Master Tapper Jared Grimes in 'Cotton Club Parade'

‘Cotton Club Parade’ brings back musical history 

By Valerie Gladstone

Cotton Club Parade opens with the robust Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars, directed by Daryl Waters, swinging into “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” “I’ve Got the World on a String” and “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,” offering a tantalizing taste of what’s to come.

Composed by Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen and Jimmy McHugh, the music sets the scene for a rollicking, sexy, funny and joyful recreation in song, dance and novelty acts of the legendary Harlem club where Ellington perfected his style in the ’20s and ’30s. Conceived by City Center’s Encores! artistic director Jack Viertel and Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, whose numerous credits include Chaplin, the 90-minute show returns to  City Center from Nov. 14 to 18, after a hugely successful debut last winter.

When Viertel and Marsalis began working on the inaugural collaboration of Jazz at Lincoln Center and Encores! in the spring of 2011, Marsalis liked the idea of starting off with Ellington. “Wynton calls him the font of everything that he’s done,” Viertel said recently. And what better way to celebrate him than at the Cotton Club, they agreed, where he perfected his array of styles between 1927 and 1931.

“There was entertainment at the club of an elegance no one had seen before,” Viertel says. Line-ups would feature greats like Bessie Smith, the Nicholas Brothers and Lena Horne. Hitting its zenith during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, it thrived in a neighborhood bursting with writers, artists, musicians, playwrights and fiery politicians; a period when Langston Hughes celebrated blacks’ history and gifts in his poetry.

But neither he nor Marsalis would ignore the Cotton Club’s racist policy of headlining blacks, yet not allowing them entry. That is at least until Ellington made such a fuss about it that the rules were eased. “We didn’t want to be overtly political,” says Viertel. “We felt in the very beauty and artistry of the performers, in their self-respect, that we would convey the atmosphere of the time. You can be sure that Wynton wouldn’t have allowed anything patronizing.”

They created a link between past and present through their choice of performers. Viertel gives Carlyle and Marsalis credit for choosing 25 singers and dancers of incomparable individuality and talent. Master tapper Jared Grimes, singers Adriane Lenox, Carmen Ruby Floyd, Amber Riley and all the others each have their moments in the spotlight. No one will forget Floyd’s crooning Ellington’s “Creole Love Call.” “When I talked over my interpretation with Daryl and Wynton,” Floyd says, “I said I thought I should sound like an angel. They thought I should sound like a sexy angel. There are no words, so I just make musical sounds. I do it differently every night – sometimes sad, sometimes fun and flirty. But Ellington’s music is so classic, no matter what you do, everyone relates to it.”

That’s what Carlyle likes about working with Floyd and other members of the cast. “We selected people who are innately musical,” he says, “who can translate music through their bodies. I’m using them like instruments. They have to get what the Cotton Club was all about, how very special it really was. Its time is lost to us now. We’ve all done our period research and checked out performers from the club on YouTube. But we weren’t going to do something old and dusty. For 90 fleeting minutes, we want the audience to experience what the Cotton Club was all about as if it were today.”

From CityArts

These were some musical highlights from the three stages on the promontory of Fort Adams State Park in Newport, a historic town about four hours by car or train from New York City, where 6,800 people on Saturday, Aug. 4, and 4,600 on Sunday, Aug. 5, roamed about in the sun’s heat and bay’s breeze. From 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. on those days, the most pressing concern for those of us in attendance might have been how to conquer the semi-simultaneous schedule of jazz-connoisseur favorites, whether to buy a lobster roll, and where to sit for a moment on the grass—on a blanket, in a tent’s shade or a rented lawn chair.

The connoisseur behind it all is George Wein. He didn’t invent the pleasure of crowds gathering for leisurely outdoor entertainment—that must be ancient, giving rise to ritual—but he established a model presentation, spread now throughout America and the world. At 86, Wein’s no old fogy. He’s frequently in Manhattan clubs, scouting talent with Dan Melnick, half his age, who has become the Newport fest’s artistic director. Wein was everywhere at Fort Adams, wearing a jaunty cap, zipping from stage to stage in his “Wein Machine” golf cart.

Wein and Melnick prefer dependable mainstream progressives, which in jazz means few avant-gardists but yet surprises are expected and welcome. For instance: Jason Moran played a hushed version of “Body and Soul” on piano then amplified from his iPod singer Eddie Jefferson’s 1952 recording, over which he and drummer Nasheet Waits added soft touches. Moran showed up later for a free exchange with drummer DeJohnette. Listening to each other, they created drama and found resolution, with no pre-plan at all.

