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YOKO MIW Internationally acclaimed pianist/ composer Yoko Miwa is one of the most powerful and compelling performers on the scene today.
Her trio, with its remarkable telepathy and infectious energy, has brought audiences to their feet worldwide. Miwa plays with a lyrical yet still harmonically sophisticated style, influenced by players such as Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Herbie Hancock.
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Miwa was named a Rising Star Pianist in the 2022 and 2023 DownBeat Critics Poll, and The Yoko Miwa Trio’s 2021 release Songs of Joy (her ninth release) reached the top spot on national jazz radio charts and was voted a best jazz album of 2021 in the DownBeat Readers Poll. Their 2019 CD, Keep Talkin’, showcases Miwa’s fine playing and artful compositions, and the trio’s uncanny musical camaraderie. The album spent seven weeks in the Top 10 on JazzWeek’s charts, much like its predecessor, Miwa’s 2017 release Pathways.
For more than a decade now Miwa’s trio has played regularly at major jazz clubs in their home city of Boston, as well as venues around the world. A favorite of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Miwa was chosen to play on “Marian McPartland and Friends,” part of the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival. She was also chosen to perform at Lincoln Center’s annual Jazz and Leadership Workshop for The National Urban League’s Youth Summit.
FROM A PHOTO BY CHRIS LEE
Miwa appears regularly at New York’s famed Blue Note Jazz Club as well as Birdland, and has performed and/or recorded with jazz greats including Jazzmeia Horn, Slide Hampton, Arturo Sandoval, NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan and Jon Faddis, among others. She was nominated 10 times and won in 2019 for Jazz Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards, and also won that year’s Boston Phoenix Best Music poll.
Miwa’s story of becoming a jazz musician is full of serendipity and
happy twists of fate. In the late 1990s the classically-trained artist auditioned for Berklee College of Music on a lark and ended up winning a full scholarship. She arrived at the school from her homeland of Japan in 1997, intending to stay for a year. She’s still in Boston, enriching the city’s musical life and serving as one of the most popular professors in the Berklee piano department. Yet Miwa feels she is still a student. “Musicians, I think, are constantly learning and we’re constantly developing as an artist,” she says. “It won’t stop. We cannot stop learning. You are what you play so you have to be learning constantly.” 2
WA SONGS OF JOY A native of Kobe, Japan, Miwa didn’t pursue an interest in jazz until she met and studied with Minoru Ozone, a popular television organist and nightclub owner who is the father of pianist Makoto Ozone. Miwa worked at Ozone’s club, and as an accompanist and piano instructor at his music school, until the Kobe earthquake of 1995 destroyed both facilities. Then, while continuing to take private lessons from Minoru Ozone, she also focused full time on jazz at the Koyo Conservatory in Kobe. The following year, Miwa won the scholarship to Berklee. She studied jazz theory and performance, and quickly began playing with a host of talented students and teachers and forming a strong bond with vocal great Kevin Mahogany, who chose the pianist to serve as accompanist in his classes and on his gigs (until his death in 2017). Once she graduated in 1999, Miwa joined the Berklee faculty and also
began playing locally, leading her own trio and working as the pianist in the house band at Cambridge’s Ryles Jazz Club.
Her debut as a leader, In the Mist of Time, was released in Japan in 2001,
with drummer Scott Goulding, bassist Massimo Biolcati, and tenor saxophonist Tim Mayer. Its follow-up, 2003’s Fadeless Flower – and all of Miwa’s subsequent recordings – have been in a trio format with (husband) Goulding and a selection of top bassists. Two of her CDs, 2008’s The Day We Said Goodbye and 2012’s Act Naturally (the Trio’s major label debut) were recorded live at WGBH Studios in Boston, and the concert album Live at Scullers Jazz Club was released in 2011. Lyrical and sophisticated, Yoko Miwa and her Trio bring an infectious energy to their performances that results in a distinctively enjoyable jazz experience. More at yokomiwa.com.
