Miguel Zenon Quartet

“Miguel Zenón possesses rare talent, both for the level of his alto saxophone virtuosity and the ability to make complex compositions immediate and accessible.

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The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra began its life as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1966.The world-famous Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City booked the newly formed band for three Monday nights that February. Those performances were wildly successful and the engagement was extended indefinitely. The Village Vanguard’s owner, Max Gordon, told Mel Lewis, “We’ll keep it going until it tapers off.” Over half a century and more than 2700 Monday nights later, it still hasn’t. The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra stands apart from all other modern ensembles of its kind and is still as strong and vital as ever.

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A drummer around whom a cult of admiration has formed.

“If you've put an ear to some of the most talked-about jazz bands of the last few years, you've likely heard saxophonist Walter Smith III. He's kept the tenor chair in the Ambrose Akinmusire quintet, the Terence Blanchard quintet and Eric Harland's Voyager band.

“His music appears to be a revelation unfolding in real time—a genuine portrayal of an interior state...Lage has a radiant quality, both in his playing and in his temperament.

“In the quest to describe the music of Fred Hersch in a word — a preposterous task, but not a pointless one — you could do a lot worse than “refinement.” Mr. Hersch is a pianist of cultivated taste and erudition; he’s also the sort of jazz musician who brings a lissome elegance to his playing, disinclined to accentuate the effort behind it all. But there’s another definition of refinement that has to do with painstaking progress, the incremental stretch toward an elusive ideal.  

“He bears the name of jazz royalty, and he's spent many hours curating, archiving and producing his parents' recordings. But when he picks up his own saxophones, Ravi Coltrane blows an original and distinctly modern strain of jazz, distilling but never seeking to imitate his family's adventurous improvising spirits. Now one of today's top saxophonists

“Studious and self-assured, with a casually debonair style and a warm but faraway air, the Chicago-born Mr. Ross, became ubiquitous on the scene over the last few years without forcing himself in, by virtue of his rhythmic distinction and his adaptive spirit.

“Changes come and go in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood, but the basement club occupying 178 Seventh Avenue South since 1935 remains a stable and revered New York City landmark.