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Spelling Bee's Big Give....Back
A Benefit for the Greater Cleveland AIDS Taskforce
Monday, May 12
7 PM
$20.
 
Touring cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee gives its time and talents to benefit people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS
 
The members of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee are using their only day off to produce and perform the one-night-only presentation of Spelling Bee’s BIG GIVE…BACK, at Nighttown, 12387 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights. The high-spirited event, complete with a live and silent auction, will reflect the big-hearted tone of the musical and aims to carry that feeling of hope to the cause of HIV/AIDS. Proceeds from the event will benefit the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, two organizations that provide service and advocacy for individuals infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Tickets are $20 at the door or can be reserved by calling 216-357-2223.


Back row (left to right):  Jeffrey James Binney, Robin Childress, Justin Keyes, Roberta Duchak, Kevin Smith Kirkwood;  middle row:  Christine Bunuan, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Katie Boren, Vanessa Ray
seated:  Lawrence Zoernig, Karen Dryer, Jay Mack, Andrew Malay;  Photo credit Jill B. Gounder
Musicians from the tour who will be joining them are:  Karen Dryer (Piano; MD); Jay Mack (percussion); Lawrence Zoernig (cello; mandolin); Andrew Malay (reeds)

About the AIDS Taskforce:
The AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland provides a compassionate and collaborative response to the needs of people infected, affected and at risk of HIV/AIDS.  This is accomplished through leadership in prevention, education, supportive services and advocacy.
 

 

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The Bad Plus
Tues. & Wed. May 13 & 14
7 PM
$20
 
   The Bad Plus on the recording of "Prog" (2007 Heads Up)
The Bad Plus' "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" (mp3)
 
Five years ago, The Bad Plus released These Are The Vistas, their first recording for the venerable Columbia label. With a sound more akin to a rock and roll assault than to the politeness of a jazz piano trio, with influences ranging from Stravinsky to Ornette Coleman, and a repertoire blending diverse original material and provocative covers of Nirvana and Aphex Twin, The Bad Plus earned a reputation as one of the most forward-thinking groups in music.

Four years and two more landmark albums later (2004's Give and 2005's Suspicious Activity?), The Bad Plus turned the page with their newest release, PROG.  An excitingly mature and exhilarating album, PROG is the work of a band in clear control of their musical intentions, their sound, and their business.  It is at once a new beginning and a confirmation of past promise.

The Bad Plus tackle four covers: Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" and Burt Bacharach's "This Guy's In Love With You" plus massively deconstructed versions of Rush's "Tom Sawyer" and David Bowie's "Life On Mars."  As is now a Bad Plus tradition, the covers frame the band’s original compositions, including the stunning new ballad, "Giant," the intricately angular "Mint,"and the final installment in their tribute to athleticism, "1980 World Champion."

Regardless of the repertoire performed, the band is simply breathtaking.  Favoring group improvisation over individual solos, eschewing all jazz cliches, The Bad Plus rip into each set with a combination of Swiss-watch precision, the spectrum of dynamics and reckless abandon. 

The Bad Plus is a collective made up of bassist Reid Anderson, pianist Ethan Iverson, and drummer David King.  All three are from the Midwest and they have known each other since their teens.  Nonetheless, with the exception of one unimpressive meeting in 1990, it is only after spending their formative 20s apart  -- King as a session player in Los Angeles, Iverson as the musical director for the prestigious Mark Morris Dance Group, Anderson as a prominent up-and-coming player on the New York jazz scene -- that they reunited in late 2000 to play a weekend club date in Minneapolis.  The chemistry was immediate and obvious.  They planned a second gig and a one-day recording session for the indie jazz label Fresh Sound and The Bad Plus was born.

On this same first gig, the nascent group played their first rock cover, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Thus began The Bad Plus trademark of complementing original repertoire with their takes on mainstream pop  “standards” including ABBA, Black Sabbath, the Bee Gees, Queen, Blondie, Aphex Twin, Neil Young, and Bjork.