When the music was good—most of the time—it was very good. DeJohnette is his generation’s prevailing rhythm-maker; his stick-work explodes in phrases like a boxer’s punch combinations, so that swing and groove merge into sheer propulsion. And his group with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who employs sonic inflections from Indian classical music; microtonally attuned guitarist David Fiuczynski; electric bassist Jerome Harris, and keyboardist George Colligan has more interesting activity in their pauses, as what they’ve done resounds, than other ensembles have in their climaxes.

Alto saxophonist Steve Wilson also delved into microtonal note-bending in his solo on Gil Evans’ “Punjab,” a work dealing with South Asian modal motifs, written but not recorded in 1964. As performed (and now recorded) by Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Centennial Project, “Punjab” should leave contemporary composers envious. Evans may have done for Indian classical music (back then recently introduced to the U.S. by Ravi Shankar and taken up by John Coltrane) what he and Miles Davis has done for music from Hispaniola on Sketches of Spain. Evans here balanced jazz riffs and modal themes upon a light, sturdy framework of Western instrumentation. The solos by Dan Weiss on tabla, Wilson on sax and Frank Kimbrough, piano, were compelling. Two tunes later, Evans’ arrangement of John Lewis’s composition “Concorde” contained the kind of pan-cultural joy heard in Messiaen’s masterpiece the Turangalîla-Symphonie.

Truesdell’s set alone was worth my trip to Newport. Yet anyone could watch or hear it stream online thanks to a collaboration between WBGO (Newark) and WGBH (Boston). The video is gone now, but at least 18 live concert recordings from Newport 2012 remain available at www.NPRMusic.org. After 58 years, the Newport Fest keeps giving.

Contact Howard Mandel at jazzmandel@gmail.com

If you were to have walked into the Blue Note at 4 p.m. on June 20, you’d have heard guitar wiz Gabriel Marin improvising microtonal figures with a Middle Eastern tinge on double-necked guitar, electric bassist John Ferrara by his side. You could have grabbed a bottle of Brother Thelonious ale and plate of appetizers and, spying a friend across the room, navigated a mass of famous musicians, music journalists and significant others from the inner circles of the jazz industry/community, then schmoozed until MC Josh Jackson from WBGO introduced local “jazz heroes” Robin Bell-Stevens, executive director of JazzMobile, and Adrian Ellis, late of Jazz at Lincoln Center. You’d have been at the 2012 Jazz Awards.

Jazz honors are bestowed publicly in New York City twice a year: in January, when the National Endowment of the Arts celebrates Jazz Masters, and in June, when the Jazz Journalists Association hails excellence in music and media.

The JJA gala cocktail party, open to the public—with 13 related parties from Auckland, New Zealand, to Tucson, Ariz.—is a grassroots initiative produced by the music’s professional observers and biggest fans. Awards include Lifetime Achievement, Up and Coming Musician of the Year, Players of the Year for all instruments and Best Record, Book, Blog, Periodical and Website. Winners are selected through two stages of voting by the organization’s journalist members.

We (I’m president of the JJA) provide food, wine, beer and entertainment—this year, alongside Marin and Ferrara, were the Organ Monk Quartet and singer Paulette McWilliams with pianist Nat Adderley Jr. The awards are announced and presented from the stage. Party favors include new CDs. A good time is had by all.

But why? Isn’t media attention, paying gigs and applause enough to thank jazz people for what they do?

Well, no. Most artists crave attention, and maybe especially jazz musicians, for whom the main rewards of the American entertainment industry—money and fame—are remote, but who strive to be productive, creative and expressive anyway. Then there’s the fact that almost everybody loves a party, and the JJA’s New York City Jazz Awards party is one of the few opportunities for players, pundits, producers, presenters and devotees to share face time without being shushed ’cause there’s a gig going on.

But the real reason we hold the Jazz Awards is to make some noise about jazz itself. This great American art form underlies nearly all American music made today, a point seldom articulated by the NEA, the Grammies or other entities promoting culture here and now, but demonstrably true.

Why jazz is overlooked and underappreciated is a topic worthy of discussion; I think it’s taken for granted. Americans are improvisers by nature. We dig elegant and hard-driving rhythms. Given a basic melody line, we belt it out our way. That’s jazz, folks, as vital a base of our social interactions as democracy and freedom of speech or action. Of course we should applaud those who do jazz best, and those who let us know about them. Praise jazz!

