https://www.facebook.com/281520071706049/

The SCene, 80 Pleasant Street, Marion, MA (2026)

10/06/2025

On Friday, October 3, 2025, the Marion Art Center presented Nina Ott and Chris Lopes Unplugged in the MAC Gallery. This series of jazz concerts began in 2023 and this was the tenth program since its inception.

The unplugged concerts are held upstairs in the Patsy Francis Gallery which is transformed into an intimate jazz club, complete with cabaret seating and mood lighting. Introduced by MAC director Jodi Stevens, Ott and Lopes proved to be the perfect duo for this space, mixing an interesting collection of jazz standards, some lesser-known jazz tunes, and two of their own compositions. Playing “things that they like”, these two skilled accompanists and improvisers took the attentive audience on an interesting journey.

The Latin-American influenced ‘Angelica’, written by Italian pianist and composer Salvatore Bonafede, opened the set, followed by Worcester, MA jazz legend Jaki Byard’s twelve-bar blues ‘Chanda’, and Gerry Allen’s jazz fusion tune ‘Unconditional Love’. This mini-set of the lesser-known songs was introduced by Ott as, “great jazz tunes not heard as much”. By highlighting specific artists and styles of jazz, Ott says that she tries to “vary the energy and tempos, and factor in the context. So for a duo, realistically, it won’t work to play much Afro-Cuban music. I try for a theme.”

Thomas “Fats” Waller’s lively ‘Jitterbug Waltz’ followed, and then a pair of their own very imaginative jazz compositions, Ott’s ‘Orbit 13’ and Lopes’ ‘Snowy Owl’. As far as including original music in a set, Ott says, “We both love to write and arrange jazz music.” She added that when presenting original music, it helps to have a “friendly and open minded audience.” I also asked Ott if there is an advantage to being a “married jazz couple”. She said,“Yes I think so. We definitely rehearse for our concerts and we inspire one another, for sure.”

The one-hour set concluded with the Thelonius Monk standard ‘Bemsha Swing’ and the oldest song in the program, Whiting and Chase’s 1930’s popular song ‘My Ideal’, here reimagined in a jazz style and completing a span of almost 100 years of jazz music compositions.

Both Ott and Lopes loved the small venue, calling the atmosphere upstairs in the Marion Art Center “a dream with a very chilled vibe”. They will continue with several performing and recording projects this fall, working with a new quartet named “Hum” which includes saxophonist John McKenna, guitarist Steve Fell, and the multi-talented Lopes on drums. Ott and Lopes are also working toward a trio recording of some “minimalist jazz” in November with drummer Steve Langone.

Ott and Lopes will perform with their Latin-jazz ensemble at UMass Dartmouth on October 23 in CVPA room 153 from 7-8 p.m. This group features Bertram Lehmann on drums, Manolo Mairena on congas, and Jared Sims on sax and flute.

There are two more Unplugged Jazz programs at the MAC this year. On November 21 (sets at 7 and 8:30 p.m.), Donn Legge will be joined by keyboardist Jack Coleman, and on December 17 (7-9:30 p.m.), a “holiday jazz” program will feature Legge and vocalist Dori Rubbicco, joined by keyboardist Matt Richard. Additional information on all MAC music events can be found by visiting https://www.marionartcenter.org/music/

08/08/2024

A Profile of Dr. Sarah Leahy, Music Educator by Matt Richard

I have vivid memories of my elementary school music teacher. Every other Thursday, Mrs. Natalie Hemingway would float into our classroom singing a song that we would immediately join in with. For me, she was a musical angel who changed all of our lives for the better whether or not we pursued the field of music after graduation.

As I sat down and spoke with Dr. Sarah Leahy, I thought of Mrs. Hemingway and I imagined that many of Leahy’s young students in Mattapoisett are experiencing some of the same emotions when they enter the music room of their new teacher.

Leahy, a New Bedford native, began teaching General Music and Chorus at the Old Hammondtown and Center schools in January of this year after spending the last twelve years teaching in North Attleboro. She gets to see every student from kindergarten to sixth grade once every week.