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S P O T L I G H T
Vange Durst While Vange Durst may have started playing guitar at the age of 10, it wasn’t until she moved to Greece with her mother and brother that her love for the instrument really took hold after meeting a boy who told her that it was easier to play lead guitar than rhythm. After jamming her way through India, Durst ended up in London, where at the age of 17 she joined her first band, Archipelago. She left London four years later, ending up in New York’s famed East Village. Durst eventually joined a band called Yahoo Yahots, and they played CBGBs and other popular area venues. When her kids were four and five, she and her mother purchased a house in New Haven, CT. She played in an assortment of area bands, and got clean and sober in 1996 with help from some of those same musicians. After recording seven CDs with other bands, Durst’s solo debut came in 2020 with Kickass Woman (the same year she relocated to northeast Florida). A plan to record five songs with Lydia Arachne on bass and keyboards, Deb Piccolo on drums, and producer Pace Ferro was set in motion in January 2019. Everything went so well that they just kept going, recording 11 songs. More at vangedurst.com.
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FEBRUARY 15 BREWS & BLUES ORMOND BEACH FEBRUARY 17 CITY WINE & CIGAR DELAND FEBRUARY 23 PROHIBITION KITCHEN ST AUGUSTINE SEE WEBSITE FOR FULL CALENDAR
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S P O T L I G H T FEBRUARY 22 TIMUCUA ARTS FOUNDATION ORLANDO
J A Z Z
Ben Rosenblum
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FROM A PHOTO BY KAZUO GOSHIMA
Award-winning New York City jazz pianist, accordionist and composer Ben Rosenblum has performed alongside world-class musicians across more than 20 music genres FEBRUARY 23 and 15 countries, and lead bands at prestigious venues across the world. Rosenblum’s MOSS CENTER journey has taken him on tours with Grammy-winning pop artist Rickie Lee Jones MIAMI and Juno-winning contemporary Indian singer Kiran Ahluwalia. He’s played FEBRUARY 24 Brazilian choro with Ephrat Asherie Dance and Brazilian forró with The Late Night UNIVERSITY OF Show’s Nêgah Santos and famed forró band Forró in the Dark. He has appeared TAMPA with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on accordion, and as a guest soloist on piano at Carnegie Hall with Maestro Reona Ito’s New York Harmonic Band. Drawing FEBRUARY 25 from an eclectic repertoire which includes selections from jazz and pop as well PENNEY MEMORIAL CHURCH as global music influences from South America, Eastern PENNEY FARMS Europe, Ireland and the Caribbean, Rosenblum combines his modern, melodic sensibility with his broad knowlFEBRUARY 27 edge of a variety of musical lineages from the past CENTER FOR 100 years. Rosenblum handles a full tour schedule THE ARTS as a solo artist, with his trio, and with his six-piece MARCO ISLAND ensemble, the Nebula Project. The Nebula Project’s debut release came in 2020 with Kites and Strings. The group was runner-up for Best New Artist in JazzTimes’ 2020 Readers’ Poll, and the album received equally glowing reviews from top publications. This unique sextet project’s prominent global music influences are as powerful as ever on their most recent release, 2023’s A Thousand Pebbles. More at benrosenblummusic.com.
