot Tuesday summer night and this is the perfect place to do it. Joyous, lyrical and vibrant, Andy’s music is equally transporting. As he began the first few tunes of his set, the words “Jewish Soul” came to mind – I heard the sensual strains of Greek and Mediterranean music, the rhythmic quarter notes of Middle Eastern tunes, and the mellifluous tones of classic jazz.

From their tune "Uman," a melody with a lively Israeli feel, to the ebullient "Anim Zemiros,” The Andy Statman trio are as diverse as the Queens music scene itself. In what has become a thriving Jazz community in Long Island City, Andy Statman is the jewel in its crown, combining the avant garde melodies of his beloved clarinet with down home bluegrass and the traditional Hasidic folk songs that were so much a part of his childhood. Born and raised in my adopted home of Jackson Heights, Andy is one of the most humble and most sought-after musicians on the NYC music scene. Clearly proud of his roots, Andy announced to loud cheers that he was born in Queens – little did some of the little kids running around realize that their parents had brought them to see a legend.

A Grammy-award nominated artist, Andy has played with such luminaries as Bela Fleck, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and Itzhak Perlman but watching him play for a hometown crowd was a rare joy. Accompanied by bassist Jim Whitney and percussionist Larry Eagle, who adds some wicked bongos to the mix, Andy’s music defies category. There’s an exotic, soulful Middle Eastern feel to his music that reminded me of some of Rachid Taha’s early tunes mixed with the vivid beats of 1920s Jewish dance tunes and traditional bluegrass. Like Bela Fleck, Andy seems to draw from every kind of American music tinged with world music, synthesizing all forms and making them his own. One of the innovators of a new form of “roots music,” he has now helped to transform the genre. Only a finely tuned ear and rare talent can envision how such diverse forms of music can co-exist in such a beautiful way. Luckily, one of those artists plays right in our own neighborhood.

Gina Sigillito is a writer and published author who promotes local bands and writes about music in the NYC area.

All photos by Arianys Wilson, view more on Flickr.

ANDY STATMAN Live at the Gantries from Live at the Gantries on Vimeo.

I had never been to a show at the little gem on the water in Long Island City known as The Gantries, and I was excited to see it for the first time. I was racing to get to the venue in time for Mundo Clave, Queens' unique, soulful Latin jazz ensemble. With my Blackberry pressed to my ear, I was running down 50th Street in heels, talking to my friend Joe and rehashing the freak-out day we were both having. Once I reached the park perched on the edge of the East River it all changed. A little salsa, a little percussion and couples dancing with the beautiful New York City skyline in the background and the day managed to wash away.

"If you wanna get up and dance please don't be shy," bassist Fernando Benardos quipped as the band launched into their sexy, groove-laden, jazz-infused salsa tunes like "Sabor" and "Killer Joe." 

The crowd of more than one hundred was anything but shy. Despite the 90-degree heat, there was a businessman in a suit and tie doing a wicked merengue with his partner, young couples kicking back and grooving to the music, and even children dancing, ice cream in hand.

An eight-piece group of incredibly gifted Queens based musicians, Mundo Clave combines the best improvisation of classic jazz with the spice and passion of modern salsa and the heavy-bottomed bass of 70s funk. Their tunes infuse the infectious rhythms and percussion of early Santana and Tito Puente with the melodic style of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.

The Mundo Clave experience reminded me of my childhood days when my parents took me to see some of the local St. Louis jazz musicians who combined a timeless swing sound with bluesy vibes. As the band moved effortlessly from Salsa to Jazz and bass-laden grooves, they showed an incredible versatility. With a lilting Vibraphone, played masterfully by Dan Sieber, lively maracas, and sensual sax, Mundo Clave adds spicy variety to their music.

With Daniel Arboleda on tenor sax/flute, a phenomenal player who channels a little Grover Washington Jr., Mundo Clave launched into a few Miles Davis tunes, their way, spiced with Latin flair and complete with Timbales, blistering bongos and mighty drums. The man sitting next to us was so into the music that he was tapping along in tune with a drumstick and cowbell. By the time the band played an inspired cover of a Cha-cha tune by Poncho Sanchez, much of the crowd was up and dancing.