One of Leahy’s earliest memories of music involved her brother and his study of both the saxophone and cello. As a toddler, she distinctly remembers crawling onto the lap of his teacher, Charlene Monte. Monte, a talented cellist and educator, is a name which came up several times during the course of our interview.

At the age of three, Leahy asked for violin lessons after finding her grandmother’s violin in storage. Some piano piano lessons followed. Leahy says, “I was all about anything that made sound in the house.” After being introduced to the recorder in third grade at the Acushnet elementary school, Leahy says she pretty much knew that she wanted to be a music teacher.

“Before Ms. O’Hara gave us each a recorder, I had never associated music with a job before. I remember thinking, you get to play the recorder every day?” It should be noted that having a mom who taught art in the public schools for over thirty years must have had an influence on Leahy’s future career plans as well.

Leahy’s own musical path continued in the New Bedford Public Schools, initially working with Terry Oullette, Ed Salk, and Bill Lacey, as well as studying cello privately with Charlene Monte. Leahy says, “I was also lucky enough to go to Keith Middle School because at the time, it was the only middle school that had an orchestra and my mother had advocated for me to attend that school.”

At New Bedford High School, Leahy took full advantage of every possible vocal ensemble, working with choral director Pauline Diabalsi and jazz band director Russ Campoli, where she learned the bass trombone and eventually played tenor saxophone by her senior year.

Although the UMass/Dartmouth music department wasn’t originally on her radar, after considering some of the bigger music programs like Boston University, the Berklee School of Music and the Hartt School of Music, Leahy chose UMass/Dartmouth. Leahy liked the UMass program and was fascinated by their world-music focus. There were enough performing ensembles available, but in the end, Professor Marie Nelson really sold it for Leahy. Nelson, who passed away in 2020, led the music education program at UMass/Dartmouth for many years. Leahy adds, “Sometimes you meet a person and you just click, and that was the case with Marie Nelson.”

“For me, UMass was one of those music programs where you got out of it what you put into it,” recalls Leahy. “There were quality people there. It was almost like a mentorship model where they guide you through the process if you were willing to put in the work.”

A self-described “music history geek”, Leahy took every music history seminar course with Paul Ciennawa that she could. Impressed with a paper about ancient Greek music she wrote for a music history class, Professor Andy McWain was one of the first people who recommended that Leahy pursue writing and the academic side of music research.

Mostly leaving her instruments behind in her first year, Leahy studied voice with Annette Betanski and followed that by working with Anton Belov for the next three years. Leahy feels that UMass/Dartmouth was a very good place to be a vocal major at the time. During her junior and senior years, Leahy began teaching violin and cello at Music of the Bay in Buzzard’s Bay, and in 2008, she began her student teaching at Quinn Elementary School in Dartmouth. Leahy worked with the middle school string program under Charlene Monte and spent time at the elementary school working with Marianne Oien. “A lot of my teaching and how I get students to gain confidence with music was due to my work with Marianne.”

After graduation, Leahy taught in Fall River for one year before being hired by the North Attleboro Public Schools. There, she taught general music K-5 and chorus, as well as a music credit for a 9-12 special needs program. Although she bounced around from school to school and visited each classroom with a cart full of musical instruments, Leahy remembers great kids and staff, and she says she was able to design her own curriculum for the needs of the kids which was a “wonderful thing.”

During this time, Leahy also rekindled her interest in Boston University by entering their online masters program. She says, “I loved the level of scholarly intrigue that was required for it. It was awesome.” Leahy completed that program of study in 2014 with a Masters Degree in Music Education. She originally wanted to keep right on going, but she had to wait for a few years to enter the doctoral program.

A lot happened over the next few years. The Covid-19 virus hit, and after taking a sabbatical to finish her doctoral program and earning a Doctor of Arts in Music Education, she also added to the Leahy family with a baby boy in 2020. All of this led her to a new position this past January teaching at both the Old Hammondtown and Center schools in Mattapoisett where she now has her own music room in each building. Leahy says, “Coming back to teach in the Southcoast has felt like coming home again, with familiar faces, names, and a sense of giving back to a community that’s given me so much.”