While the covers helped to spread their reputation, they comprise less than 20% of the band's live repertoire.  Anderson, Iverson, and King are all superb composers in their own right, each boasting  a distinctive style.  Iverson’s music is the more intellectual and complex, Anderson's the more melodic and romantic, and King’s the more rhythmic and surreal.

Don't miss The Bad Plus as they roll into Nighttown for a two night stand on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 13 & 14.

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'Tangled Up in Bob'
A Tribute to Bob Dylan
A Benefit Concert for Roots of American Music (ROAM)
Thursday, May 15
6:30-9:30 PM
$100. ($50. tax deductible)
 
The education organization Roots of American Music (ROAM) presents an evening of all-Bob Dylan music, Thursday, May 15, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., at Nighttown (12383 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights). 
 
The event, “Tangled Up in Bob,” celebrates Bob Dylan’s 67th birthday with the band Maggie’s Farm and several special guest musicians performing songs – from folk to rock to folk-rock – by Dylan.
 
The event also features a full gourmet dinner buffet of ‘60s Greenwich Village café fare (minus the smoky air); limited open bar; and a small (but mighty) silent auction, featuring Dylan-related items and other treats.
 
Tickets are $100 ($50 tax-deductible).  Seating is very limited, and on a first-come, first-served basis, based on reservations.  To reserve your seat and purchase a ticket, call Sheela Das at Roots of American Music 216-321-9353.

About Roots of American Music
Roots of American Music is dedicated to preserving and promoting an appreciation of American roots music and how it reflects the spirit and history of our country.  Founded in 1999, ROAM provides teaching artists to K-12 classrooms to enrich not only music and social studies, but also language arts and literacy curriculum through live musical performance and hands-on activities, with long-term residencies and one-time assemblies.  Each year, ROAM reaches more than 40,000 students in 36 school districts.

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An Evening with Roberta Flack
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Benefit for Friends of Cleveland School of the Arts
John Hay High School Auditorium

Doors Open at 7 p.m. ~ Show Begins at 8 p.m.

Roberta Flack's "Where Is The Love" (mp3)

Roberta Flack will perform an intimate concert to benefit the Cleveland School of the Arts, a specialty arts school in The Cleveland Metropolitan School District, that incorporates all aspects of the arts into its teaching approach.  In addition to a college preparatory academic cuirriculum, all students participate in an arts curriculum of their choice:  Dance, Digital Design & Multimedia, Insturmental & Vocal Music, Literary Arts, theatre, and Visual Arts. 

Tickets are $125 for concert and post-event celebration featuring food from around the world, drinks, CSA JazzArts ensemble, student exhibitions, and artwork for sale by CSA's students. Peggy Zone Fisher, President and CEO of The Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio, and Lt. Governor Lee Fisher will be honored for their support of Cleveland's families and children. Event co-chairs Margie Biggar, Ann Gillespie. Sponsorship opportunities are available.

Call the FCSA Box Office for tickets at 216.421.7690

More info on Friends of Cleveland School of the Arts

 

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Tom Lellis/Toninho Horta Quartet
Featuring Jamey Haddad
Tuesday, May 20
7 PM
$25
 
Tom Lellis
Tom Lellis began singing professionally at the age of 15 in Cleveland, Ohio. By age 21 he was the "house singer" at the 5th largest nightclub in the U.S. (Three Rivers Inn , Syracuse NY) with a big band on bills with Ray Charles and Gregory Hines and later in clubs across the U.S. including Las Vegas' Frontier Hotel. Tom began intensive piano studies at age 24 with Bill Dobbins while performing together. Three years later he was opening for Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Jimmy Smith and other jazz greats. After moving to New York his versatility as singer and singer/pianist allowed Tom to perform in venues from the Blue Note to the Millennium at the Waldorf Astoria leading his big band as well as touring the U.S. and Europe.