Mundo Clave's old style jazz combined with their hypnotic and sexy Latin rhythm is sure to garner a whole generation of fans. In a time when the term "Jazz fusion" is used far too often, these musicians are the real deal, taking the form back to its original mellifluous sound and spicing it up with a sultry Afro-Cuban style all their own.

Gina Sigillito is a writer and published author who promotes local bands and writes about music in the NYC area.

All photos by Arianys Wilson, view more on Flickr.

MUNDO CLAVE Live at the Gantries by Renzo Ortega from Live at the Gantries on Vimeo.

El Chico Blanco, the band of Long Island City improvisational stalwarts Steve Blanco, Anthony Riscica, and Geoff Gersh, played an inspired set last Saturday night at LIC’s The Creek & The Cave. After a full set earlier in the evening, the group was joined at midnight by LPS on turntables to improvise a full score to the 1982 movie Tron. It was an appropriate choice: the film’s long awaited sequel is being released this year, and more to the point, the band’s gamut of sounds is perfectly suited to the movie’s iconography.

The neighborhood was out in full force for the show. The band passed around glow sticks for audience members to wear as their own facsimiles of the suits worn by the program avatars in the electronic world of the movie. When the lights went out for the performance, the space was lit up with neon halos, like a vision of the future from the 1980s. The range of sounds the group worked with was less ambiguously contemporary, tending towards precise layering of grooves and spectral lines instead of hazy synthesizer nostalgia.

The group was wise in choosing not to reference the iconic themes of the original score by Wendy Carlos. In their place, the group improvised an original score in their familiar style. LPS added scratching effects and looped vocal samples of the film’s dialogue on top of the band’s heavily effect-laden guitar riffs, keyboard sounds, and drum rhythms. The band shifted fluidly from groove to groove, responding to the film’s plot and visual themes with new motives and shifts in timbre.

The set was split in half by a brief intermission. The break came at a seemingly arbitrary point in the movie, and it highlighted the show’s one flaw. Even though the band continually engaged with the film on the level of its images and editing, the story of this very diagetic feature was pretty much left aside. The dialogue of the film was muted along with the rest of the film’s original soundtrack, and this made the progression of the narrative difficult to follow for spectators not already familiar with the film. It was a necessary omission, perhaps, but one that made this more of a multimedia music event than a film screening with music.

The evening was an impressive showing by a band that’s already become a fixture of the scene. The band has been exploring a sound world beyond the scope of all but the most cutting-edge musicians, and the Tron event saw them in appropriately idiomatic form. It was an ambitious, engaging night of music and film, and hopefully a sign of what’s to come. El Chico Blanco plays at Domaine Wine Bar every Tuesday evening at 9:30, and you can also stay updated with the band on Facebook.

Drew Jaegle is an LIC resident and musician. He is currently working on a new rock-oriented project with his band, The Icons, and on material with a hip-hop group that is still to be named.

The videos are dark due to the lightning, but sound quality is great – have a listen below and get a feel for ECB! Check out more videos of the band here and here.

The month of not understanding, Part II

I’ll continue this whining session by adding some blatant self-promotion (ah, the glories of the blog!)

There’s another LIC musical phenomenon I can’t grasp, and with even less excuse than for the SWM [see: The month of not understanding, Part I], as it’s ECB – El Chico Blanco. Well Shark, you may say (if you allow me to feed you your lines), How can that be?? You are after all helping produce the ECB Live at Domaine disc/download thingie that you talk about constantly, and you’ve spent many hours inebriated on Robert’s finer bottles while listening to the band. And even some sober ones listening the rough mixes for whatever album will see the light of day. If you don’t get this group (you might say if I wrote longwinded scripts for you), how the hell can you presume to tell us out here on the Greater Interwebs just what goes down at the wine bar?

You make a lot of sense for a kid from Queens.

What manner of creature is the ECB? Metal electronica? Acid improv alt-soul? Distorto-trip free hop? It’d be easier to come up with a marketing-friendly cheeseball label if the sound didn’t seem to change every two weeks. I had hoped that the short respite provided by an interlude in Prague (yes, great name for a French espionage/relationship film) for Steve Blanco, who fronts the group, would allow me to get ahold of it.

Well, it did allow me to realize I didn’t need to get ahold of anything. This past Tuesday, I met D., a friend – not sure why we’re friends, as he’s into wine, knows finance, noodles around on keyboards, and is a decent tennis player – at Domaine. Now D. was already a Steve Blanco fan, but had only heard the Trio, and had only been to Domaine, once, some time back. This was a perfect test for my theories of how to label, and then maybe corner and capture, this sound.