Asked whether or not she missed performing music, Leahy said she doesn’t because she gets her “performance bug” sated through her students: “I really feel that when I’m running a concert, that the children are my instrument in a way. It’s like the difference between arranging the cogs and being the cog. I find a lot of satisfaction doing a big production concert with every grade level as each grade level has its own little nuances, from a sixth-grade select chorus to first graders singing about crayons.”

As for Leahy’s future, she says that after she is more comfortable in her new job, she’d love to do more writing and perhaps get published. Leahy’s dissertation was on neurodidactics in music education (new discoveries about how our brains learn). When she wrote her dissertation, she made a theoretical framework and each section of that framework could possibly become a future journal article. Leahy has also presented her ideas at the Massachusetts All-State Music Conference. She says, “I like writing and I like research, I’ll get that bug again.”

For now, I’m sure the young music students in Mattapoisett are happy that they have Dr. Sarah Leahy to help them learn about music and lead them through their performances.

07/29/2024

Concert review by Matt Richard

On Sunday, July 28th, I attended an interesting pipe organ concert presented by Matthew Dion who was the guest of the local American Guild of Organists chapter and the First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. The program lasted about an hour and included music by Muffat, Frescobaldi, Sandresky, Buxtehude, Krebs, and Mendelssohnon on the church’s Flentrop organ. Dion skillfully navigated his way through a variety of challenging music.

Using both hands (manuals) and feet (pedalboard), Dion’s melodies were crisp and clear throughout. The music demanded a very high level of technical expertise and he brought his dexterity to light with well executed ornaments, runs, and flourishes.

One nice addition to the program was Dion’s concise and brief descriptions of each piece and composer. This was just enough to allow the listener to understand when and where the music was originally composed. An extra special touch on this program included the vocal talents of Dion’s mother, Heidi Dion, who sang beautifully on two of the selections.

To my ears, it was amazing to hear so many different sounds and textures brought out of this organ which was originally built in 1965 and then renovated in 1995. The organ was specifically planned with a Baroque design that was common in the time of Johann Sebation Bach. Dion successfully used a wide range of sonorities and dynamics, from the most delicate flute-like sounds to opening up the full force of the magnificent instrument. The organ’s sound seems to perfectly fit the room in which it was built.

Dion, a Somerset, MA native, lives in Houston, Texas and is currently represented by Concert Artists Cooperative III Artist Management. He is enrolled at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music as a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) candidate in organ performance as well as serving as the assistant Director of Music and Organist at Saint Anne Catholic Church in Houston.

In a field declining in numbers, Dion is one of the leading members of a younger generation of pipe organists who are studying, teaching, serving as church musicians, and performing concerts throughout the United States.

There is much more information and audio links on Dion's web page at https://www.mdionorganist.com/

07/21/2024

A view of the Tom Casale Quartet by Matt Richard

There is so much excitement these days about A.I. (artificial intelligence), that last night as I listened to an exciting jazz quartet in downtown Bristol, Rhode Island, I realized that what I was witnessing was the exact opposite of A.I.

What I heard and saw included four highly-skilled jazz musicians interacting with each other in a very spontaneous way. Although the melody, chords, and form of each song grounded them, they were not performing music that was written down or that had been ever done before in that exact manner.

They were listening to each other and reacting. They were relying on a vast supply of technique on their instruments that they had practiced and built up individually and with other jazz musicians for countless hours. They were creating a collective sound that might be similar but that would be completely different if they performed together the next night.

As the band began their set in this high-end coffee shop known as the Borealis Coffee Company, I think maybe two or three people were present. When I left an hour and a quarter later on their first break, there were probably fifty to sixty people (including a few children) listening to every note and rhythm, applauding for solos, and enjoying the scene.

