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Pedro Giraudo
It is not just his “big” band. Everything about the music of Pedro Giraudo is vast, enlarged in space, time and ambition, extended to the far-off horizons that the sounds he makes compel us to visualize. His compositions feel as though they traverse landscapes, squeezing whole journeys into musical adventures that set out as from…
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Jazz and Sushi
The Gabriel Alegría Afro-Peruvian Sextet is an important band, and it should not come as a surprise that no smallish house in which they perform will be unpacked. It has doubtless happened before, but Saturday’s concert – of two separately vended sets – was the first time I have seen a full house at the…
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Sara Serpa
I’ve heard good report of the Portuguese vocalist Sara Serpa for a while now, and I finally heard her live on Friday night. Her genre is jazz, but do not expect to hear the standards from her, at least not in their usual form. Serpa is an experimentalist, and an intellectual, and her repertory includes…
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South American Festival
Monday night at the Zinc Bar, the Lilihouse Agency presented the first annual NYC SOUTH AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL. Four hours, four artists and their bands, four from the bar to lighten the heat. First up: Juancho Herrara (top), a Colombian born Venezuelan, with a precise, insistent and sardonic sound, streetwise and urban in tone; his…
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Omoo Solo Voice
I saw a rather fascinating vocal performance on Friday night at Two Moon Art House and Cafe in Brooklyn. This is only the second OMOO SOLO VOICE concert by the young Swiss singer-songwriter Emilie Weibel, and there is doubtless much refinement to come. What is striking about her show is that she travels light, just…
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Camila Meza • North Square
From time to time when I have needed a place to park myself prior to a later engagement, I have dropped in at the North Square for a drink. It is sort of perfect as a “lounge,” as a opposed to a bar or club – dimly lit, bartenders rather than mixologists, the sort of…
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Gabriel Alegría Afro-Peruvian Sextet
Last night at Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet outdid itself with a septet of special features: (1) The rare presence in New York of the band’s original drummer, Hugo Alcázar, as evidenced in this photo, a sharp, witty, assertive artist in every way; (2) a guest appearance by the notable jazz pianist…
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Lara Bello
The Spanish singer Lara Bello is one of the more inventive artists I have encountered in New York. Her album Niña Pez was an amalgam of jazz, singer-songwriter folk, flamenco, alternative rock and Middle Eastern vocals. In the title figure she created a sort of alter ego for her own persona. Bello is a storyteller,…
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Irène Jacob
The double life of Irène Jacob. Her performances in the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski are indelible in the modern cinema, and her grace and intelligence have persisted in the work – all too little of it – that I have been able to see since. I have known her only as an actress, so I…
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Camila Meza
Camila Meza has once again executed the rare feat of both singing the standards and playing the guitar, this time at the Cornelia Street Café’s downstairs cabaret, one of my favorite New York venues for food and music. When I first heard this Chilean artist sing in her native Spanish, I thought there was something…