News Around the Neighborhood

City of Asylum @ Alphabet City Presents

Jazz Poetry Month:
Week Four

October 7th – October 9th
8:00 pm
40 W North Avenue

All events are FREE

Our annual Jazz Poetry Concert is now Jazz Poetry Month

Week Four features both solo and group performances from jazz phenoms! All of them have received great acclaimed from press nationwide. Each performer is a master of the craft, and it is a special and unique treat to have these artists play for us together or separately in a three-night showcase of these up-and-coming powerhouse performers.

Mary Halvorson, an NPR-featured performer, has been called “a bridge between the jazz of the past and the jazz of the future” by the trendsetting review site Pitchfork.

Tomas Fujiwara and The Hook Up have been praised by the New York Times for their “insightful, invigorating” performances. Tomas Fujiwara’s style has been described as “forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has a way of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint.”

Thumbscrew itself – a trio made up of Mary Halvorson (guitar), Tomas Fujiwara (drums) and Michael Formanek (double bass)- has been dubbed “One of the most exciting bands currently playing.”

Thumbscrew created and recorded their new album Convallaria during their BNY Mellon Jazz Residency at City of Asylum last year. Their album artwork features shots from the renovation of the Masonic Building, now the home for City of Asylum @ Alphabet City, as well as a few pictures from Randyland just around the corner!

We are excited to welcome these world-class performers back to Pittsburgh for a three-day exposition of talent that is not to be missed.

[ebor_button style=”pomegranate” url=”http://www.alphabetcity.org/jazz-poetry-month-calendar/”] View Upcoming Events [/ebor_button]

Direct from Russia & Estonia

ALEXEY KRUGLOV
&
JAAK SOOÄÄR TRIO

8:00 pm on both Friday, September 30^th & Saturday, October 1^st

2 Completely Different Concerts + 2 Different Sets of Poets

The Jaak Sooäär Trio with Alexey Kruglov is the first international jazz group ever invited to perform during Jazz Poetry Month Their performances in Pittsburgh will be their first U.S. performances ever, and they are coming directly to Pittsburgh from Estonia and Russia just for Jazz Poetry.

When I first heard Alexey Kruglov and the Jaak Sooäär Trio performing as “The Mighty Five,” I had never heard anything like it. The invisible fifth member of the group is actually a panoply of classical Russian composers who they have translated into jazz. I can’t describe the sheer exhilaration of what they do to “The Great Gates of Kiev” and how it lifts you into a euphoria.

I then began to listen to their other work and discovered just how versatile they were. They play in an entirely different register in recordings like “Military Spaces,” which has an extraterrestrial feel. So when we invited them, we asked them to play for several nights in each of these styles.

– Henry Reese

Reserve tickets for both nights and hear 2 different concerts.

[ebor_button style=”blue” url=”https://cityofasylumpittsburgh.secure.force.com/ticket/#sections_a0F3100000LgkoqEAB”] Friday, September 30 [/ebor_button] [ebor_button style=”blue” url=”https://cityofasylumpittsburgh.secure.force.com/ticket/#sections_a0F3100000LgksdEAB”] Saturday, October 1 [/ebor_button]