The jazz group that I heard was led by acoustic bassist Tom Casele and included John McKenna on both tenor and soprano saxes, Gino Rosati on guitar, and Chris Poudrier on drum set.

The group began with a straight ahead swing take on the 98-year-old standard “Bye Bye Blackbird”. A second standard, the American songbook classic “You Don't Know What Love Is”, followed; however with this arrangement, they stretched the time-feel out and played three-quarters of the tune in three with the bridge section swinging in four.

This led the group into a beautiful ballad “Dark Star” composed by John McKenna and including his amazing a ca****la cadenza at the very end of the original song. And I mention the word “original” because now this ensemble was performing songs that most of the audience had never heard before. This worked because these original compositions remained true and consistent with the jazz styles that had led the audience to hear and support them.

Following were “Snake and the Grasshopper” written by Casale and including a powerful unison melody, the guitarist Rosati’s “Other Swing Thing”, a soulful tune in the funk/gospel vein, and another McKenna original, “Rascal”, which forced the listener to continue counting until they heard the groups of seven and some sprinkles of four.

The first set closed with another interesting ballad written by Casale entitled “El Cruce Del Rio”. On this song, Rosati and McKenna traded the melody going in and on the way out. Rosati incorporated some very impressive and unexpected counterpoint lines, stretching away from just playing the chords on the guitar.

Overall, when listening to any competent and dynamic jazz group, it’s that unexpected element that catches your ear throughout the performance. The listener knows that what they are hearing– live and in the moment– will not be exactly the same the next time. And perhaps that’s what keeps bringing the audience back.

One final and amazing thing to consider is that because of day jobs, family commitments, and busy schedules, I don’t imagine that this particular group had rehearsed or played this music before. The audience could hear them quietly discussing the roadmaps of each arrangement right up until they counted in the tempo. Think about the skill it requires to take such risks in front of a live audience and succeed.

I once read that jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has always considered the tradition of recording music in a studio followed by touring or doing live concerts to be backwards. I know that on Kenny Garrett’s recording “Pursuance: The Music of John Coltrane” (1996) which Metheny played on, the ensemble toured for the better part of a year and then they recorded the music.

Before I left Borealis, I wondered to myself if the Tom Casale Quartet would record or if they were content with this group to just live in the moment with live concerts. The answer to that remains to be seen. Either way, with their melodic interpretations, their improvisation, their composing skills, and their collective rhythm spirit, this is a very interesting group to listen to and again, the very opposite of any computer generated music.

Featuring jazz music occasionally, this particular Borealis Coffee Company is located off 500 Wood Street in Bristol, Rhode Island, a short and pleasant walk back to Unit 113 where the coffee shop is located. Several restaurants are also found along the way, including a giant-sized Brick Pizzeria on Wood Street. Another Borealis Coffee Company shop is located just off a bike path and on 250 Bullocks Point Avenue in Riverside, Rhode Island.

06/30/2024

A profile of Reis Medeiros, musician and educator By Matt Richard

Reis Medeiros closed out our recent interview saying, “The biggest difference in your life can be a really good and impactful teacher.”

Reis, a 2023 graduate of the UMass/Dartmouth music program, recently finished his first year of teaching at the Alfred J. Gomes School in New Bedford and we sat down to discuss his musical journey to this point.

Reis traced his musical lineage back to his “extremely supportive parents” and three brothers who were also involved with music at home. This environment included countless rides to private piano lessons and a mom who set an egg timer to make sure that Reis followed through with his commitment to his music lessons.

Following his two older brothers’ participation in a summer piano institute at Bridgewater State College, Reis and his younger brother began to study privately at the home of Professor Henry Santos who taught at the college and who had founded the summer program.

Reis says, “Because my mom really liked Professor Santos, when my younger brother and I wanted to learn piano, she reached out to him.”