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S P O T L I G H T B L U E S FEBRUARY 2 BLUES & BREWS BISTRO ORMOND BEACH FEBRUARY 5, 19 24 & 26 BLUE JEAN BLUES FT LAUDERDALE
Dottie Kelly
2022 IBC finalist Dottie Kelly is a powerhouse blues singer with more than two decades of performing FEBRUARY 10 experience. Born in West CONCHY JOE’S Palm Beach, Florida, Kelly JENSEN BEACH grew up singing in a Baptist church. She would later folFEBRUARY 15 LEROY’S SOUTHlow her Aunt Betty Padgett, ERN KITCHEN a well-known singer out PUNTA GORDA of Ft. Lauderdale, to her shows. Aunt Betty eventuFEBRUARY 16 ally asked young Dottie to MULLIGANS sing background with her SINGER ISLAND and Joey Gilmore. Since SEE WEBSITE FOR then, Kelly has performed FULL CALENDAR at venues across the U.S., and opened for many artists from around the world. Her 2022 CD Dancing Shoes featured the singles “I Don’t Want No Man Like You” as well as the title track. Kelly has performed with Darrell Raines, Otis Cadillac, as one of the three leading ladies in the TKBlu Band, Ladies of Soul and Joey Gilmore, among others. Her soulful voice and natural stage presence combine to create a force to be reckoned with. As a duo act, Kelly and Raines competed in the 2022 International Blues Challenge, and they were the only Florida act to reach the finals. Kelly can be found on concert stages from Daytona down the coast into the Keys, and up the Gulf coast to Bradenton every weekend year ’round. More at dottiekelly.com.
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Carlos Vega Born and raised in Miami, saxophonist and composer Carlos Vega pursued his passion of studying jazz in college by day while also playing Latin and Salsa music six nights a week with some of Miami’s most innovative and authentic Latin bands. These early eclectic musical experiences helped to form the foundation for Vega’s dynamic and unique approach to composition as well as jazz improvisation. Throughout his career, Vega has had the great fortune of touring extensively in the U.S., Europe, South America and Africa. He has also performed with high-profile artists including Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, Arturo Sandoval, Ira Sullivan, Tito Puente, Tito Puente Jr., Chicago Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble (CALJE) and trumpet legend Doc Severinsen. A few years after receiving his Master of Music in Jazz Studies from Florida International University in 2001, Vega traveled to pursue a graduate music degree at the University of Illinois and quickly became part of Chicago’s dynamic Latin and jazz scenes, playing with some of Chicago’s finest musicians in some of the most. He had such positive musical experiences in Chicago that he decided to record his first release as a leader, 2021’s all-original Art of the Messenger, accompanied by four of Chicago’s finest jazz musicians: Victor Garcia on trumpet, Stu Mindeman on piano, Josh Ramos on bass and Xavier Breaker on drums. He is currently Associate Professor of Saxophone and director of the Latin Jazz Ensemble at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee. More at originarts. com.
FEBRUARY 17 THE WINE HOUSE TALLAHASSEE
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Bruce Katz Legendary keyboardist (Hammond B3 and piano) Bruce Katz has released 11 CDs as a leader and has appeared on over 70 other CDs with the likes of John Hammond, Delbert McClinton, and Joe Louis Walker, among many others. In the early 1980s, Bruce played with Big Mama Thornton on her East Coast tours. He also had a strong musical connection with the Allman Brothers Band, as a member of Gregg Allman’s band for six years (2007-2013), Jaimoe’s Jasssz Band (2010-2015), Butch Trucks’ Freight Train Band (2015-2017) and Les Brers. He also occasionally toured with the Allman Brothers. That said, Katz combines blues and American roots music with elements of jazz and improvisational rock music to create a truly unique signature sound. Katz is a six-time Nominee for the Blues Music Award (W.C. Handy Award) for Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year, selected by the Blues Foundation. He won the BMA for Acoustic Blues Album of the Year in 2019 for his collaboration with Joe Louis Walker and Giles Robson for Journeys to the Heart of the Blues and was nominated again in 2020 for the same award for his acoustic piano album Solo Ride. He was also nominated for “Outstanding Musician (Keyboards)” by Living Blues in 2015 and 2019. The latest Bruce Katz Band release, Connections, with new members Aaron Lieberman and Liviu Pop, features ten new original songs and a great blues cover by Jessie Mae Robinson (“Sneak’in Around”). More at brucekatzband.com.
