Jazz Vespers: Emi Makabe, Matt Mitchell, Kim Cass

NYC's unique jazz prayer service, Sundays at 5 since 1965. All are welcome. Free to attend!

This week, we welcome Emi Makabe (voice), Matt Mitchell (piano), and Kim Cass (bass)

About Emi Makabe

Emi Makabe is a Japanese composer, vocalist, and shamisen player based in

New York City. Her music blends jazz, pop, rock, classical, and improvisation with

her Japanese musical roots. After moving to New York in 2008, she earned a

Bachelor of Music from City College of New York and a Master from the Aaron

Copland School of Music.

Her debut album, Anniversary, was released in 2020 under Dave Douglas’

Greenleaf Music, and her second album, Echo, will be released in May 2025 by

Sunnyside Records. The album features guest artists Bill Frisell, Jason Moran,

and Meshell Ndegeocello, alongside her quartet: Thomas Morgan, Vitor

Gonçalves, and Kenny Wollesen. Emi performs internationally, including at the

Copenhagen Jazz Festival (2018), tours in Japan (2023 & 2024), and a 2022 UK

tour with a master class at the Royal Academy of Music. She is a grantee of

Chamber Music America and a Steinway-associate educator.

About Matt Mitchell

Matt Mitchell is a pianist and composer whose creative practice exists in the nexus

between myriad strains of acoustic, electric, composed, and improvised new music.

He has released several forward-thinking, critically acclaimed, and influential albums

as a leader on Pi Recordings, Screwgun Records, and Out of Your Head Records,

and together with Kate Gentile he runs Obliquity Records. He is a member of

several significant and acclaimed creative music ensembles, led by Dan Weiss,

Miles Okazaki, Ches Smith, Anna Webber, and others.

He has a longstanding association with Tim Berne, and he plays and has played

extensively in the ensembles of many major figures in improvised music, including

Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman, David Binney, John Hollenbeck, Miguel Zenon,

Rudresh Mahanthappa, Linda Oh, Jonathan Finlayson, Mario Pavone, and Darius

Jones. Awards he has received include the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the Doris

Duke Impact Award, and a Shifting Foundation grant.

About Kim Cass

Kim Cass, originally from Bar Harbor, Maine, developed his musical language

precociously as a virtuoso jazz bassist. An utterly unique improvisational thinker,

his early years were spent producing solo recordings of upright bass in electronic

composed settings.

After receiving his Bachelor's in music from the New England Conservatory in

Boston, Massachusetts, Kim relocated to San Francisco and then New York City.

He has recorded and performed with pianist/ composer Matt Mitchell,

saxophonists John Zorn and Noah Preminger, and multi-intrumentalist/composer

Tyshawn Sorey among others. Kim is on the teaching faculty for lessons at the New

School and has many visiting students. He currently is focusing on composing music

for the bass and other instruments in new and inventive ways, showcasing a unique

style of detailed handwritten notation.

Host or Publisher Arts and Architecture Conservancy at Saint Peter's