As a lyricist, he first put lyrics to and recorded works by McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Brubeck and others. His debut album on Inner City Records in 1981 became a fixture in London's jazz discos and featured world-class musicians, drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Eddie Gomez. Double Entendre, also with these musicians, was released in 1991 in the U.S. and in Japan where the press sighted him as "rare and gifted" and for "producing an ideal vocal form". With the release of his 1993 Concord recording Taken to Heart, Tom expanded to Brazilian music. The collaboration with guitarist and composer, Toninho Horta resulted in "Mountain Flight" and inclusion in the Latin Real Book and CD, two more inclusions in the All Jazz Real Book (Sher ) and on the new CD Southern Exposure. Concord's Jazz By The Fire CD released in 2000 features Tom. He was voted to the Down Beat International Critic's Poll and dubbed by numerous writers and critics as a "triple threat".  Tom's release, Skylark is with the world's preeminent jazz orchestra, the 52-piece, stringed, Netherlands Metropole Orchestra conducted by John Clayton Jr. with orchestrations by Grammy winner Vince Mendoza,  has been called the "most requested recording in years" at New York's WBGO radio.

Tom's new Adventure Music recording Southern Exposure, the latest documentation of his Brazilian and jazz influences, features Toninho Horta, Romero Lubambo, Dave Kikoski, Kenny Werner,Tommy Campbell, Jamey Haddad, Kip Reed, Tony Marino, Frank Colon and Jeremy Steig, Roseanna Vitro, Chris McNulty and Full Voice.

Toninho Horta
They were a group of childhood friends, all raised together in the land-locked, mountainous, mineral rich Brazilizan state of Minas Gerais. The first name that sprang to international attention - and stays there as the foremost current ambassador of Brazilian song - is Milton Nascimento. Joining him are songwriters Beto Guedes and Lo Borges, poets Ronaldo Bastos and Fernando Brant, and a slew of instrumentalists like Wagner Tiso and Robertinho Silva. And at the side of all of them is a musician who appears on more albums than most anyone in all Brazil, as arranger, as song- writer, as sparkling instrumentalist - Toninho Horta. Toninho Horta is, quite simply, a master whose harmonic sensibility, whose fantastically inventive chording, whose unfailing musicality have made him a session player and a arranger in constant demand for well over two decades.

To hear him play live is to be stunned by the alternately lyrical and rythmic lines he is capable of, and at the ability of a musician to think so originally, so complexly on his feet. As a writer, Toninho's musicality has produced standards that top the list of the best-loved songs in Brazil.

His story is somewhat typical of the artists of his generation. Like all Brazilians, he grew up with the music of his region everywhere about him: the folkloric traditions of former slaves, the religious music of a deeply religious land, a glorious tradition in samba, and as a youth at a time of worldwide flux, he grew with an ever widening exposure to foreign forms. He and his Minas friends were first introduced to American jazz in the 1950's, cool jazz, like that played by Chet Baker (whose phrasing as a singer and instrumentalist made a tremendous impression) and Miles davis, or by richly harmonic masters like Duke Elington. Then came the rock and roll of a later generation - especially a group cited by nearly every Brazilian of the time, The Beatles, with their allembracing concept album and adventouresome musical vision. This varied exposure filtered through some of the most singular musical sensibilities in Brazil, and the loosely knit clutch of musicians came to be known as the Corner Club, or in Portuguese, the Clube da Esquinha. His successes came early, with a first composition, written when he was only thirteen, beung picked up by local bands, and a later one, "Litoral", becoming an instant standard for its twenty-year-old composer. Given his early recognition as a guitarist to watch, Toninho appeared in the bands of many of Brazil's greatest singers. He even fronted Milton Nascimento's first appearance in Rio, in 1970. since that time he has played with and arranged for Maria Bethania, Elis Regina, Gal Costa and many others.