”Professor Santos was amazing, my first impression of him involved going to his house, being greeted by his wife, and walking in as professor Santos was wrapping up his lesson with an older student”. Reis recalls sitting in the living room and hearing Professor Santos say to an older student’s mother, “Ma’am, if he’s not going to practice, there’s nothing more I can do, don’t even waste your money.” Reis says, “I was a bit scared and I thought, wow, but Professor Santos really was the nicest guy in the world. He apologized for us having to hear his honesty, and then we got to work.”

Reis never looked back, studying classical piano with Professor Santos from first grade all the way until his senior year in high school. His studies also included music theory, writing out Bach Chorales, and even composition. Santos, a master teacher and one-time college roommate of Dr. Martin Luther King while at Boston University, passed away in 2020 having left a powerful influence on Reis and many other students.

Starting around sixth grade, two additional components were added to Reis’ musical plate.

Reis was asked to play the piano in the “Tuesday Night Jazz Band” in Middleboro. This was his first time playing in a jazz group of any kind and it presented some challenges that could not be solved through his classical piano studies. The leader of the band, Marty Hartford, was kind enough to share a different recording with Reis each week. One recording in particular, “Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers ‘Ugetsu: Live at Birdland” was extremely influential onReis. Reis continued to play with the Tuesday Night Band through high school, and the group performed many concerts in and around Middleboro, Carver and Plymouth.

In addition, Reis began studying the trombone in the Freetown-Lakeville school system where he was a student. Reis then continued to balance the piano and the trombone all the way until after graduation from high school.

When Reis decided to take a ‘gap year’, joining his brothers Chase and Jordan in Montana and working in the Montana Conservation Program, he could only bring his trombone along with him. For the next nine months, the trombone became the only musical instrument that he could practice during his down time.

Upon returning home, Reis finally decided that he wanted to study music so he applied to UMass/Dartmouth as a trombone major. As his first year at the university involved only Zoom! lessons due to the Covid 19 Pandemic, Reis found himself wanting to return to the piano.

Just before the UMass/Dartmouth campus opened back up for in-person classes, Reis, his girlfriend Sage, and two of their friends made a special trip to New York City to see jazz pianist Robert Glasper at the Blue Note Jazz Club. The experience of being seated where Reis could watch Glasper’s hands as he led his trio was profound. “Something just clicked inside”, says Reis. “It was the most important concert I’ve ever been to in my life.” He spent the next few months focusing more and more on his jazz piano studies.

In the music program at UMass/Dartmouth, Reis mentioned some of the faculty members who challenged him and helped him grow as a musician. Professors Toby Monty (Conducting and Wind Symphony), Chris Poudrier (Latin Jazz Ensemble), and Will Riley (Ear Training and Sight Singing Skills) all had a big impact on Reis in three completely different areas of study.

Reis also mentioned Christian Camarao, another UMass/Dartmouth student who graduated a few years ahead of him, as an inspiration during his time at the college. Reis adds, “Christian is one of the most ‘true to his art’ musicians I’ve ever met.”

Reis’ student teaching was positive, working with both Tim Mason at New Bedford High School and Dr. Brian Michaud at Dighton Elementary School. Reis says, “When I started student teaching, I was sure that I wanted to teach high school, and once I started working at the elementary level, I just fell in love with the elementary level. Brian Michaud was an incredible mentor to me.”

Last fall, as most first-year teachers find out, was “very overwhelming at the beginning.” Reis taught general music and chorus to grades K-5 as well as serving as an assistant to the jazz band at the high school, working again with Mason.

In the classroom, Reis says his initial goals were to develop a rapport with and gain the students’ trust. Once that was accomplished, his classroom management skills were polished. “It’s a constant challenge,” Reis admits.

As for teaching in general, Reis says, “It’s starting to feel rewarding. I’m surprised with how well my chorus did at their spring concert.” Reis ended the year with many students, once reluctant to be there, thinking it was “really cool to sing in the chorus.”

Reis is looking forward to his second year of teaching, refining his curriculum and beginning a new assignment as the All-City Jazz Band Director. The ensemble will be the first of its kind in New Bedford in fourteen years. He will meet once a week with jazz students from the three middle schools: Roosevelt, Keith, and Normandin.

