Jazz goes on and on. It never ends.
Vinnie Sperazza invokes that mantra often in Chronicles, his big-hearted and essential Substack. And it’s true! Just look at the variety of shows by local and touring musicians in the four days beginning Thursday. And while I’m here, I need to give some love to Jim Szabo whose weekly jazz calendar for WRUW is the menu from which I order. To get your own copy, visit the link at the end of this piece.
The menu analogy is no accident. Like food, music is best enjoyed in company. It’s a social activity, after all. And if you haven’t left the nest in a while, spread those wings and fly off to one of the many jazz events in our area this weekend. Below are four you might want to consider.
On and on.
“Sinatra & Porter, Night & Day” Cleveland Jazz Orchestra with Lou Armagno and Ava Preston
Friday, July 11, 7:30 p.m.
Music Box Supper Club, 1148 Main Ave., tickets
Ava Preston graduated from high school in 2023 and graduated from college the following year before heading off to the Juilliard School. She’s on summer break right now so no points for guessing how this overachiever is spending her summer vacation. She’s been exploring her singer-songwriter side lately, but Friday night finds her smack dab in the middle of the Great American Songbook repertoire with a Sinatra and Cole Porter tribute featuring the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. These two sides of her musical personality are not exactly night and day, but anyone interested in the effect a year in New York can have on an already polished young musician will want to head to the Flats.
Fresh Fruit
Saturday, July 12
5 p.m., Callis Tower Pavilion, 730 Callis Dr., Akron free
8 p.m., BLU Jazz+, 47 E. Market St, Akron, tickets
Summer isn’t only for fresh flowers. Fresh fruit is also among the season’s most enticing attractions. It’s also the name of a new quartet assembled by phenom drummer Gabe Jones that includes some of the most esciting young players on the scene. Fresh Fruit will perform twice (!) in Akron on Saturday. with the tasting menu presented in a free concert at Callis Tower Pavilion at 5 p.m. and a main course served at BLU Jazz+ at 8 p.m. I have a strong suspicion that this is the same band that lit up last year’s Hingetown Jazz Festival under the leadership of the Grenadian-American alto saxophonist Ronell Regis. If so, expect a high energy set with a touch of Caribbean sun and a wide glimpse into the future of the NEO scene.
Steve Kortyka Quartet
Saturday, July 12 8 p.m.
BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets
When you see a young musician on the stand with older, more established players, it’s a pretty reliable sign that the kid can play. True, anyone with ears knows how Nehemiah “Stix” Baker can throw down. Yet sharing the stand with an experienced leader like Steve Kortyka counts for something when you’re not old enough to buy a drink during the set break. “I’ was I’ve been telling everybody he’s 18, but he wants everybody to know that he’s 19,” Kortyka said about the drummer. In this band, youth is balanced by experience in the form of do-it-all bassist Kip Reed, while guitarist Zakk Jones splits the difference. The mix of personnel is fascinating, but the band’s book is the attraction here. “We’re like playing Soundgarden’s, ‘Black Hole Sun,’ We’re doing ‘God Only Knows’ by the Beach Boys and there’s a couple of Radiohead tunes,” Kortyka said. “So it’s kind of reinventing the way that I think about phrasing and soloing.”
Todd Marcus Quintet with Virginia MacDonald
Sunday, July 13, 7 p.m.
BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets
The bass clarinet is an instrument that has lived on the periphery of jazz for a while. So a band where it’s a featured instrument immediately commands attention. When the big horn’s frontline partner is also a clarinet, that’s news. And when the musicians behind those horns are Todd Marcus and Virginia MacDonald respectively, it’s good news indeed.
Marcus and MacDonald evidently like Cleveland in July. They were in town almost exactly two years ago to the day for a gig at BOP STOP (I previewed the show here), and they will return on Sunday evening. In an interview for that piece, MacDonald said, ““I think we both really feel that clarinet in jazz music has been super underrepresented even though there are a lot of great players out there,”
Two of them will be on stage at BOP STOP on Sunday, to put an exclamation point on what looks to be an extraordinarily rich weekend of jazz in Cleveland.
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Don’t comply in advance,
jc