Phfft. D. heard the music as primarily rock-based, and mentioned that Jon Schaefer – yes, the same WNYC guy who cameoed in part 1 – has classified a good deal of current music as ‘post-rock’: it uses the language of rock, eschews vocals, and is structured in ways closer to jazz or classical. Schaefer intends the label to be a non-genre, not a limitation but simply a ”not that, but something (though not quite anything) else”. Well look, ‘new wave’ was a useful term for a few years in the 70’s. “Post-rock’ is true as a referent for ECB as far as it goes; it just doesn’t go very far. I’m going to let myself stay confused, and enjoy ECB as the music evolves.

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

* Photo by Ferny Chung, from ECB Facebook

The month of not understanding, Part I

This has been the month of not understanding.

There’s music going on that I can’t get a grip on, so I figured I’d grumble about it to you. Sometimes that helps, right?

Monday night at LIC Bar, I heard the final installment of Anthony Cekay’s Spectacular War Museum. After catching fragments of it over the first few weeks of his residency there, and interviewing Anthony for a Conversations at Cranky’s [Coming Soon to LICNotes! -Ed.] vlog session, I had a decent feel for what the SWM is, where it comes from, what he’s trying to get to. I hadn’t felt I’d heard enough of the music itself for the project to cohere; this week’s segment featured, among several other pieces, the world premier of a string quartet. Now I’m really confused.

Not that I didn’t love the music, though. The quartet, while at times a touch naïve and foursquare, is close to the quality of much I hear on the Manhattan contemporary classical scene. That’s astounding, since Anthony is self-taught in composition! I can hear Jon Schaefer now: “So there’s this guy in Queens who listens to a ton of music, including jazz, pop, older and newer classical, and then proceeds with no instruction to write an extended piece like a string quartet that’s about as good as 90% of what those folks who’ve spent their lives focused on this can do.” But don’t take that 7 train, Gothamites; Queens is as remote as Idaho and as barren as the exurbs.

{Bonus capsule mini-review of the quartet… voice more husky and a half-octave lower: While generally less spiky or angular than what many composers are turning out, Mr. Cekay’s quartet provided a number of charming facets, featuring an especially lively, compelling main theme in the first movement. Lovely voice-leading propelled by a constant rhythmic drive produced harmonic sophistication that you’d expect from a jazz composer, and held your ear attuned through all those changes. And in particular, the third movement began with a gorgeous pizzicato cello solo that prefigured some of the quartet’s most lovely melodic sections. The players, veterans of both the rock and classical scenes, were lead by first violinist Amanda Lo, who fiddled with verve and precision. All in all, a quite promising debut from a new, young composer.}

Amazingly, the LIC Bar crew hung on it all, whooping and cheering as if this were a dirty blues band at a humid Sunday afternoon BBQ. Strangely, folks coming inside from the courtyard winced as if intruding on a “serious music” concert, as if breaching the etiquette of solemn listening that obtains at Alice Tully Hall. But the atmosphere was nothing like that inside, or most likely for the equal-sized audience listening via livestream.

The show closed with a Billy Strayhorn tune arranged by Anthony for jazz trio and string quartet. To reinforce that what’s difficult for many is fun for some, the writing and playing seamlessly integrated the two genres, with Anthony wailing on tenor sax while maintaining interplay with and space for the strings. Christian Coleman on drums and the ever-melodic Leon Boykin on bass provided the bones tying them all together.

So now I’ve rambled on, and I think that’s what my problem could be. The Spectacular War Museum has grown in several directions at once; instead of having a grasp of it, I’m lost in all that space it’s created. I know there’s plenty of wonderful, engaging music around that space, I just can’t cat-herd it. Almost eight hours of music is tough to summarize after one incomplete listening, sure. As worthy as this project has been, I’m left wondering if there isn’t some more compact way to present it. I know Anthony is working on a few ideas, one or two of which I hope work out. Both the work and its potential audience deserve that.

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

More:

Spectacular War Museum on UStream
Anthony Cekay on Twitter
Spectacular War Museum RocketHub
Article: Bringing Jazz Into The 21st Century With Crowdfunding