My two lives as bandleader and nonprofit leader have come together this fall.
Our Sustainable Jazz Duo will be performing at the Princeton Community Housing Gala on Friday, October 6.
My two lives as bandleader and nonprofit leader have come together this fall.
Our Sustainable Jazz Duo will be performing at the Princeton Community Housing Gala on Friday, October 6.
On August 26, our Lunar Octet performed at the legendary Ark in Ann Arbor, MI.
The Lunar Octet was founded 40 years ago under the whimsical name Lunar Glee Club. It started as a composer's workshop, and still plays all original music. Along with many of my own compositions, we perform tunes by band members Aron Kaufman, Paul Vornhagen, and Jon Krosnick.I'm very fortunate to have such great musicians to perform my original compositions with.
Our Lunar Octet, now in its 40th year, performed a sold out show of latin, jazz, and funk this past week at the Blue Llama, a gorgeous jazz club in Ann Arbor, MI. Left to right in the photo are Sam Clark (guitar), Jeff Dalton (bass), Olman Piedra (percussion), Aron Kaufman (congas), Brandon Cooper (trumpet), Paul Vornhagen (woodwinds), and Keaton Royer (piano). Jon Krosnick plays the drums. Last year included tours in California and England.Our Sustainable Jazz Duo performs tonight at Salon 33 from 8-10, after an optional potluck at 7. Registration is required by the host: https://lookingglasspond.wufoo.com/forms/x1on5yya1r9z0mo/
The venue is on Alexander Rd on the way to the train station, with details provided upon registration. It's a nice performance space and community of people, and a donation-based event. We'll be performing all original music--some old, some new--spanning 40 years of composing.
I have two friends named Mimi, and by chance both are part of an organization called People and Stories that asked me to play some solo piano for their spring fundraiser. The forsythia was blooming in vases along the edge of glorious Mackay Lounge at the Seminary, and a grand piano was waiting to be played as people filtered in.
One small admission: I'm more of a reed player than a pianist, but people seemed very happy with the string of original piano pieces I had prepared for the occasion, pieces like Will a' the Wisp, This is Love, Anyway, and Dorothy's Garden. Some of these I play and talk about on my youtube channel. There's always someone who comes over and wants to talk at length while you're playing, and I was glad to see that my chops are good enough to carry on a conversation in the midst of performing.The fundraiser event was very impressive--well attended, with a very articulate and moving expression of the organization's mission by one of its leaders, followed by a reading and Q and A by famed author Jennifer Egan. She kept the audience spellbound through her reading, the sort of rapt attention where you could have heard a pin drop. Egan is a gifted writer and an equally gifted presenter. It turned out to be their best attended benefit to date.
May 6, 3pm - Princeton Public Library -- Join us in the Community Room for tuneful, joyful all-original jazz and latin
May 13 - Salon 33 -- a long-standing music series, now based in West Windsor. Potluck at 7pm, concert at 8pm. Contact me for more info.
May 10 -- Blue Llama, Ann Arbor, MI -- I'll be performing many of my original compositions with the Lunar Octet.
The Lunar Octet, our latin/jazz group now in its 40th year, played a four night engagement earlier this year at one of Detroit's premier jazz clubs, the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe. All-original music, sold-out shows, a standing ovation or two--it was a good week.
The photo was taken through the window at the club's entrance, which has musical and canine figures etched in.You can come to test drive an eCar or eBike, get a free tuneup of your existing bicycle, donate an old bike you no longer need, get some food or Bent Spoon ice cream, and of course listen to our original latin and jazz music wafting over the proceedings. Should be a great event hosted by the highly capable folks at Sustainable Princeton
Thanks to the Kinston Historical Society and Fire Department for inviting us to perform for their first town picnic in eight years, in Kingston Park. The Friends of Princeton Nursery Lands was also there to share information about their work at what was long called the Mapleton Preserve.
We joke that no virgin timbres are harvested for our performances, but we did feel a strong urge to squash a few of the invasive spotted lanternflies that happened by.A performance at Portola Valley Vineyards on August 21 completed our Lunar Octet tour in California.
In addition to the vineyard concert, we played Mr. Tipples jazz club in downtown San Francisco,This samba keeps getting interrupted before launching into a fullblown groove. Phil Orr on piano is a one-man samba. Composer Steve Hiltner performs on alto sax. Recorded live in April, 2022 in West Windsor, NJ.
Phil Orr and Steve Hiltner perform Steve's composition, Maybe More Than Maybe, Baby. The title is explained in the video's intro. Recorded in April, 2022 at a full house in West Windsor, NJ.
For nearly 40 years I've been musical director for the group persistently known as the Lunar Octet, playing original jazz latin, with gigs this year in Michigan, California, and England.
The Blue Llama, a gorgeous art deco jazz club on Main Street in Ann Arbor, has been a recurrent venue, including a gig earlier this month, but April 6 and 7 we'll be performing at the Dirty Dog in Detroit. There's a trip or two this summer to California, and September 23 we'll be headlining at the Scarborough Jazz Festival in England.To my right on the bandstand are the prolific performers Paul Vornhagen on various reeds and Brandon Cooper on trumpet and flugelhorn.
Sam Clark and Jeff Dalton are the string section behind me. Jeff has been shifting to a seaside existence in the Florida Keys, where he's become increasingly busy performing with bands while working remotely on internet security.Through much of the summer, our 2021 Lunar Octet release, Convergence, was at or near the top of Amazon's "Hot New Releases in Latin Jazz." The many positive reviews and airplay around the world are documented on the Lunar Octet website. Though the band is a collective with no designated leader, I took on the informal role of musical director soon after the band formed in 1983, writing out charts and contributing compositions. It's a close-knit group, still based in Ann Arbor, MI. We love performing together, spreading the joy and feeding off the audience's response. Except for a couple covers of Tito Puente tunes, the music is all of our own creation. It's very exciting to see the music now getting heard around the world.
Our jazz/latin band, the Lunar Octet, was recently invited to be on Alternative Venues for Jazz, a facebook group started by Gail Boyd. Gail's a manager of artists, and each day she features jazz artists who talk about their lives and recent recordings. It's a great program and we were thrilled to be invited on. Drummer Jon Krosnick, bassist Jeff Dalton, and I spoke about our lives and the recent release of our album, Convergence, which is getting positive reviews and airplay around the world.
During our 30 minute self-interview, Jon and Jeff asked me to talk about the genesis of my life as a jazz musician and composer. To have a listen to all or part, click on the link above, not the photo.3:14 -- How I began composing music