Contact Howard Mandel at jazzmandel@gmail.com

Joe McPhee

A festival of avant-garde visions

by Howard Mandel

The old-school avant-garde is now! The 17th annual Vision Festival is a seven-night, 37-event assertion by proudly unfettered improvisers that the 50-year-old principles of high energy and exploratory alternatives to traditional and “commercial” jazz still thrive.

Real estate realities have pushed this Fest from its East Village roots to a new stage: Roulette, in Brooklyn, of course. But the proud DIY esthetic and energizing, raw or extreme generation of sounds that were once shocking and now are less so, a signal the musician puts his all on the line, still apply. See the schedule at artsforart.org/event/visionfestival17/schedule.

With individualistic multi-instrumentalist (mostly sax and trumpet) Joe McPhee being honored for “a lifetime of achievement”; a revised version of The Gardens of Harlem, the late Clifford Thornton’s 1974 orchestra suite, as its centerpiece; and concerts led by two handfuls of the most iconoclastic sexta- and septuagenarian instrumentalists on the planet—among them Charles Gayle, Kidd Jordan, Connie Crothers, Dave Burrell, Sonny Simmons, Wadada Leo Smith, Elliott Sharp, singer Sheila Jordan and poet Amiri Baraka—the Vision Fest best might seem to be in search of lost time.
But with the participation, too, of up-n-comers including Gerald Clayton, Darius Jones, Matts Gustaffson, Mary Halvorson, Taylor Ho Bynum, Craig Taborn, Jeff Parker, Ingrid Laubrock and Nicole Mitchell, it’s evident that valuing musical expressivity more than musical structure is also attractive to players who weren’t around to hear Albert Ayler and John Coltrane live—they take the thrust of 1960s “free jazz” as seriously as if they had been.

That free jazz movement of the ’60s had a sociopolitical agenda to demonstrate empowerment, rip away jazz’s deadwood and shake the establishment, as well as to let loose youthful juice.

The mission of the Vision Fest retains a lot of the ancient aura. It was born in the East Village out of a cadre that buzzed around bassist William Parker; Patricia Nicholson Parker, his wife but a force (choreographer/dancer) in her own right, runs the show and the nonprofit producing group, Arts for Art, from an LES office at the “educational and cultural center” Clemente Soto Velez.

Parker believes in grounding her production in critical thinking; I assume that’s why I’m a panelist discussing “Free Jazz/Free Music—Why Then/Why Now?” Thursday, June 14, from 5 to 7 p.m. She also believes in mixing media, so there are visual artists painting the music, videographers, dancers and poets on each program. And she’s big on making music available to all, so on Friday afternoon, June 15, there are free events in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority at Rutgers Houses, 200 Madison St.

Choosing one night, I’d attend June 16 to hear trombonist Steve Swell’s Quintet; French bassist Joelle Leandre with flutist Mitchell and baritone Thomas Buckner; Trio 3 (Oliver Lake, reeds; Reggie Workman, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums); and violinist-composer Jason Kao Hwang’s Burning Bridge, with Chinese pipa and erhu in the band.
Roulette is a good bet for Vision 17, Manhattan being too upscale for unvarnished radicalism. Undaunted by age, economics or fashion, the Vision survives.

Reach Howard Mandel at jazzmandel@gmail.com

Marcus Roberts sets his own rules

Jazz musicians pushing beyond the standard deviations advance the art form, and pianist Marcus Roberts stands out among many excellent current keyboard players with a thrust all his own.

Performing the 1920s classics of Jelly Roll Morton faithfully yet also revised at Jazz at Lincoln Center May 11 and 12, and collaborating with banjoist Bela Fleck on record and at the Blue Note June 5 through 10, Roberts has been and will be neither strict neo-conservative nor outright populist, not representative of trends nor an outlying iconoclast. He’s his own man, creating quite freely within explicit structures, exploring new associations while asserting uncompromised individuality. Roberts’ music is odd, interesting, utterly unpredictable and fun to hear.

In Western European classical music, one knows how the music goes and takes satisfaction in its realization. In jazz, we may know what the musicians start with, but thrill to follow their improvised paths forward, unsure of how and where they’ll arrive. Jelly Roll Morton’s compositions for his Red Hot Peppers are highly specific, recalled with precision by fans. Roberts, who is blind, took transcriptions of Morton’s recordings and reharmonized them to get new, rich, coloristic blends from trumpet, trombone, two saxophones, clarinet, piano, bass and drums.

