(Reprinted from July 2022 issue of New York City Jazz Record)

Last year, Cellar Music Group formed a partnership with the SmallsLIVE Foundation, thus aligning their shared mission of bringing quality jazz to the world. These organizations arose out of two stalwart jazz clubs: Vancouver’s Cellar Jazz Club and NYC’s Smalls/Mezzrow, respectively. Neither of these clubs succumbed to the ravages of the pandemic, and as survivors, their current spot in the universe of jazz venues is all the stronger for it.  

On July 15 the collaborators will drop their inaugural release from the SmallsLIVE Living Master Series, Sheila Jordan's Live at Mezzrow. Taped just last year on Oct. 25, this is Jordan’s first live recording in a decade and features one of her favorite rhythm sections, pianist Alan Broadbent and bassist Harvie S. The album comprises many of Jordan’s now-classic tunes: her clever ode to Charlie Parker, “The Bird and Confirmation”; her brisk, bebop take on “The Touch of Your Lips”; and a solidly swinging “Lucky To Be Me”. But it’s Jordan’s off-the-cuff remarks, with her frank humor and ever-present warmth, that make you want to lean into the record.  

Smalls/Mezzrow owner Spike Wilner deserves a major hat tip not only for forming the nonprofit SmallsLIVE Foundation in April 2020—a quick response to musicians’ need during the pandemic—but for his early adoption of streaming technology for club performances. The SmallsLIVE Archive, an audio/video library of all performances at Smalls/Mezzrow, already stands as an important historical resource—the Living Master Series will only add luster to the clubs’ already-shiny legacy.  

Like Jordan, Rosa Passos’ extensive discography helped shape vocal jazz over the last half a century. The Brazilian singer/guitarist is a foremost interpreter of the bossa and the samba, especially the works of songwriters Dorival Caymmi, João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. But she also wrote her own tunes, like “Dunas” and “Juras” (both with Fernando de Oliveira)—light, fast-clip songs that come alive under her delicate touch. She and her quartet recorded these two songs (along with seven others) at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse in July 2001, and last year Storyville released these nine tracks as Dunas ̶ Live In Copenhagen.  Passos, who rarely tours in the U.S., will front her quartet at Dizzy’s July 14-16.

Thirty years ago this summer, Bryant Park reopened after a four-year renovation project and quickly became one of the city’s most visible outdoor performance venues.  Over the decades, Bryant Park has presented scores of free summer shows in partnership with some of the city’s leading performing arts organizations, among them Carnegie Hall, New York City Opera, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and several Broadway and off-Broadway companies. This year Carnegie Hall Citywide will sponsor several free vocal jazz concerts in the Park; you can catch the high-wattage Baylor Project on July 8; the quirky, brassy Squirrel Nut Zippers on July 15, and the charming Nellie McKay with The Hot Sardines on July 29.

Such a difference. Back in July 2020, Bryant Park was just starting to reemerge after lockdown. Audiences wore masks and spaced the park’s moveable bistro chairs six feet apart, when such unprecedented maneuvers were the only precautions we had against a possible coronavirus infection. Singer/pianist Daryl Sherman, who played the first concert of the Bryant Park Piano Series that summer, returns to the series this year, on July 4-8. When so much has changed, there’s comfort in artists like Sherman, whose understanding of the Great American Songbook spans time and circumstance.   

 

Myriam Phiro embodies the word chanteuse most engagingly—her strong emotional delivery of French standards recalls smoky Gallic boîtes of another time. This Bastille Day, July 14, she’ll present Soirée en musique, with her gypsy Jazz band Nuage Rhythm, at Joe’s Pub. The evening features select picks from the Franco/American repertoire, along with some excerpts from Phiro’s Tribute to Edith Piaf show, which sold out Joe’s Pub on the same date in 2019.

 

Margot Sergent, doyenne of the So French Cabaret, also honors the Little Sparrow, with The Piaf Experience on July 28 at the Birdland Theater. Sergent’s approach to the material is different from Phiro’s, however. Sergent, too, turns out skilled vocals, but she also plays jazz harp and piano in a tight string-based trio (guitar, bass). Formidable.

 

Summer Sass: G. Thomas Allen, the only fella ever to win the Sarah Vaughan vocal competition, plays Minton’s on July 31. And Samara Joy, also a Sassy Award alum, joins Joe Lovano and Bill Charlap at 92nd St.Y on July 26.