New Videos up from Winter Jazzfest NYC 2013

These are our first videos in HD, from the second day of this year's Winter Jazzfest.

The first features one of our favorite sax players, the amazing Rudresh Mahanthappa, who played at (Le) Poisson Rouge with his new group Gamak.

The lineup, from left to right:

François Moutin, acoustic bass

David “Fuze” Fiuczynski, double-neck guitar

Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto sax

Dan Weiss, drums (hidden on this video)

The three videos below show Jason Lindner's Breeding Ground playing at Culture Project Theater. The group is a combination of Lindner’s Now versus Now , and his big band. In part 1, you can see Lindner conducting. In parts 2 and 3, when singer Jeff Taylor joined them, he reminded us a bit of another great singer, Theo Bleckmann. 

The musicians:

Now versus Now:
Jason Lindner, electronics, piano
Mark Guiliana, drums
Panagiotis Andreou, bass

Rest:
Mazz Swift, violin
Curtis Stewart, violin
Carmel Raz, viola
Will Martina, cello
John Beaty, alto sax
Jorge Continentino, saxes, flute
Rafi Malkiel, trombone
Jeff Taylor, vocals (on part 2 and 3) 

Happy Holidays! from Veronica Semeco on Vimeo.

The Music of Nina Simone at Lincoln Center, 12.08.12

Last Saturday, we had the pleasure to be at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room to listen to vocalist Kim Nalley doing an amazing job when interpreting the best of Nina Simone's repertoire. The band included the equally amazing James Carter on sax, Greg Skaff on guitar, Tammy Hall on piano, Michael Zisman on bass and Kent Bryson on drums.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough: Check out the great view of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline behind the stage!

Photo taken with the iPhone of our friend Naomi Rivas

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1959—which means that he would have turned 53 today. That’s why last weekend, DJ Spinna dedicated his set at Dekalb market to MJ’s birthday. It was a great event, and to our surprise, quite a few Michael Jackson impersonators showed up. They really did a great job, and some were good dancers too!

King Britt & Ilhan Ersahin at Dekalb Market, Brooklyn, 07.04.12

Since this year's 4th of July fireworks weren’t visible from Brooklyn anyway, we decided to celebrate this year’s Independence day at Dekalb Market, the outdoor bazaar in Brooklyn whose stores are inside shipping containers. Deep Space, the people behind the weekly Monday night Party at NYC’s club Cielo, had a dance music event there, featuring Philadelphia-based DJ King Britt, improvising with what looked like Ableton Live, which was pretty amazing. At times, Britt was accompanied on the sax by Ilhan Ersahin, the founder of Nublu, one of our favorite clubs in NYC.

Unfortunately, according to Brooklyn Vegan, Dekalb market will shut down this fall “to make way for a housing development with a Century 21 department store.” (The market won’t disappear but where it will move next is unclear.) Do they really think we need more stores to buy socks?

Anyway, below is some footage from the event.