R&R Sunday Jazz Sessions: Fay Victor Group + Mary LaRose / Obliggato
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“Ms. Victor is a singer with her own brand: She’s theatrical and extreme without being campy. Expectations about a jazz vocalist’s demeanor — that it can’t be too aggressive, or that if it’s biting it can’t also be warm — don’t mean a thing to her. Sometimes melody leads to rhythm, or an explosion or a scream. Her affects are all scrambled. In that way, her playing sounds firmly planted in the age of digital media. When she does sing even or discernible pitches, her precision is remarkable. But even more striking is how conversational and direct it feels. She’s essentially invented her own hybrid of song and spoken word, a scat style for today’s avant-garde.”
— Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
“Vocalist Fay Victor is one of the most creative singers on the contemporary jazz scene. The way she got there was to start in the blues and work her way through jazz’s musical vocabulary. You can hear her new albums on streaming, but not her roots, which are mighty as an oak’s.”
— George Grella, Bandcamp Daily (6/26/2026)
“An avant-garde Nina Simone with the performance punch of Betty Carter, Victor’s unabashed acrobatics mesmerize.”
— Andy Cowan, MOJO Magazine
For the next Sunday jazz session at Reason & Ruckus in Poughkeepsie, we present two sets of music featuring two uniquely creative vocalists.
Headlining the evening will be the Fay Victor Group, led by the acclaimed, prodigiously talented singer, composer and bandleader Victor on voice, texts and effects. She will be joined by Jochem Van Dijk on bass guitar and effects, and Billy Martin (from Medeski, Martin & Wood) on drums and toys.
For the opening set, we will present singer Mary LaRose and the ensemble Obliggato, featuring LaRose on vocals, Jeff Lederer on reeds, Joe Fiedler on trombone and Michael Bisio on bass. Based on LaRose's 2002 CIMP release Obliggato (with Lederer, plus trombonist Steve Swell and the late bassist Dominic Duval), Mary takes a free-wheeling approach to jazz vocalese with a diverse repertoire drawing from composers such as Ornette Coleman, Paul Motian and others.
The Fay Victor Group and Mary LaRose / Obliggato will perform on Sunday, August 2 at Reason & Ruckus, located at 305 Main St in downtown Poughkeepsie. Doors will open at 6:30 PM, with music beginning around 7. $20 will be requested at the door.
Biographies of Victor and LaRose follow below.
Coming up for the R&R jazz sessions:
September 27:
Baba Andrew Lamb Trio
Baba Andrew Lamb: tenor saxophone, flutes
Hilliard Greene: bass
Newman Taylor Baker: drums, washboard
Opening set: Caroline Davis solo
————————
New York based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocal role in jazz and improvised music regarding repertoire, improvisation and composition. Victor has an ‘everything is everything’ aesthetic, using the freedom in the moment to inform the appropriate musical response, viewing the vocal instrument as full of possibilities for sound exploration, a through-line for direct messages in an improvising context. Victor embraces all of these ideas in real time and on Victor’s 13 critically acclaimed albums as a leader one can hear the evolution of this expansive expression.
Victor’s work has been featured in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone Magazine & The Huffington Post; Victor’s performed with luminaries such as William Parker, Roswell Rudd, Dr. Randy Weston, Nicole Mitchell, Misha Mengelberg, Myra Melford, Archie Shepp, Marc Ribot & Tyshawn Sorey to name but a few. Performance highlights include The Museum of Modern Art & The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), Jazz at Lincoln Center/Dizzy’s, The Hammer Museum (LA), The Kolner Philharmonie (Germany), De Young Museum (SF), Symphony Space (NY), The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), The Winter Jazz Festival(NYC) and the Bimhuis (Netherlands).
In April 2024, Victor released Life is Funny That Way: Herbie Nichols SUNG, dedicated to the unsung bop pianist Herbie Nichols with Victor lyrics and arrangements on the Tao Forms label to massive critical acclaim (see Press Quotes) An innovative educator, Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School where she is the interim Program Director for the Master in Music/Performer-Composer program and teaches interdisciplinary practices for all instruments. Victor also on the faculty of the ROC Nation School for Sports, Music and Entertainment at Long Island University and continues to give talks and clinics on Jazz, Creative Improvisation, Composition and more at institutions around the world. Victor is a member (and board member) of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Chairs an Advisory Board for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, a new initiative for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.
As a composer, Victor has been awarded prizes such as the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition, a 2018 AIR in Composition for the Headlands Center for the Arts in California and a 2020 recipient of a Jazz Coalition Commission to create during the pandemic. Victor composed ‘Sirens & Silences’, which premiered in May 2022 in Brooklyn, NY. Victor has been commissioned to write a work for voice and violin entitled ‘Breathe Them In’, premiering at the New England Conservatory in 2023, performed by Eden MacAdam-Somer. Moreover, in the last few years Victor has premiered works for bassoon duos, a bassoon octet, a piece called ‘Factions’ for a small nimble and mutable ensemble, ‘Stumble, Get Up’ for ensemble and audience, improvising works such as ‘Flow to the Next’ and ‘Overlap/Seam.’