That JALC-associated ’bone player Ron Westray, tenor saxist Stephen Riley and three young men who were Roberts’ students at Florida State University had startlingly different soloing styles, stretching out in ways Morton couldn’t have imagined but might well have applauded, didn’t bug their leader at all. Indeed, on “Grandpa’s Spells,” “The Chant,” “Deadman Blues,” “Dr. Jazz,” “Original Jelly Roll Blues,” “Winin’ Boy” and “The Pearls,” Roberts strived to play nothing like Morton, coming up with strategies for each of his featured episodes that seemed capricious, if not random.

Morton was no roughhouse blues and boogie guy; he filtered 19th-century European romanticism and bordello flourishes into syncopated stride and in ensembles was unfailingly supportive. Roberts, however, laid out right-hand-only single note lines with perverse restraint of momentum, threw down power chords and clusters in a frenzy, concentrated for a chorus on the bell-like highest notes of the piano and added contrasts and comments to his horn players’ efforts.

Westray blew like a burbling brook, Riley employed a strangely hollow, hoarse tone on anarchic, late-swing era fragments of phrases, and the kids Joe Goldberg (clarinet), Alphonso Horne (trumpet) and Ricardo Pascal (tenor and soprano saxes) walked the line between Hot Peppers fidelity and their personal impulses, usually sustaining the balance. The concert I heard, the first of two, was fascinating, though the band hadn’t completely jelled. Drummer Jason Marsalis kept strict time, right on top of Roberts in duet on “King Porter Stomp”; he and bassist Rodney Jordan are Roberts’ regular partners.

Piano and banjo are rarely heard together, but Bela Fleck is a rare banjoist, and with Roberts’ trio on Across the Imaginary Divide, the combination sounds natural. Roberts is stately at moments, folksy at others, delving into tango and blues. This may not be jazz, or it may be an unexpected expansion of the art. Who cares? It’s fun to hear.

Reach Howard Mandel at jazzmandel@gmail.com

Cornell Campus at West Side HQ
The CornellNYC Tech campus slated for Roosevelt Island has found itself one heck of an incubator. Earlier this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Google CEO Larry Page and Cornell President David Skorton announced that Google will be lending, free of charge, 22,000 square feet of their Chelsea headquarters to the fledgling tech school for the next five and a half years, with the option to expand to 58,000 square feet as it grows.
The first classes at the school are set to begin this fall, and the first phase of the construction of the permanent campus on Roosevelt Island is scheduled to be completed in 2017. The Google placement can’t be a bad move for the new tech school, which is sure to attract a slew of students hoping to land jobs with their beneficent officemates, and Google will gain from its proximity to the next crop of tech geniuses. In the words of Council Member Jessica Lappin, it’s “a match made in heaven,” and all the similarly warm, fuzzy things that elected officials had to say about the move.

Choreographers Show Their Stuff
Next Saturday, 11 fledgling choreographers will put their best dance moves onstage for the Young Choreographer’s Festival. The performance highlights the work of choreographers between the ages of 18 and 25 in the genres of ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, street jazz and tap. There will be a talkback panel featuring festival choreographers from 2010 through the present selection. June 2, 8 p.m., Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at symphonyspace.org.

Upper West Jazz Fest
Fans of jazz can get their fill of one of the greats this summer on the Upper West Side. The Smoke Jazz and Supper Club-Lounge, at 2751 Broadway, is holding its monthlong Miles Davis Festival, beginning May 25 and running through June 30.
Alumni from Davis’ band will play alongside top-notch trumpeters, with different ensembles paying tribute to his music each night. On Monday, June 4 at 6:30 p.m., an original play written by the club’s co-owner, Frank Christopher, and inspired by Davis, Beyond Blue Light, will premiere, with a three-course dinner included in the ticket price.
The festival kicks off this weekend with a celebration of Davis’ birthday, which would have been his 86th, with Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, George Cables on piano, Buster Williams on bass and Louis Hayes on drums. For more information, visit smokejazz.com.

