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Check out what's happening: March | April - Download this month's calendar (PDF)

SETS NIGHTLY AT 7:30 & 9:30
FRI & SAT, THIRD SET AT 11:30

Thursday - Friday March 1 - 2
PEDRITO MARTINEZ TRIO with Special Guests STEVE TURRE & MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ

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This week, the multi–talented Pedrito Martinez takes the stage at Jazz Standard with two different and distinctive groups. His trio, with bassist John Benitez and pianist Axel Tosca Laugart, is mainly an instrumental outfit with Pedrito playing bata, congas, and cajon. Their repertoire of Cuban classics and a few jazz standards allows for some dynamic solos from the trio and allows Pedrito to explore completely uncharted territory with a setup that can include four conga drums, a snare drum, a hi hat and a cowbell, as well as contributions from very special guests Steve Turre  (trombone) and Mike Rodriguez (trumpet) – two world–class musicians, both of whom have played with Pedrito for years in different settings.

Tickets: $25 Thursday / $30 Friday - PURCHASE NOW

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Saturday - Sunday March 3 - 4
PEDRITO MARTINEZ GROUP with Special Guests RAVI COLTRANE & MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ

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This pan–Latin group, with members from Cuba, Peru, and Venezuela, is Pedrito's primary vehicle. It features the leader on congas, cajon, and bata; Jhair Sala on bongos and cowbell, Ariacne Trujillo on electric piano, and Alvaro Benavides on electric bass. The group dives into high–energy arrangements with grooves, gear changes, and instrumental breaks that have rendered some of today’s most celebrated musicians – “We’ve been back to see Pedrito a bunch of times…Our drummers were floored as Pedro and his band played intense traditional Cuban rhythms with a progressive edge. It’s a beautiful thing to witness.” (Derek Trucks, Magnet Magazine) Mike Rodriguez will be back on the stand along with Pedrito’s very special guest, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. “[Pedrito is] An incomparable performer!” (Ben Ratliff, The New York Times)

Tickets: $30 Saturday / $25 Sunday - PURCHASE NOW

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Monday March 5
Mingus Orchestra

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Our acclaimed “Mingus Monday” residency continues to revive and reinvent the music of the legendary Charles Mingus (1922 – 1979). Tonight, the Mingus Orchestra brings its unique blend of jazz and classi­cal instruments to bear on some of the maestro’s most inventive compositions. “The lean, sharp ten-piece band features such uncommon instrumentation as a bassoon and a French horn, but this isn’t staid cham­ber jazz. When the spirit of the late great one hits them, they steam.” (The New Yorker)

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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Tuesday - Wednesday March 6 - 7
JEREMY PELT QUINTET

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Since his move to NYC in 1998 following graduation from Berklee College of Music, Jeremy Pelt has worked with major artists ranging from Frank Foster and Cedar Walton to Nancy Wilson and Bobby Short. He’s been an invaluable contributor to the Roy Hargrove Big Band, the Village Vanguard Orchestra, and Louis Hayes’ Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band. Recent years have seen this gifted trum­peter take his music to the next level as a player, composer, and bandleader – and Pelt’s new HighNote album Soul! (released 1/31/12) confirms his continuing creative development. This Jazz Standard run will spotlight the music of Soul! with the exciting young saxophonist Stacy Dillard and pianist Danny Grissett. “Pelt is a technical marvel. He executes intricate solos with ease, plays gorgeous ballads in a tasteful manner, and never lacks flair or sensitivity.” (Ron Wynn, JazzTimes)

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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Thursday - Sunday March 8 - 11
CARMEN LUNDY (7:30 & 9:30 Only)

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Often compared to the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Billie Holiday, Carmen Lundy writes and performs songs with an emotional vulnerability and guileless authenticity rarely seen in modern jazz. Her life forays far beyond the boundaries of music – she's an acclaimed actress, teacher and visual artist –informs Carmen’s work with a sophistication and worldliness that consistently defies the expected. For her legion of fans, the release of a new Carmen Lundy CD represents more than an opportunity to hear new music – it's an appointment to catch up with a dear friend. On February 7, Carmen Lundy releases her 12th album, Changes, on the Afrasia label. This week, Jazz Standard celebrates the music of Carmen Lundy and Changes, performed with the exceptional trio featured on the new album.

