Michele Rosewoman and her New Yor-Uba ensemble packed the house at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola for 3 consecutive March nights, following a successful engagement at the Egg Performing Arts Center in Albany, New York.
In May, Rosewoman leads her evolving all-star ensemble on dates ranging from Joe's Pub (May 8) to the Kennedy Center (May 15). She also joins Arturo O'Farrill at Symphony Space (May 1-2).
May 15 - The Kennedy Center - DC
20th Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival
2700 F Street NW, Washington DC 202-467-4600
Alex Norris: trumpet, flugelhorn
Roman Filiu: alto & soprano saxophones...
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Michele Rosewoman and her New Yor-Uba ensemble packed the house at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola for 3 consecutive March nights, following a successful engagement at the Egg Performing Arts Center in Albany, New York.
In May, Rosewoman leads her evolving all-star ensemble on dates ranging from Joe's Pub (May 8) to the Kennedy Center (May 15). She also joins Arturo O'Farrill at Symphony Space (May 1-2).
May 15 - The Kennedy Center - DC
20th Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival
2700 F Street NW, Washington DC 202-467-4600
Alex Norris: trumpet, flugelhorn
Roman Filiu: alto & soprano saxophones
Mike Lee: tenor saxophone
Andrew Gutauskas: baritone saxophone
Jose Davilla: bass trombone & tuba
Michele Rosewoman: piano, vocals
Gregg August: bass
Tyshawn Sorey: drums
Roman Diaz: bata, congas, vocals
Mauricio Herrera: bata, congas, vocals
Abraham Rodriguez: bata, congas, vocals
Ernesto "El Gato" Gatell: lead vocals
On her landmark 2013 album New Yor-Uba: 30 Years - A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America, pianist/composer/vocalist Michele Rosewoman pushes the envelope at the outer limits of jazz improvisation while keeping firmly rooted in both jazz and centuries-old Afro-Cuban folkloric tradition. Widely credited as being one of the first composers to synthesize sacred Cuban folkloric music with a thoroughly contemporary jazz concept, Rosewoman's magnum opus, double-cd set - the debut album released on her own
Advance Dance Disques label - is the realization of a distinctive creative vision thirty years in the making. New Yor-Uba was named #1 Latin Jazz Recording of 2013 on the NPR Critics Poll.
Recent Press:
The Daily Gazette, Albany, NY - March 22, 2015
From a review of Albany, NY performance:
Michele Rosewoman's New Yor-Uba ..re-imagining jazz through the twin prisms of African-based Cuban folk rhythms and New York post-bop.
When the 12 players linked those traditions under pianist-composer Rosewoman's light-touch leadership, they built a dizzying momentum, primordial but sophisticated....A forceful, lyrical pianist, Rosewoman opened some tunes with unaccompanied intros, drawing the band into full roar in stages.
The rhythms rocked and swung the band from the bottom...with Rosewoman's piano or synthesizer leads or horns (as a section, or soloists), swooping through tunes like bright birds in slants of sunlight penetrating dense stands of trees. Her music had strength on every instrument.
Latin Jazz Network - March 25, 2015
From a CD review by Raul da Gama:
Thirty years ago the composer and pianist Michele Rosewoman consummated her deep love for the great island of Cuba and its glorious music with her seminal African-Cuban American ensemble New You-Uba, a group that featured among others the master folklorist, percussionist and vocalist Orlando "Puntilla" Ríos. The band founded in 1983 continued to perform together until Mr. Ríos' death in 2008. Five years later Ms. Rosewoman re-constitutes this monumental ensemble with a new cast of characters, including folklorists, percussionists and vocalists Pedrito Martinez and Román Diaz and a host of other stellar musicians who under Ms. Rosewoman's sterling leadership not only re-created the old grandeur of the group, but also put a new halo of sound around their new disc: 30 Years - A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America
The members of New-Yor-Uba take as their mission of reinvigorating our experience of African-Cuban music. Their interpretations are lively and stirring, imaginative and alert to opportunities for taking time and adding ornamentation. Their own dazzling contributions on an array of tracks on both CDs that have been assembled to showcase their individual talents confirm their skill and command of idiom. And no one is more proficient in this regard that the pianist and composer herself.
Among other diverse highlights are the arrangements of this wonderful music on both discs that has been intimately scored for voices, brass, reeds and woodwinds, bass and percussion, and the fourteen tracks on both discs are brilliantly conceived, with the brass, reeds and winds weaving in and out of the voices to create a magical tapestry of sound.
www.michelerosewoman.com
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