Meet Christopher Ziemba, jazz pianist at Juilliard

“There are no mistakes in jazz,” the old saying goes, and Christopher Ziemba is no exception. A pianist in Juilliard’s prestigious Artists Diploma Ensemble, he arrived on the Upper West Side last fall from Rochester.
The 25-year-old is already fully immersed in the musical scene that is New York City. A typical week for him could include performances at Dizzy’s Club, the Central Park Boathouse and David Letterman’s birthday party. Since he doesn’t have a piano in his apartment, he spends much of his day at Juilliard, ready to compose music on their Fazioli grand piano.

West Side Spirit: When did you start playing?
Christopher Ziemba: From what my parents tell me, we had an old family upright, and as soon as I could reach the keys, I started playing. I used to play nursery rhymes that I had picked up from ear. I grew up in a musical environment; my father is a percussionist in the Buffalo Philharmonic orchestra.

How did you come to specialize in jazz?
I had taken classical piano lessons for 10 years. When I got to high school, they needed a pianist for the jazz band. There, it was either sink or swim—for the first year, it was mostly sink. I went on to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester for my undergraduate and master’s degrees. I was a double major in jazz piano performance and music education. My master’s is in jazz piano.

So then you went to Julliard?
When I finished school, I expected to move to New York, but it wasn’t going to be in the context of school. Then I took a lesson from Frank Kimbro, who is part of the piano faculty at Juilliard, to prepare for a competition. At the end of the session, he said, “We have an opening in our Arts Diploma Ensemble.” Normally, auditions are held in February, but this was already mid-May.

How did you end up mastering jazz?
My mother tells me that I really didn’t like it in the beginning. Having been trained classically, it was frustrating. With classical music, you’re given a piece and you learn the notes on the page. In jazz, you have to read chords. You’re responsible for improvising, making up whatever chords you want to play. It’s like its own language. The only way to get really good at it is to spend time listening to and analyzing records.

What’s the biggest compliment ever given to you?
Recently, I was playing at the Thalia Cafe at Symphony Space. There was an older man and his caretaker watching. Whenever we performed a familiar standard, he would sing along, even though we were mostly a background attraction. After we finished, I went over to say hello. He introduced himself as the cousin of drummer Roy Haynes, a jazz legend who had played with many of my past heroes and still plays around town in his eighties. He told me I sounded just like pianist Bud Powell, with whom Roy once played. Powell is considered one of the most important figures in the history of jazz piano.

For a list of Ziemba’s upcoming performances, visit www.chrisziemba.com.

By Howard Mandel

Latest music organization to enter the tight local real estate market: the Jazz Gallery, which lost the lease on its loft at Hudson and Spring streets after 17 years. Moving an ongoing venture at any time is painful, but seldom worse than right now in Manhattan, where the Gallery wants to stay. Still, the can-do spirit that has exemplified the Gallery since its founding prevails. Executive director Deborah Steinglass takes the task as an opportunity for growth, calling the effort “A Home Run.”

The Gallery is a unique venue that has introduced scores of progressive musicians at modest prices to local audiences while also exhibiting jazz-related visual art. It’s a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, neither bar nor restaurant but low-key listening room, with good sight lines and folding chairs. It’s larger than The Stone, its nearest relative aesthetically speaking (but way across town), and the vibe is more relaxed. It was established in 1996 by Dale Fitzgerald, who retired three years ago to work as business manager to trumpeter Roy Hargrove (also present at the Gallery’s birth), and has been booked since 2000 by Rio Sakairi.

From its start, the Gallery’s focus has been on emerging artists—many of whom have been émigrés, lending the place an international cast—plus experimentation and large ensembles. It’s hard for little-known big bands to find rehearsal space, a stage, open-minded curators or curious listeners, yet the Gallery has even commissioned large ensemble works (with grants from private funders and government agencies).

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society had its “jazz venue” debut there in 2007; pianist Orrin Evans and his Captain Black Big Band performed there in early April; and Karl Berger’s Improvisers Orchestra is nearing the end of its twice-monthly residency, during which open-to-the-public rehearsals are followed by full concerts. Alto saxophonist Steve Coleman has enjoyed a long-running Monday evening workshop, recently in alternation with composer/reeds player Henry Threadgill. Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, drummer-bandleader Dafnis Prieto, pianist Jason Moran, saxophonist Miguel Zenon, guitarist Lionel Loueke, singer Gretchen Parlato and bassist Linda Oh are Gallery favorites who’ve graduated to gigs at the Village Vanguard, Jazz Standard, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, MacArthur fellowships and far-reaching tours. They return to the Gallery for special events.