Tickets: $25 / $30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW

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Monday March 12
MINGUS DYNASTY

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The original Mingus legacy band, in continuous action for over 30 years, returns to our stage for two thrilling sets. “Mingus packed his music so full of life, so full of the noise of the city, that thirty years in the future someone listening to ‘Pithecanthropus Erectus’ or ‘Hog Calling Blues’ or any of those other wild steamrolling things wouldn’t be sure whether that wail and scream was a horn on the record or the red-and-white siren of a prowl car shrieking past the window. Just listening to the music would be a way of joining in with it, adding to it.” (From But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer)

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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Tuesday - Friday March 13 - 16
HOUSTON PERSON QUARTET

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Houston Person and Jazz Standard go way back – to May 2002 (to be precise), when the veteran tenor saxophonist made his first appearance on our stage. In January 2012, Houston Person played a rare London engagement at Ronnie Scott’s that had audiences on their feet and critics singing his praises. In The Guardian, John Fordham wrote: “His sound has become uniquely characterful: an idiosyncratic edit of all he has learned, expressed in shrugging hoots, briefly cantering bop sprints, spacious and softly blown ballads.” And in his Observer review of Houston’s latest HighNote CD So Nice, Dave Gelly attested: “Houston Person's tenor saxophone has all the hallmarks – poise, simple elegance and that mix­ture of gravitas and slight swagger that comes from having nothing left to prove…Person is now 77 and his playing just goes on getting better.” Don’t miss this gentle giant of the tenor saxophone, this week at Jazz Standard!

Tickets: $25 / $30 Friday- PURCHASE NOW

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Saturday March 17
DAFNIS PRIETO SI Ó SI QUARTET

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Our tenth anniversary series gala continues tonight with Dafnis Prieto, who first performed at Jazz Standard in August 2002 with Dave Samuel's Caribbean Jazz Project. Since then, Dafnis has returned to our stage on numerous occasions at the helm of his own groups, and recorded the Si o Si quartet live at Jazz Standard for his 2009 release on his own label Dafnison Music. Perhaps the best description of the art of Dafnis Prieto comes from the MacArthur Foundation, which awarded him a coveted “genius grant” in 2011: “A per­cussionist whose dazzling technical abilities electrify audiences and whose rhythmically adventurous compositions combine a range of musical vocabularies…As a composer, Prieto melds modern jazz har­monies, Cuban clave rhythms, other Latin and African influ­ences, and funk–inspired arrangements to cre­ate works of great stylistic diversity that evoke a broad spectrum of moods.”

Tickets: $30 - PURCHASE NOW

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Sunday March 18
FRED HERSCH SOLO

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It’s always an honor to welcome Fred Hersch back to Jazz Standard, but especially as part of our tenth anniversary celebration. Fred first appeared on our stage in September 2002 as part of a Verizon Music Festival solo piano convocation and returned many times in the ensuing decade. We congratulate Fred on earning two 2012 Grammy Award nominations for the solo CD Alone at the Vanguard – remarkably, his eighth solo piano recording – for Best Jazz Album; and the track “Work” (composed by Thelonious Monk), for Best Jazz Solo. Fred Hersch, wrote Steve Futterman in The New Yorker, “has developed an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled among his peers.”

Tickets: $30 - PURCHASE NOW

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Monday March 19
MINGUS BIG BAND plus special guest CAROLYN LEONHART

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Who better to help us mark the tenth anniversary of Jazz Standard tonight than the Mingus Big Band – right back on the stage where the MBB recorded its 2011 Grammy Award–winning album, Live at Jazz Standard. “The Mingus Big Band – musician for musician – is one of the most spirited and technically gifted bands in the country.” (Seattle Examiner) “The hippest big band in the universe – robust, earthy, sanctified.” (Time Out New York)

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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Tuesday March 20
OSMANY PAREDES QUARTET: NEW DIMENSIONS IN LATIN JAZZ

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Osmany Paredes’ stunning debut at our “New Dimensions in Latin Jazz” series in 2007 established the young pianist/composer as one of the leading participants in New York’s new wave of Afro–Cuban jazz. Osmany’s lyrical compositions and virtuoso technique draw on the training in Afro–Cuban rhythms that began in childhood with his percussionist father, followed by rigorous classical studies at Havana's National School of Music and the practical experience as the pianist with the quintessentially Cuban charanga group of Enrique Jorrin. (Ruben Gonzales, later the pianist of Buena Vista Social Club, played for years with the Jorrin group.) “Steeped in the European classical tradition, enamored of jazz, and fully conversant with Cuban popular music dating back to the 1920s, Osmany Paredes is a thrilling player who combines percussive attack with a vivid harmonic imagination.” (Andrew Gilbert, The Boston Globe)

