The Gerry Malkin Jazz Collective is comprised of some of the finest jazz musicians in the area. We are delighted to be back at Arts Westchester in 2014.
Gerry Malkin has studied with the likes of Dave Liebman and Bob Berg and has performed with the Temptations and Four Tops along with Tito Puente, Dave Weckl, Adam Nussbaum, Lew Soloff, Ray Vega, George Colligan, Steve Johns and Joey Calderazzo.
Guitarist Chris Morrison has recorded and/or performed with Adam Nussbaum, Lew Soloff, John Patitucci, Joe Beck, Chip Jackson, and Brian Torff.
Bassist Mike McGuirk won the International Society of Jazz Bass Competition in 1997. He has played and/or recorded with John Abercrombie, Marc Copeland, Dave Liebman, Tim Hagans, Adam Nussbaum, Mulgrew Miller, and Eddie Henderson among others.
Drummer Bobby Leonard has performed and/or recorded with Eddie Henderson, Joey Calderrazo, Woody Herman, Dave Liebman, and Link Chamberlain among many others.
Guest Artists
We are proud to add trumpeter Alex Norris to the list of guest artists. Alex has worked with many noted jazz musicians, such as Joshua Redman, Brad Meldau, Chris Potter, and John Patitucci.
We are also proud to add pianist Enrique Haneine to the list of guest artists. He is recognized as a force in the jazz community and is the recipient of a Grammy nomination for his performance on Best Latin album.
We are also proud to add pianist Tuomo Uusitalo to the list of guest artists. He has performed with many jazz legends including Bob Brookmeyer, Billy Hart, Curtis Fuller, Jimmy Cobb and Jim Rotondi.
We are proud to include as a special guest artist trumpeter Scott Wendholt. Scott is a much in demand artist and has worked and/or recorded with Kenny Garrett, Cyrus Chestnut, Christian McBride, Don Braden and Bruce Barth. He has been a Featured Soloist with the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and the Carnegie Hall Big Band. Among his credits, Scott has been recorded on more than 90 CDs.
We are thrilled to be able to add Ingrid Jensen as a guest artist. She has been hailed as one of the gifted trumpeters of her generation and is one of the most in demand trumpet players in the global scene. She has performed with a multigenerational cast of jazz legends ranging from Clark Terry to Esperanza Spaulding.
We are also pleased to include trumpeter Joe Magnarelli on special occasions. Joe was a semifinalist in the Thelonious Monk competition in 1990 and is a regular participant in the New York and international jazz scene. He has worked with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Orchestra and the Lincoln Center Orchestra.
We are also pleased to include trombonist and alto flugelhornist Scott Reeves. Scott is an accomplished educator and performer. He is currently an Associate Professor at the City College of New York and in the past has taught at the Juilliard School. He has performed with many big bands and leads his own 17 piece Jazz Orchestra. He has worked with many notable jazz players among them Clark Terry, Dave Liebman, Benny Carter, Ron Carter, Rufus Reid, John Patitucci and Billy Hart.
IN THE NEWS:
www.allaboutjazz.com/gerry-malkin-quintet-at-the-beanrunner-cafe-by-karl-ackermann.php
By KARL ACKERMANN
November 15, 2016
Gerry Malkin Quintet
The BeanRunner Café in Peekskill, New York on November 12, 2016
The Gerry Malkin Quintet is a quintessential, hard-working, New York area group that plays top-notch music, while going under-recognized in the competitive and crowded metropolitan marketplace. What is atypical of its session-savvy members are jazz pedigrees that run deep in the jazz hierarchy. The quintet brought their show to the popular BeanRunner Café in the Hudson River city of Peekskill, New York, just north of Manhattan. A combination of art gallery, performance space and eatery, the BeanRunner is a suburban variation of NYC's Jazz Gallery. Though it subsists in a small-city, boutique style setting with casual—but very good food—the music is the venue.
Leader and tenor saxophonist Gerry Malkin has performed with Tito Puente, Lew Soloff, Adam Nussbaum, George Colligan and Dave Weckl, to name a few. A graduate of the University of Bridgeport, he was mentored by Dave Liebman, Frank Foster and Bob Berg and is teacher himself. His early career had a strong Motown connection as he played with The Temptations and The Four Tops.
Guitarist Chris Morrison has performed with Richie Cole, John Patitucci and Brian Torff. With a Master's degree in Jazz Performance from the Conservatory of Music at SUNY Purchase, he also teaches jazz guitar and small group jazz at Western Connecticut State University. Keyboardist Jeff Pittson cites Chick Corea and Bill Evans among his influences. He has performed with Joe Henderson and Kenny Garrett and recorded with Maynard Ferguson. Portland, Oregon native and bassist Mike McGuirk has performed John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman and Tim Hagans and recorded on the Marc Copland/Liebman Quartet outing Lunar (Steeplechase, 2002). Rudy Petschauer sat in for regular drummer Bobby Leonard. A steady presence on the NYC jazz scene, Petschauer has played with Renee Rosnes, David "Fathead" Newman, Lou Donaldson and James Moody along with many others.
The group opened the set reaching back to the 1926 standard "Bye Bye Blackbird." Like all of the extended takes to come, Malkin's arrangements open with a loose adherence to the original shape of the composition. But this quintet is an improvisational powerhouse, and ten or so minutes in, they had unquestionably taken ownership of the piece. Antonio Carlos Jobim's "How Insensitive" (Insensatez) remained true to its bossa nova origins for only a few measures when Morrison's blistering guitar solo stood the piece on its head. Cedar Walton's "Cedar Blues" wasn't one of the pianist's most adventurous compositions, but in the hands of Malkin's quintet, it takes off. Opening as a collective effort, Morrison and Malkin broke off into solos and Petschauer took his first extended share of the spotlight and he rocked it for all it was worth. "Once in a While," made popular by the Roland Kirk Quartet with Elvin Jones on Rip, Rig & Panic (Limelight, 1965), featured Pittson's dirty blues opening before the quintet jumped in for a more raucous handling of the piece. The first set closed with a high-energy take on Sonny Rollins' "Oleo."
Included in the fiery second set were versions of "Alone Together" and Woody Shaw's "Beyond All Limits," the latter described by Malkin as a ..."power cha-cha...." It was on this piece that Malkin's deep, throaty tenor hit its high point of the night. Several more standards closed out the evening with the quintet never letting up on the energy level. Their extended techniques and unique hybrid of post-bop and straight-ahead jazz was always enhanced with a visceral punch. Malkin like to refer to his playing as being ..."in the tradition..." and that paints a far more structured picture than this first-class improvisational experience revealed.