Impressed and want to be the Gallery’s new landlord? “We are looking for a new space that will maintain the intimacy and warmth of our current venue,” reads a communiqué from Steinglass on the Gallery’s website. “It must provide musicians with great performance room acoustics, rehearsal space, and the ability to record and stream live music. We are committed to continuing to offer more than 180 performances a year, residency commissions, and The Woodshed, which provides free rehearsal space to musicians who have performed here.”

The place may get noisy sometimes, so those with tender eardrums need not apply. However, potential lessors are probably less worried about the noise level than the bottom line. The Gallery has launched a $250,000 capital campaign to support the move and provide a cash reserve (donate through JazzGallery.org or send checks to the Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson St., New York, NY 10013).

If $250,000 sounds like a lot, consider that Jazz at Lincoln Center raised $3.6 million—14 times as much—with its mid-April gala that showcased Paul Simon with Wynton Marsalis’ LCJO. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has begun a $22 million campaign to build a facility and a $2.5 million endowment. Roulette spent $3.5 mil opening its new home near Atlantic Yards, with $447,000 from the office of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. The Gallery should survive.

Contact the author at jazzmandel@gmail.com

“I’ve kept it a little incognito,” said Rubin, a middle-aged jazz guitarist with gray hair and a scruffy beard. “People know about it mostly by word of mouth. I’m not looking to be flooded with tourists. I’m more interested in people that are really interested in the music.”

On most days, Rubin, also a music engineer and producer, uses the space as a recording studio for his production company, Zebulon Light and Sound. But Zeb’s is known among local jazz fans for its weekly Jazz Vocalists Series, which features one or two singers followed by a professional open mic night—with an emphasis on the “professional.” “[It’s] not just for people who sing in the shower,” Rubin said.

The gig has become quite popular, with anywhere from 25 to 60 people, mostly musicians, filling the narrow, high-ceilinged loft every Wednesday night. It is a casual affair, an intimate scene where those with similar interests can mingle with one another and share their appreciation of live jazz.
“I was really interested in the community aspect of it,” said Rubin. “People can get together and it’s not all about just one person. It takes the onus off of everybody’s egos, and then it becomes more of a community.”

Often, said Rubin, jazz musicians don’t socialize with other jazz musicians—they’re too competitive and focused on their own careers. With Zeb’s, he is trying to create an open, welcoming space where artists can perform and listen to one another without being judged. So far, it seems to be working.
“It’s a cool thing, to have all of the musicians here,” said Angela Roberts, a jazz singer who was one of the featured vocalists at the Jan. 18 show. “It’s got a nice little family vibe.”

As people filed in before the show that night, they greeted one another warmly, chatting and playing with Honey, a small, excited dog that belongs to a friend of Rubin’s. Sipping red wine from a plastic cup, Roberts floated between the crowd and the stage area, where Rubin and the other musicians were setting up. On one of the couches, a young man in a tweed jacket, who later joined Roberts for a song, played his trumpet to a few listeners—including Lezlie Harrison, the second featured vocalist of the night, who was wearing large gold earrings in the shape of G-clefs.

The entrance fee for the  is $10 a person, which seems a steep price compared to other jazz spots in the city. But with just a few events per week and such a small crowd of regulars, Zeb’s is hardly a cash cow. Rubin uses the money from the entrance fees to pay the musicians, and if he doesn’t have enough, he pays out of his own pocket.

“We don’t make any money off of this place. It’d be nice, but that’s not the point,” said Rubin’s daughter, Jennifer Arrigo, who helps run the Wednesday shows. “It’s about worshipping music. That’s his life.”

A jazz vocalist herself, Arrigo has been a featured artist at the Wednesday night gigs and often participates in the open mic portion. On Jan. 18, she sat at the door, knitting a fuchsia scarf and taking patrons’ entrance fees. Her father doesn’t like to deal with the money, she said, so she charges patrons and pays the musicians. Instead, Rubin is focused on the music and the atmosphere.

“The caliber of musicians that are playing here—they wouldn’t work other places for the money I’m paying them,” said Rubin. “But they’re my friends, and they like the scene.”

About 25 people had arrived at Zeb’s when Roberts took to the stage, and they quickly hushed and sat down as the show began. With shiny, dark hair, bright, blue-green cat’s eyes and a seductive, melodious voice, Roberts wooed the room with six songs, including covers of Doris Day’s “Secret Love” and The Beatles’ “I Will,” accompanied by a bassist, a drummer and Rubin on guitar. Other than applause and some playful banter between songs, the room was silent.

