Jazz at the Athenaeum Series | Spring 2022

Tuesday, March 29, 7:30 PM—Anat Cohen and Marcello Gonçalves

Monday, April 4, 7:30 PM—Eubanks-Evans Experience

Wednesday, May 18, 7:30 PM—George Garzone/Peter Erskine/Alan Pasqua/Darek Oles

Athenaeum Jazz continues its celebration of the series’ 25th anniversary!

The series opens on Tuesday, March 29, with an appearance by brilliant jazz clarinetist Anat Cohen with Brazilian seven-string-guitar master Marcello Gonçalves. Ever charismatic, prolific, and inspired, Grammy-nominated Anat Cohen has won hearts and minds the world over. About a performance the New York Times wrote: “Ms. Cohen was a revelation . . . On up-tempo numbers, her improvisations weren’t just bebop fast; they had a clarity and deep intelligence that is really quite rare. She made it look effortless, even as she was playing the most technically difficult of all the reed instruments . . . she took my breath away.” Cohen and Gonçalves’s first duo album, Outra Coisa: The Music of Moacir Santos, was nominated for a Grammy as Best Latin Jazz Album in 2017. Last year they recorded their second collaboration, Reconvexo, turning to music from the Música Popular Brasileira (MPB) songbook by artists such as Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, and Gilberto Gil.

The series continues on Monday, April 4, with the Eubanks-Evans Experience, featuring celebrated guitarist Kevin Eubanks and Grammy-nominated pianist Orrin Evans. Since 2010, when Eubanks’ 18-year tenure as guitarist and music director of TV’s The Tonight Show Band ended, the Philadelphia-born guitarist and composer has been on a creative roll. Considered among the top jazz guitarists of his generation, after graduating from Berklee College of Music, Eubanks kicked off his musical career with some of the jazz greats, including Art Blakey, Slide Hampton, McCoy Tyner, Sam Rivers, Roy Haynes, Dave Holland, and Ron Carter. The New York Times called him “a guitarist with an extravagant expressive palette and a technique that merges post-bop fluency with flamenco and classical fingerstyles as well as the lilt of West African blues.” He joins in this special project with fellow Philadelphian Evans, who has been featured in recent Athenaeum concerts with his own trio and The Bad Plus. The New York Times wrote, “Evans is a viable candidate for jazz’s most resourceful and invigorating contemporary pianist.”

The series concludes on Wednesday, May 18, with the powerhouse collective band of George Garzone/Peter Erskine/Alan Pasqua/Darek Oles (tenor sax/drums/piano/bass). Athenaeum Jazz favorites Erskine, Pasqua and Oles, making up one of the most accomplished trios in jazz, joined in 2019 with legendary Boston-based saxophonist and jazz educator Garzone to record the extraordinary three-CD project, 3 Nights in L.A. DownBeat wrote, “Garzone is in rare form, radiating minor-key modal lyricism, emotionally charged balladry, angular up-tempo blues and straightahead bebop teeming with tenor toughness. Erskine is a consistently refreshing catalyst for this most fortunate meeting of monsters; Oles is pitch-perfect and rock-steady throughout; and Pasqua’s less-is-more approach to the keys provides contemporary harmonic and melodic context. This substantial offering of four jazz masters communicating in a highly evolved common language—and playing at the absolute top of their game—is one for the books.”

Because of the ongoing construction project at Scripps Research, our annual three-concert spring series will be relocated this year to the Athenaeum library, so seating will be limited and early reservations are advised!

The concerts will be in person at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. There are no physical tickets for these events. Your name will be on an attendee list at the front door. Doors open at 7 p.m. Seating is first-come; first-served. These events will be presented in compliance with State of California and County of San Diego health regulations as applicable at the time of each concert. Face coverings are required for attendees, regardless of vaccination status. Proof of vaccination or negative test within 48 hours of the event is required. Event capacity is limited to 70% for now.

Host or Publisher Athenaeum Music & Arts Library