Getting To Know WAYNA - Late Night Groove Series vocalist, Friday April 6

In the video below, the incredibly talented vocalist WAYNA speaks about her upcoming Birthday Tribute to Billie Holiday at the Blue Note on Friday, April 6 at midnight. Click HERE for show information, and follow Wayna on twitter @WaynaMusic

Getting To Know JUICEBOX - Late Night Groove Series band, March 24

THE LATE NIGHT GROOVE SERIES has been going for over a decade now, featuring illustrious artists such as DJ Logic, Ledisi, Maya Azucena and many more. The series also gives the spotlight to up and coming aritsts such as JuiceBox, who will play the Late Night Groove Series this coming Saturday night, March 24. We had a chance to catch up with bandleader and saxophonist Nick Myers:

Blue Note: What do you like about playing the Blue Note?

Nick Myers: The Blue Note is an amazing place to play.  You can feel the history of all the legendary musicians that have played there.  When I get up on stage I imagine all of the people who have influenced me playing on that stage.  I've seen so many concerts there and I feel a real connection to the music when I play there.  I was just at the club last week to see Eddie Palmieri and it was so inspiring!  This weekend when we are there I'll be thinking about that.

BN: What should someone who’s never seen JuiceBox before expect from your live show?

NM: If you haven't seen a JuiceBox show then you are missing out!  We are a real high-energy band and it would be impossible to leave without soaking up some of the positive vibe.  It's such a pleasure for me to play and direct this band because it is different every time.  All of the musicians are very talented and the music can really go anywhere.  Of course we remain true to the "Groove Series" name and all of the music we play usually has something you can dance to but the creative energy and space and that you can find just in dancing music is amazing.  Our vocalist Lisa Ramey brings so much positive energy as a front woman and it truly is something to see.  Sometimes I feel like I am an audience member myself!

BN: Will you guys be playing stuff from the upcoming record and when do you expect it to come out?

NM: Yes we will be playing new material that we are going to be recording.  The record should be coming out sometime in late April or May.  I really can't wait to hear how it comes out.

BN: How similar or different will your new record be to your first EP, “Half the Fat”?

NM: The new record will have a little different feeling from the EP.  We will be re-recording "Come True" but we have about 5-6 new songs that we have been composing and working on as a band for quite some time.  The whole group has evolved since the last recording and we have workshopped these songs through live performance.  I think that the new recording will have more definition and style since the group has naturally progressed since that time.

BN: What’s up next for JuiceBox?

NM: After the record comes out JuiceBox is working on a budding summer European tour.  We already have some dates on the books in Italy for a few cities and we look forward to finding some other places to play and promote our new album across the pond.  We are also hard at work on a music video that will feature the upcoming recording of our song "Can't Get Enough"

Don't miss JuiceBox at the Blue Note on Saturday March 24, 2012

March 2012 Program

Open publication - Free publishing - More blue note

February 2012 Program

Open publication - Free publishing - More blue note

Late Night Groove Series: Marilyn Carino at the Blue Note March 2

Check out Marilyn Carino's video interviewing Dred Scott who will be performing with his trio and Ms. Carino at the Blue Note's Late Night Groove Series on March 2:

Roy Hargrove Big Band Review, Wall Street Journal

Photo by Alan Nahagian

Roy Hargrove Big Band

The Blue Note 

131 W. Third St., (212) 475-8592 

Through Sunday

Does Roy Hargrove's career validate the entire "Young Lions" trend of the '80s and '90s? Or does it prove the opposite? The trumpeter was barely 20 when his first album appeared in 1989, and he was the most extreme of the young lions (who included Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman and Nicholas Payton) in other ways, too, especially in terms of the way his music seemed to be about sheer chops: playing faster, louder, higher and with amazing accuracy. Yet it wasn't until he reached his 30s and acquired a little more seasoning that Mr. Hargrove proved he knew what to do with all that technique. Currently leading his dynamic 19-piece big band the Blue Note, Mr. Hargrove is one of the most exciting and entertaining players you can experience right now—even when he's singing, an area where he has zero chops but warmth and soul to spare.

Back in the day, it was a given in the jazz world that when an instrumentalist/composer assembled a big band, he was trying to expand his artistic canvas as well as his audience; surely Dizzy Gillespie, the spiritual father of all modern jazz trumpeters, attained both ends with the many big bands he led over his long career. The orchestral format gave Gillespie greater scope both for more serious works, like "Perceptions" and "Gillespiana," and made him more of a pop star, particularly with crowd-pleasing antics like "He Beeped When He Should Have Bopped."

With Mr. Hargrove's big band, too, the stakes are considerably higher—and larger—than with a standard-sized combo. As his opening set on Tuesday, Mr. Hargrove played 10 selections, most of which are heard on his latest (and the big-band's first) album, "Emergence" (2009). Possibly the heaviest—and also, perhaps surprisingly, among the most entertaining—was Frank Lacy's "Requiem." It began and ended like a 1970s nod to classicism, in the vein of Woody Herman's treatment of Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," with an introduction that featured four flutes and baritone sax. Then, in the central melody, it got darker and heavier still, the deep, piercing sound of the trumpets and trombones recalling the horn writing on John Coltrane's "Africa/Brass" album. Bruce Williams played a Coltrane-esque solo on alto, even as pianist Sullivan Fortner seemed to be going out of his way to replicate the angular, spiky dissonances of McCoy Tyner.

Not everything the big band played was so ambitious. Mr. Hargrove opened with a light, rhythmic treatment of "The Lamp Is Low" (one of several band works that he's also played with his quintet), which turned Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante défunte" into an easy breeze, and thus made classical music and modern jazz accessible at the same time. "Ms. Garvey, Ms. Garvey" was a bright bouncer by baritone saxophonist Jason Marshall and "Brian's Bounce" was a choppy bopper of a blues that gave solo space to all the other trumpeters, including Greg Gisbert (from Maria Schneider's Orchestra) and Tonya Darby (of Diva).

Then there were two features for vocalist Roberta Gambarini: As always, the word to describe her is "flawless." She sings complicated orchestral parts with an ease that part-reading horn players must envy. She's always miraculously in tune, with a beautiful sound that's rich and full. Yet when she sings, I never feel like I'm listening to a human being—somehow perfection sounds incomplete. She shined in Spanish on "La Puerta" (it helps that I don't speak the language), yet on Cole Porter's "Everytime We Say Goodbye," she never gave the slightest indication that she might be the least bit sad about having to say goodbye.

The set's other vocal, by the leader himself, arrived on "September in the Rain." Over a Basie-style shuffle, Mr. Hargrove cannily essayed the melody on muted trumpet, which made it sound more voice-like. It's a perfect set up for his own vocal: As a singer, he can barely string two notes together, but he knows how to goose a crowd with some call-and-response scatting with the band (the kind that Dizzy learned from Cab Calloway), and darned if he doesn't make you feel good, even if it's September, even if it's raining, or even if it's a spate of tropical weather in early February.

- Will Friedwald, Wall Street Journal

Roy Hargrove Big Band at the Blue Note Feb. 7 - 12

Via Don Heckman's Picks of the Week