“I like to call it a performance space, not a club,” said Rubin. “There’s no margarita machine making noise or martini shakers in the background.”

This, too, differentiates Zeb’s from other jazz spots in the city. Other than a few bottles of wine and the sculptures that hang from the walls—all made by Rubin himself—there is little to distract visitors from the music. Rubin said that this is a nice change from places like Fat Cat, the West Village pool hall where he plays at least once a week.

“A lot of great musicians work there,” said Rubin, “but the music is secondary. When I started playing [here] on a regular basis, I was like, ‘Wow, I can hear myself!’”

A large, underground bar, Fat Cat offers customers both pool and ping-pong, which makes for a noisy atmosphere. On Jan. 17, Rubin played there, accompanied by a bassist and a drummer. Although some patrons stood and listened, most were preoccupied—it wasn’t until Rubin and his group played Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” that the music became the focus of the room.

The atmosphere at Zeb’s the following night was vastly different. Although friendly and lighthearted, the crowd arrived with the sole intention of listening to music. Everyone seemed to hold a feeling of mutual respect for their fellow musicians, and all expressed their appreciation to Rubin for creating this communal, open space for jazz lovers.

“It’s a really beautiful scene. We’ve all made a lot of new friends,” said Rubin. “There are so many great people in New York, and we all learn from each other.”

—Kimberly Lightbody

We’d run into some money trouble, but my husband and I had always adhered to the American isolationist policy regarding finances: act as if everything is fine and never, ever, under any circumstances ask for help.

Then again, a layman’s definition of insanity is to “keep doing what you’ve always done and expect different results.” So one day, when our bills-vs.-income ratio seemed especially dire, we gave up and threw a rent party.

As far as I know, rent parties began in Harlem in the 1920s. Some tenant behind on his rent hired local jazz and blues musicians and invited guests, who paid 25 cents for admission and 25 cents for items from the concession stand of homemade food and drinks. In other incarnations of the gathering, a hat was passed in lieu of a cover charge. After the cost of the musicians was covered, all proceeds went to the tenant in need of assistance.

The very term “rent party” sounds at odds with the Puritanical belief system my husband and I inherited. But it also conjures up images of the kind of community defined by Webster’s as “a unified body of individuals.” And what a unified body those early shindigs must have been, with apartments full of shimmying partygoers whooping it up to the Charleston, the Black Bottom and other dances from the ’20s.

For our rent party, we congregated on a Saturday afternoon with friends coming from near and far. The late summer light streamed into our home like a blessing, reminding me of lyrics from the 1927 song, “The Best Things in Life are Free.” The party peaked with 30 or so guests, and more than a few of us cut a rug.

We played Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong on our iPod, along with John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Aretha Franklin. Such gatherings in the ’20s often sported “cutting contests,” where pianists like James P. Johnson and Willie “The Lion” Smith attempted to outdo each other in virtuosity.

While we didn’t have the advantage of a piano, a few vocalists in the crowd urged one another on to some pretty fancy a cappella riffs. Our friend Omayra Rolon, also known as “The Empress,” performed her elegant and memorable rendition of the 1920s classic “Bye Bye Blackbird” in the spirit of those early jazz singers, and our 14-year-old daughter sang “Valerie” in soulful tribute to the late Amy Winehouse.

We’ve lived in the same rent-stabilized building in Washington Heights since 1995, so we know lots of our neighbors, many of whom donated whatever they could afford. Cynthia Guernsey, a local visual artist, auctioned off a painting she’d created for the occasion, a detail of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss.” Klimt painted “The Kiss” at the height of his Golden Period, and Cynthia’s interpretation reflected the wealth she wished for us. Checks enclosed in love letters arrived in the mail from friends who couldn’t make the party. Someone sent an anonymous gift of cash. Thank you, Anonymous.

It was heart-opening to ask for help and heartwarming to receive the love. I am grateful for our many circles of friends. Luckily, in the weeks since the party, my husband and I have both secured work. Still, our experience has left us both pondering the word “community” and the many ways this financial crisis is bringing people together.

By an apt coincidence, we held our rent party Sept. 17, the first day of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Whether in Zuccotti Park or at the home of friends, whether for a “long-term mass occupation to restore democracy in America” (as described on occupywallst.org) or to help a family pay rent, Americans’ right to “peaceably assemble” is a vital part of our First Amendment. Who knew it could also be the cat’s meow?