In a short time, absorbing the world of music, he was invited to perform with Milton Nascimento and some of Brazil's most popular artists. In 1976, he recorded with Nascimento along with the famed musical duo of Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, gaining widespread recognition in the Brazilian music industry and the momentum to undertake projects abroad. Following his first self titled release, Terra dos Passaros, Horta's interests expanded to include the countercultural rock music of Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel and Led Zeppelin. Somewhere in this haze of time, a bit of American music spirit slipped into his bloodstream, and to this day he still has flashbacks.

 
Jamey Haddad
A world class musician, native Clevelander Jamey Haddad  spent most of 2003 and 2004 on tour with Simon and Garfunkel enhancing their world famous music with his percussion. That tour included an appearance in downtown Cleveland at Gund Arena. Jamey Haddad has been a professional jazz musician for over 25 years and has enjoyed a wide and diverse career. He has toured and recorded with many greats including Carly Simon, Joe Lovano, Paul Winter, Kenny Werner, and Dave Liebman.
 
Jamey Haddad wears many hats.... he is a great jazz drummer, he has invented and patented several percussion instruments, and he has performed worldwide with musicians spanning four different continents. An author and lecturer, he is considered an authority on musical cultures and their rhythmic base. Currently he is teaching at the Berklee School of Music and at Oberlin and he continues to tour as the leader of his own group, and as a special guest, nationally and internationally.  
Don't miss the dynamic vocals of Tom Lellis with world class Brazilian guitarist Toninho Horta along with drummer/percussionist Jamey Haddad and electric bassist Kip Reed, all of whom are featured on recent CD's from Lellis, live at Nighttown on Tuesday, May 20th.
 

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Frank McComb
with Walter Barnes-electric bass, & Robert Hubbard-drums
Wednesday, May 28
7 & 9 PM
$25
 
 
Vocalist, piano/keyboard master, and Cleveland native Frank McComb has been a strong presence in R & B and Jazz for the past 20 years.  Frank started performing while still a student at Glenville High Scholl in the mid 80's.  At that time he formed a trio, performed extensively, bought a car before he even had a license to drive, and developed the skills that have continued his popularity from those days on.  Eventually he was picked up by the recording act "The Rude Boys" who were an offshoot of the popular Levert group.  McComb quickly ascended to the position of musical director of the Rude Boys and hit the road in the early 90's.  After a trip to Philadelphia he was lured there to become a member of hitmaking songwriters Gamble and Huff's musical team.  While in Philadelphia he came to the attention of MoJazz record executive Steve McKeever.  He was signed to MoJazz in the early 90's, but fell victim to internal business difficulties in the company.  Two records that were recorded at that time never came out.  In the mid 90's McComb landed in Los Angeles and was quickly discovered by saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who at that time was the musical director of the Tonight Show.  McComb joined Marsalis' contemporary jazz group of that time, Buckshot LeFonque.  He went on to make two successful CD's with that group and co-composed and recorded the hit song "Just Another Day".    In 2000, Frank McComb recorded the underground hit record "Love Stories" for Columbia Records.  Well known in musical circles, McComb still was not fully appreciated by broader audiences in the US.  Ironically, he was rapidly gaining a significant following in Europe and Japan.
 
Presently Frank McComb is touring in support of his new CD/DVD "Live in Atlanta" on his own Boobeescoot records.  Like many musical artists of the current generation, McComb has proven that a great musician can have a thriving career by going straight to the public.  Frank McComb has been noticed by the big companies, they simply have not found a way to take that musicianship to the public.  It has done little to stop Frank McComb.  He still tours internationally, enjoys a specially good following overseas, and continues to be a strong underground presence in the States, while consistently working on special projects in Los Angeles. 
 
This special concert at Nighttown marks the first club appearance in Cleveland for Frank McComb in several years.  Supporting McComb will be old friends and colleagues Walter Barnes on electric bass, and Robert Hubbard on drums. 
 
Don't miss vocalist and pianist Frank McComb when he makes his long awaited homecoming at Nighttown on Wednesday, May 28th.