$5 before midnight & $10 after

Every Wednesday Night at LPR

This is a first come seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.
$15 student tickets are available at the door.

$5 before midnight & $10 after

Every Wednesday Night at LPR

Silent Movies will be officially released on September 28th. Advance copies will be available for purchase at this performance.

This is a first come seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.

This is a first come seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.

Proceeds from the event will be donated to The Harlem School of the Arts in Abbey Lincoln's memorial. The Harlem School of the Arts offers children and young adults in Harlem and beyond the freedom to find and develop the artist, student, and citizen within themselves in an environment that emphasizes rigorous training, stimulates creativity, builds self-confidence, and adds a dimension of beauty to their lives.

Launch party for difrent: the global broadcasting platform for music for social change, marking the United Nations International Day of Peace, and "Take A Stand," the new single by Iraqi American singer Stephan Said, being released in an unprecedented global video collaboration with international organizations working for social change.

Featuring renowned musicians and activists, including folk legend Pete Seeger,Ghanaian-American hip-hop rising star Blitz The Ambassador,Stephan Said, an all star band with Cindy Blackman, Kevin Hunter, Art Baron, Earl Gardner, Yousif Sheronick, Lenny Pickett, and surpise guests!

difrent: is the global broadcasting platform for music for social change, a one-stop where artists, activists, and organizations come together to advance local initiatives around the world on a constant basis through music and video releases. difrent: is music that’s making a difference, the soundtrack of our generation!

We Have A Dream - by creating a global platform for music and culture for social change, difrent: promotes young, upcoming voices that are taking a stand and creating music and using culture to change our world. When the world’s majority of young voices singing and working for peace and equality are heard more loudly than the few extremists who fill our tv’s and headlines, we will win!

$15 student tickets at the door, sign-up to difrent.org required

Avishai Cohen’s Triveni (CD Release for 'Introducing Triveni')

On September 28, 2010 Anzic Records will release trumpeter/composer Avishai Cohen’s new recording, Introducing Triveni, featuring longtime collaborators and dear friends, Omer Avital on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums. With Introducing Triveni, Cohen, now a member of the distinguished SF Jazz Collective, fulfills his artistic need to get back to music that is mainly improvised. Triveni is a Sanskrit word borrowed from the name of the confluence of three rivers in India, the Triveni Sangam, which comprises two physical rivers, the Ganga and the Yumana, that meet with the mythical, mysterious Saraswati river. Avishai’s band Triveni has a similar makeup, as he explains; “Regarding Omer, I’ve been playing with him for so many years, we know each other well, we can hear where each other are going harmonically and vibe-wise, we know each other’s time feel very well, so it is very comfortable. He’s an incredible musician, composer and bass player. With Nasheet it’s exactly the opposite: always a mystery, always surprising. He’s such a force, such an incredible drummer that never plays anything but the music itself. No ‘licks’, no nonsense. Pure truth. And on top – swinging his ass off! I never know where he’s going and every show is a new and fresh experience.” Together – this combination of the known, Avishai (the Ganga), Omer (the Yumana), and the unknown in Nasheet (the Saraswati) creates a great balance and freshness which is a unique and powerful place to create music from.

After working for a few years with longer compositions, elaborate charts and music that sometimes required much rehearsal before it could hit the stage, Cohen decided to create a band and a book of music that could be played for the first time in performance, and music that would exist to serve the improvisations, as opposed to the other way around. Cohen, who takes full advantage of the space and freedom this piano-less trio affords, composed all of the music (except the standards of course) while traveling, or waiting. Cohen explains further, “either on the subway, on planes or just waiting in line, I composed all of this music in my head without piano or my trumpet. The music is meant to be spontaneous, no hard charts, and every tune can be read for the first time on the bandstand. It started from a real need, because I often have to use subs, but it evolved into the very distinct and gratifying nature of this band.”

Drawing from hard-bop, funk, and avant-garde, Introducing Triveni features music from the Great American songbook to Cohen's original compositions, and his provocative and always soulful playing has never sounded so assured. With the release of Introducing Triveni “The Trumpet Player” continues to establish himself as one of his generation's leading musical voices.

Introducing Triveni and Introducing Triveni Part Two (working title, to be released in May 2011) were recorded in 10 hours over two and half days at Systems Two in Brooklyn, New York, partly in front of a live studio audience.

This is a first-come, fully seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.

$5 before midnight & $10 after

Every Wednesday Night at LPR

with
Theo Bleckmann [voice, arrangements & live electronic processing]
John Hollenbeck [percussion, crotales]
Skuli Sverrisson [bass]
Henry Hey [piano, keyboard and voice]
Caleb Burhans [electric violin, guitar and back-up vocals]

After tackling American maverick composer Charles Ives and being rewarded with a Grammy nomination for it, vocalist Theo Bleckmann now takes on the mysterious songbook of British pop recluse Kate Bush. This project goes beyond merely re-creating Kate's Bush music but taking it to even further realms of sound and interpretation. Joining him in this venture will be long-time collaborator percussionist John Hollenbeck, bassist Skuli Sverrisson and keyboardist Henry Hey and special guest, mult-instrumentalist Caleb Burhans on viola, guitar and back-up vocals.

“Refurbishing Kate Bush’s music can prove as intimidating as deconstructing Thelonious Monk, because there’s so much to wrap heart and head around. Her lyrics lean toward the esoteric and epigrammatic; she writes diaphanous arrangements and luring melodies that require octave leaps and her songs are often specific to their relative song-cycle albums. Vocalist Theo Bleckmann not only exhibits the necessary musicality to give Bush’s material meaningful makeovers, he shows the moxie to pull it off in a manner that doesn’t devolve in hagiography […] rendering songs with unalloyed sound matched with smartness [...] From start to finish, Bleckmann's explorations of his cult hero in the pop world provide the ideal vehicle for him to rise above his own cult status in modern jazz" - John Murph, DOWNBEAT

Theo Bleckmann. A jazz singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY NOMINATED and ECHO award recipient Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful, leading his work to be described as “from another planet” (New York Times), as “magical, futuristic,” (AllAboutJazz), “limitless” (Citypaper, Philadelphia) “transcendent” (Village Voice) and “brilliant” (New York Magazine).Bleckmann has released a series of gorgeous and irreverent albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Berlin Kabarett, and of popular “bar songs” (all with pianist Fumio Yasuda), a recording of newly-arranged songs by Charles Ives (with jazz/rock collective Kneebody), and his new acoustic Solos for Voice “I dwell in possibility”.Bleckmann has additionally collaborated with musicians and composers, including Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, John Hollenbeck, Sheila Jordan, Phil Kline, David Lang, Kirk Nurock, Ben Monder, Michael Tilson Thomas, Julia Wolfe, John Zorn, the Bang on a Can All-stars, and, most prominently, Meredith Monk, with whom Bleckmann worked as a core ensemble member for fifteen years. He has been interview by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air and recently performed with Laurie Anderson on The David Letterman show. TheoBleckmann.com

This is a first come seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.