This summer, Reis has plans to record a four-track EP of four jazz/funk based arrangements including three original compositions. If all goes well, he would like to release it by September. He says, “It will probably be done on-location and I want to ‘live record’ everything, no tracking. I’ve been wanting to record for three or four years now. I want the recording to be my best at this moment, but I also know that I will continue growing and the next recording will sound even better.”

A group of his close musical friends who were very important student colleagues at UMass/Dartmouth will hopefully be involved with the project including Joe Gauvin, Pedro Silva, Robert Conlon, Andrew Ponte, and Steve Brum.

Reis agrees that his time away from other musicians, both while in Montana and during the Covid 19 break, made his friends at UMass/Dartmouth even more important to his development. He says, “Once we came back to campus in-person, all we did was jam together, especially since that was when I made the switch to jazz piano. I relied on all of them to learn from and it’s always great to have friends along the journey.”

With so many positive influences, caring music teachers, and musical friends over Reis’ first fifteen years of music study, it is clear why he feels that “the biggest difference in your life can be a really good and impactful teacher.” It seems very likely that the New Bedford Public School’s music students will end up feeling the same way about Reis Medeiros.

Ugetsu: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at Birdland 1963
https://youtu.be/qjAAWZ9G64Q?si=NmDZ-tDXWNWOBkRU

Robert Glasper Trio Live at Capital Records 2015 Blue Note Records
https://youtu.be/jM3GvD3DKbw?si=cLKVQSqT0919CQJm

05/08/2024

The SCJO at the Bayside Lounge by Matt Richard

As I stood in the wide doorway between the bar side and the music room at the Bayside Lounge in Fairhaven, a patron stood counting the band members on stage. “I think it’s sixteen tonight”, I said to him. All he replied was, “Wow!” I told him the band was a throwback to the days of Count Basie and Duke Ellington and mentioned that this was the band that had performed for years at Gilda’s Stone Rooster. He said, “Oh yeah, I knew that place, it’s great that they’re here now.”

And it is “great” that the Southcoast Jazz Orchestra is now playing from 8-10 p.m. on the first Monday of every month at the Bayside Lounge. This restaurant and bar has been packed for the first three performances in March, April, and May. Some of the crowd are the same fans who supported Gilda Downey and her love of jazz music, and some are new fans.

The SCJO is led from the trumpet section by Symphony Music Shop owner Bob Williamson who formed the ensemble about fifteen years ago. The group might be modeled after the traditional swing-era big bands of the 1930s and 1940s, but most of their music is much more contemporary-sounding than the classics.

The band does play some straight-ahead swing but with more of an edge. They also include a bit of Latin-American based styles, as well as an occasional pop or jazz/rock fusion song converted into a jazz arrangement.

The SCJO is quite a powerful group to experience, with soulfully played melodies, driving rhythms, harmonies that fly at the crowd in waves, and short explosive rhythms. The band is also capable of delivering a beautiful, lush ballad.

This band is a very talented mix of current and retired music educators, some full-time musicians, a retired acupuncturist, a cardiologist, a lighting designer, a licensed plumber, and even a master auto mechanic. Regardless of their occupations, they all play at a high level, often sight reading new arrangements without the benefit of any rehearsal.

Riffing off that automobile connection and paraphrasing the great jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, if you’ve never seen a big band perform, consider the rhythm section (guitar, bass, and drums) functioning as the wheels and suspension, setting the pace and keeping things moving along. Picture the front row of five saxophones as being a solid frame and the engine, leading the melodies or supporting in other ways.

Think of the trumpet section as the steering wheel, guiding the music with the higher melodies and adding dynamic rhythmic punctuation. Finally, hear the trombone section as a comfortable interior, providing mellow pads of sound to also support the band.

That is a very simple comparison, but if any given song is like a good-looking, quality car, a big band arrangement can be viewed or heard in the same way, smoothly driving along all the twists and turns of the musical roadmap.