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B L U E S FEBRUARY 14 E S B L U ENGLEWOODS ON DEARBORN ENGLEWOOD FEBRUARY 15 CRAZY UNCLE MIKE’S BOCA RATON FEBRUARY 16 BUCKINGHAM BLUES BAR FORT MYERS FEBRUARY 17 TERRA FERMATA STUART FEBRUARY 18 EARL’S HIDEAWAY SEBASTIAN FEBRUARY 22 BLUE JAY LISTENING ROOM JAX BEACH FEBRUARY 23 BBC @ THE LEGION TALLAHASSEE FEBRUARY 24 BLUES & BREWS BISTRO ORMOND BEACH FEBRUARY 25 FOGARTYVILLE SARASOTA
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Samara Joy
J A Z Z FEBRUARY 17 MOSS CULTURAL ARTS CENTER MIAMI
With her 2022 debut, Linger Awhile, Samara Joy makes her case to join the likes of Sarah, Ella, and Billie as the next mononymous jazz singing sensation. Her voice, rich and velvety yet precociously refined, has already earned her fans like Anita Baker and Regina King, appearances on the Today Show and millions of likes on TikTok —making her perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star. On Linger Awhile, Joy introduces that massive audience to a slew of classic standards several times older than she is. Growing up in the Bronx, Joy’s musical lineage stretches from her grandparents, both of whom performed with Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes, through her father who toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch. Joy followed in the family tradition, singing in church and then with the jazz band at Fordham High School for the Arts, with whom she won Best Vocalist at JALC’s Essentially Ellington competition. That led to her enrolling in SUNY Purchase’s jazz studies program, where she fell deeply in love with the music. In 2019, Joy won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, and she’s since performed with legends like Christian McBride and Bill Charlap. Legendary late pianist Barry Harris was a particularly important influence and mentor. “I’m still very much a student, even though I’ve graduated,” she says. “So this is only the beginning… there is much, much more to come.” To start, that includes her 2023 holiday EP, A Joyful Holiday. More at samarajoy.com.
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Marc Black Eclectic blues/folk-rocker Marc Black has made a living in the music field his entire life. He’s written scores for TV commercials and films, performed with Art Garfunkel and folk legend Pete Seeger, recorded with John Sebastian (the Lovin’ Spoonful), and played at the Sundance Film Festival. In the 1980s, Black won the American Library Association Award for best children’s album for producing American Children, a collaboration with artists including Richie Havens, Taj Mahal and Maria Muldaur. While in high school he helped form a four-part harmony group called the Blades of Grass that signed a record contract in New York City. During the late 1960s, the band shared the stage with such music heavyweights as the Doors, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, and The 5th Dimension. A 2014 inductee into the New York Chapter of the Blues Hall of Fame, Black describes his musical style as a mix of blues, folk and rock. His fingerstyle blues is reminiscent of Mississippi John Hurt and Lightnin’ Hopkins. And his 2010 CD, Pictures of the Highway, reached No. 6 on the Folk DJ Chart. More recently, Black released 2019’s Boppa Chua! A History of the 1950’s and 60’s through Popular Song, and the 2021 duet CD Champions of Love with piano great Warren Bernhardt. In recent years, Black has occasionally turned to a more topical songwriting style. “No Fracking Way” – recorded with John Sebastian and Eric Weissberg (of “Dueling Banjos” fame), and some 100 Woodstock, NY citizens — has been sung at rallies as far away as South Africa, Ireland and Australia. More at marc black.com.