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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Wednesday March 21
LEE KONITZ / DAN TEPFER DUO

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After seven decades of playing creative music, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz just keeps on keeping on. Best known for his work on Miles Davis landmark Birth of the Cool sessions and his affiliation with the Lennie Tristano school of improvisational theory, the 84yearold altoist has recorded more than fifty albums as a leader and continues to gig in quartet, quintet, and nonet settings. I really kind of think of myself as a sideman being invited to join people to play, Lee told All About Jazz in 2004. I get to play with many different people that way. Tonight, Jazz Standard presents a different side of Lee Konitz as he performs in an intimate duet setting with pianist Dan Tepfer. One of the most formidable musicians on the international jazz scene, Dan has been hailed as a player of exceptional poise by The New York Times. On his latest CD, Goldberg Variations/Variations, Dan Tepfer builds a bridge across centuries and genres to spark a dialogue with Johann Sebastian Bach. (The Wall Street Journal)

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW


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Thursday March 22
Steven Kroon Sextet

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Steven Kroon grew up literally surrounded by great musicians: Count Basie and Eddie Lockjaw Davis were among his familys neighbords in the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens. For two decades beginning in 1981, Steven toured and recorded with Luther Vandross, appearing on seven platinum albums by the late great pop/soul singer. From 1987 2004, he also worked regularly with bass master Ron Carter; other Steven Kroon recording credits include bestselling albums by Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, and Diana Krall. Over the past five years, the percussionist, composer and bandleader has released four albums on his own Kroonatune Records. I am the servant of my music, says Steven Kroon. My mission is to touch and inspire as many people as I can through its sounds and rhythms.

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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Friday - Sunday March 23 - 25
GERALD CLAYTON TRIO

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We congratulate Gerald Clayton on his Grammy Award nomination in the category of Best Instrumental Jazz Album for his 2011 Decca/Emarcy album bond: the paris sessions – and welcome him back for three nights of piano trio explorations. Born 1984 in the Netherlands and raised in Southern California, Gerald is the son of bassist John Clayton and the nephew of saxophonist Jeff Clayton. “Though his language is necessarily broader,” wrote Ben Ratliff in The New York Times (2/10/2010), “he might have gone down beautifully at the Roundtable or the Hickory House in late–1950s New York, amid the fantastic supper–club swing of Joe Bushkin and Teddy Wilson: musicians who entertained audiences with sophistication, humor and reassurance. But he’s presenting that disposition in the context of a new jazz trio that plays in current hip frequencies, disguising meter and tempo.”

Tickets: $30 / $25 Sunday - PURCHASE NOW

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Monday March 26
MINGUS ORCHESTRA

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“His head was a drawer crammed with the remains of intentions and fragments of what was still to come. Long compositions were full of the debris of previous ones and more and more he was moving toward a single piece which would include everything he had ever written before…He believed you could say everything in music but there was still more he wanted to say.” (Portrait of Charles Mingus from But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer) 

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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Tuesday - Wednesday March 27 - 28
CINDY BLACKMAN: EXPLORATIONS

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One of the most powerful and versatile drummers of our time, Cindy Blackman has released ten albums as a leader beginning with Arcane in 1988; played clubs and festivals around the world; and worked with leading jazz artists like Wallace Roney and Sam Rivers and with major pop performers like Lenny Kravitz and Joss Stone. In 2010, Cindy turned heads twice: she was married to guitar great Carlos Santana, and released the album Another Lifetime, her loving homage to her idol Tony Williams (1945–1997). “I loved everything about Tony’s playing.  He changed the sound of music several times with different tunings and configurations, and innovated with every limb,” says Cindy. The unique and lyrical Explorations project brings together two multi-talented pianists, Marc Cary and Zaccai Curtis, playing keyboards and Fender Rhodes respectively, along with the fiery Antoine Roney on tenor saxophone.

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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Thursday - Saturday March 29 - April 1
PATRICIA BARBER (7:30 & 9:30 Only)

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Although she plays a regular residency at the Green Mill in Chicago, Patricia Barber isn’t often seen in New York these days. So we’re delighted to welcome back this sui generis artist whom one critic recently described as “stretching the boundaries of both jazz composition and small group performance…Soloing wasn't really the point, however. The set was more of an extended musical conversation between the per­formers, between equal partners.” In this much–anticipated engagement, Patricia will preview some of the new compositions to be featured on her forthcoming label debut for Concord Music.

Tickets: $25 / $30 Saturday- PURCHASE NOW

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