Duck Creek Hosts Fall Jazz
The Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs is hosting a weekend-long jazz festival called “East Enders” curated by former New York Times music critic Peter Watrous, featuring a thematic program rooted in the era of Abstract Expressionism, and some of the best jazz musicians working in New York.
On Friday, Sept. 6 from 5 7 p.m., The David Ambrosio Blue Note Group will play a program titled “Blue Note in the 1960s: Civil Disobedience.”
This program will feature the progressive jazz composers who performed at The Blue Note in the late 1960s, including Bobby Hutcherson, Charles Tolliver, Jackie McLean and McCoy Tyner.
Bassist, composer and band leader Dave Ambrosio convened Civil Disobedience as an artistic response to political events both domestic and global, per- forming some of the politically conscious jazz compositions of the 1960s originated by artists including Jackie McLean, Bobby Hutcherson and others.
The program continues with a program by the Peter Watrous Quintet titled “Standards Deconstructed” on Saturday, Sept. The group includes Chet Doxas on saxophones, Jacob Sacks on piano, David Ambrosio on bass, and Allan Mednard on drums.
The group will disassemble and reassemble familiar material — songs like How Deep is the Ocean? or Long Ago and Far Away— from the American songbook, and in the process make the old sound contemporary.
On Sunday, Sept. 8 from 5 to 7 p.m. the program continues with Peter Watrous’s “Bigger, Louder, Faster,” including Chet Doxas on saxophones, Jacob Sacks on piano, David Ambrosio on bass and and Allan Mednard on drums
Jazz in the 30s and 40s worked in a type of American Minimalism, a gestural short hand that implied the larger worlds of Blues Culture and African American life.
The condensation one hears in Count Basie’s piano playing, in the repeated and insistent fragments of a tenor saxophone solo, in the shout choruses of a big band’s improvised arranging all revel in the power of percussive repetition. This program will explore the composing of Count Basie, Charlie Christian, Thelonious Monk, Lester Young, Duke Ellington, Harry “Sweets” Edison and others.
There will be a question and answer session after the concert.
Indoor seating for this program is limited. Reservations will be accepted no earlier than one week in advance of the program.
For further information, please contact: Jess Frost, Executive Director at duckcreekarts@gmail.com