FEBRUARY 4 SOUTH FLORIDA FOLK & ACOUSTIC MUSIC FESTIVAL DAVIE
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Dion Parson Educator, composer and Grammy-winning drummer Dion Parson’s musical foundation is solidly constructed of classical, calypso, jazz, reggae, African, and pop music. A native of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, Parson was awarded a grant from the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts to study at Interlochen Music Academy in Michigan as a youth, and was selected to represent the Virgin Islands as a drummer in the McDonald’s All-American High School Band. He received a Bachelor’s in Music Education and his Master’s in Jazz Performance from Rutgers University. He has performed in Asia, Europe, Canada, the West Indies, Africa, and the Middle East, and he has recorded more than 80 albums/CDs, including six as a leader. In 1998, together with Ron Blake, Parson founded 21st Century Band, a Caribbean-jazz band featuring the rich musical traditions of jazz fused with the rhythms of his native U.S. Virgin Islands. The band released three live recordings at the prestigious Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center (2010, 2012 and 2019), and the 2016 studio CD St. Thomas. Parson has also performed on Broadway with The Color Purple. In 2009 Parson founded the program “Mentoring Through the Arts of Music,” under the auspices of United Jazz Foundation, of which he is President. In the summer of 2020, Parson created the successful summer program “Caribbean Music Institute,” taught online by members of the band. In 2019, Parson was appointed as the Chair of the Communication, Art, Theatre, Music and Dance Department of the University of the Virgin Islands. More at caribbean studies association. org.
FEBRUARY 10 PINECREST GARDENS PINECREST
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B L U E S
Tower of Power
The ensemble known far and wide for their iconic horn-led funk and soul lean, Tower of Power recently celebrated their 55th anniversary with their 2023 holiday EP, It’s Christmas. Emilio Castillo plays second tenor sax, as well as providing background and lead vocals. “55 years have flashed before us in the blink of an FEBRUARY 8 ECKERD HALL eye, and this year has been extraordinary,” he says. “I’m very proud of our last CLEARWATER two records, Oakland Zone and The Great American Soulbook which is a classic soul cover album with some great guest artists. As a horn section, our collaborations FEBRUARY 9 with Huey Lewis, Little Feat and the Eurthymics stand out as my favorites.” MANN HALL Castillo, along with founding member Stephen (“Doc”) Kupka (baritone sax), FORT MYERS has written most of the ToP song catalog. Drummer David Garibaldi, keyboard FEBRUARY 10 player Roger Smith, guitarist Jerry Cortez, bassist Marc van Wageningen, lead THE PLAZA LIVE tenor sax player Tom E. Politzer, vocalist Mike Jerel, Adolfo Acosta on second ORLANDO trumpet and flugelhorn, and Dave Richards on trumpet and trombone round out the current lineup. “2023 has been a monumental year… from a sold-out European tour to performances with world-renowned symphonies and shows that have attracted fans from every era of Tower of Power’s history,” says Castillo. “And we’re glad to be celebrating the holiday season with the release of our new EP. We can’t wait to get back out in 2024 to keep the spirit of funk and soul alive!” More at towerofpower.com.
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John Pizzarelli
J A Z Z FEBRUARY 21 BROWARD CENTER FT LAUDERDALE
Guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli has been hailed by the Boston Globe for “reinvigorating the Great American Songbook and re-popularizing jazz.” Pizzarelli has expanded that repertoire by including the music of such disparate trailblazers as Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Antônio Carlos Jobim and the Beatles. In addition to being a bandleader and solo performer, Pizzarelli has been a special guest on recordings for major pop names such as Natalie Cole, Kristin Chenoweth and Rickie Lee Jones, as well as leading jazz artists such as Rosemary Clooney, Harry Allen and of course, his father Bucky Pizzarelli. He won a Grammy Award in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category as co-producer of James Taylor’s American Standard in 2021. A radio personality who got his start in the medium in 1984, Pizzarelli is co-host, alongside wife Jessica Molaskey, of Radio Deluxe with John Pizzarelli. He has performed on popular late night shows including Jimmy Fallon, Conan, Jay Leno and David Letterman, along with Great Performances and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. His albums have delved into the rich pool of the Great American Songbook from a variety of angles, with his most recent release Stage & Screen providing an inviting new twist. The CD also celebrates the 40th anniversary of Pizzarelli’s 1983 debut recording, I’m Hip (Please Don’t Tell My Father). Joining Pizzarelli in his trio for this Gold Coast Jazz Society show are Mike Karn on bass and Isaiah J. Thompson on piano. More at johnpizzarelli.com.
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