Of course, all four sections in the band can play a melody or provide the supportive parts of an arrangement. That versatility, along with improvised solos in many places, creates a lot of excitement and unpredictability. A skilled jazz band will never play a song the exact same way twice, and that is another element which makes things attractive to the listeners.

Other than occasional swing dancing resurgences and ballroom dancing, jazz music is just not danced to anymore and hasn’t been since the 1940s. So for these Monday nights, the audience enjoys a unique jazz music experience only found in major cities. Reservations are recommended for this unique evening out, and you will not be disappointed.

The Bayside Lounge is located at 125 Sconticut Neck Road in Fairhaven, just a few minutes off Route 195, via the Route 240 connector.

For more info on the Bayside Lounger visit https://baysideloungefhvn.com
and for more info on the Southcoast Jazz Orchestra visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/112829224334

04/29/2024

A View of “Not Afraid to Dare” by Matt Richard

On Sunday afternoon, April 28th, Seaglass Theater Company presented Isabel Randall and Anthony Pilcher in a very interesting and enjoyable program of music composed or arranged almost exclusively by African-American composers.

One very challenging aspect of having classically-trained musicians perform music based on African-American traditions is in executing the rhythm that carries each song along. There is a fine line between what swings and what does not swing. There is an even wider range of how listeners understand and hear authentic swing in music.

The word swing has a lot to do with rhythm but in this case, swing is also related to the overall feel that is applied to a song. The versatile and talented violist Danny Seidenberg once mentioned to me that, “Even Bach’s music swings, you know? It’s just got its own kind of swing or feel to it.” While the majority of classical music favors straight rhythms, jazz music has been built, in part, on the looser swing rhythms first heard in ragtime music.

While watching a recent television broadcast of an opera composed by a well-known African-American jazz artist, I noticed that one of the featured female singers just did not have the proper feel for the style. Although she had a wonderful instrument and was obviously well trained, she simply was not in sync with the orchestra or the style. Her presentation ended up sounding forced and stiff in many places. For many classically trained artists, it can be almost impossible to allow one’s self the flexibility necessary to live on the jazz side of the music.

In this performance, both Randall and Pilcher showed refined classical technique and beautiful voices, but they also brought more than enough swing and authentic feel to all of the arrangements they performed. The program, skillfully accompanied on piano by music director Dr. Matthew Larson, consisted of unique arrangements of African-American spiritual songs transformed by Moses Hogan, Harry Burleigh, Hall Johnson and Shawn E. Okpebholo as well as compositions by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and Leslie Adams.

The recital-length concert flew by and included an impressive range of moods, dynamics, and tempos. Three short poems written by Randall were included, one solo piano arrangement, “Troubled Water” written by Bonds, was offered by Larson. The underrated Gallery X provided the perfect space and acoustics for this program.

Randall, a mezzo-soprano, displayed a warm, golden tone which was consistent throughout her entire vocal range. In addition to singing so elegantly, she also carefully acted each selection, using a solid range of emotions from sorrow to joy without overdoing anything.

Pilcher used his strong and very soulful baritone voice on two spirituals arranged by Okpebholo and an interesting song cycle “Night Songs” by Adams. Pilcher’s charming and expressive delivery seemed effortless, whether singing the most powerful or more tender passages.

I did wish for a song or two from the pen of the great Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington as both singers were more than capable of interpreting his music. Sadly, Ellington is often dismissed as a serious composer outside the jazz world and his music’s inclusion, perhaps from his sacred songs or Liberian Suite, would have been very appropriate companions to the rest of the repertoire.

The addition of one or two solo piano selections might have also strengthened the program, not only because Larson plays so well and but because an instrumental interlude can change the musical texture a bit.

Overall, I enjoyed this program as much as any Seaglass Theater production I have heard in recent years. The length was perfect, the narration was concise and interesting. I also felt that by featuring just two vocalists, the audience was able to fully appreciate their talents and their interpretations of this collection of music.

Not Afraid To Dare, Music by Black Composers
Seaglass Theater Company
Gallery X, April 28, 2024, 3:00 p.m.

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