————————
Mary LaRose is a forward-thinking jazz vocalist who is known for extending the Jazz “Vocalese” tradition to Post-Bop music, singing her new lyrics to the music of Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy among others. Her unique approach to the music is documented in her many recordings which have included artistic collaborations with artists such as Mark Ribot, Steve Swell, Mark Feldman, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, Steven Bernstein, Dominic Duval, Matt Wilson and her partner and artistic collaborator Jeff Lederer.
She is also a visual artist who graduated with a fine arts degree with honors from Brooklyn College where she studied painting with Philip Pearlstein , Alan D’Arcangelo and William Williams. She is a figurative and portraiture artist who is known for her ability to capture the essence of a person. Her use of color and composition provide a unique lens through which to view her work. Her work takes her on that journey and she is just along for the ride.
— Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
“Vocalist Fay Victor is one of the most creative singers on the contemporary jazz scene. The way she got there was to start in the blues and work her way through jazz’s musical vocabulary. You can hear her new albums on streaming, but not her roots, which are mighty as an oak’s.”
— George Grella, Bandcamp Daily (6/26/2026)
“An avant-garde Nina Simone with the performance punch of Betty Carter, Victor’s unabashed acrobatics mesmerize.”
— Andy Cowan, MOJO Magazine
For the next Sunday jazz session at Reason & Ruckus in Poughkeepsie, we present two sets of music featuring two uniquely creative vocalists.
Headlining the evening will be the Fay Victor Group, led by the acclaimed, prodigiously talented singer, composer and bandleader Victor on voice, texts and effects. She will be joined by Jochem Van Dijk on bass guitar and effects, and Billy Martin (from Medeski, Martin & Wood) on drums and toys.
For the opening set, we will present singer Mary LaRose and the ensemble Obliggato, featuring LaRose on vocals, Jeff Lederer on reeds, Joe Fiedler on trombone and Michael Bisio on bass. Based on LaRose's 2002 CIMP release Obliggato (with Lederer, plus trombonist Steve Swell and the late bassist Dominic Duval), Mary takes a free-wheeling approach to jazz vocalese with a diverse repertoire drawing from composers such as Ornette Coleman, Paul Motian and others.
The Fay Victor Group and Mary LaRose / Obliggato will perform on Sunday, August 2 at Reason & Ruckus, located at 305 Main St in downtown Poughkeepsie. Doors will open at 6:30 PM, with music beginning around 7. $20 will be requested at the door.
Biographies of Victor and LaRose follow below.
Coming up for the R&R jazz sessions:
September 27:
Baba Andrew Lamb Trio
Baba Andrew Lamb: tenor saxophone, flutes
Hilliard Greene: bass
Newman Taylor Baker: drums, washboard
Opening set: Caroline Davis solo
————————
New York based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocal role in jazz and improvised music regarding repertoire, improvisation and composition. Victor has an ‘everything is everything’ aesthetic, using the freedom in the moment to inform the appropriate musical response, viewing the vocal instrument as full of possibilities for sound exploration, a through-line for direct messages in an improvising context. Victor embraces all of these ideas in real time and on Victor’s 13 critically acclaimed albums as a leader one can hear the evolution of this expansive expression.
Victor’s work has been featured in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone Magazine & The Huffington Post; Victor’s performed with luminaries such as William Parker, Roswell Rudd, Dr. Randy Weston, Nicole Mitchell, Misha Mengelberg, Myra Melford, Archie Shepp, Marc Ribot & Tyshawn Sorey to name but a few. Performance highlights include The Museum of Modern Art & The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), Jazz at Lincoln Center/Dizzy’s, The Hammer Museum (LA), The Kolner Philharmonie (Germany), De Young Museum (SF), Symphony Space (NY), The Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), The Winter Jazz Festival(NYC) and the Bimhuis (Netherlands).
In April 2024, Victor released Life is Funny That Way: Herbie Nichols SUNG, dedicated to the unsung bop pianist Herbie Nichols with Victor lyrics and arrangements on the Tao Forms label to massive critical acclaim (see Press Quotes) An innovative educator, Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School where she is the interim Program Director for the Master in Music/Performer-Composer program and teaches interdisciplinary practices for all instruments. Victor also on the faculty of the ROC Nation School for Sports, Music and Entertainment at Long Island University and continues to give talks and clinics on Jazz, Creative Improvisation, Composition and more at institutions around the world. Victor is a member (and board member) of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Chairs an Advisory Board for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, a new initiative for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.
As a composer, Victor has been awarded prizes such as the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition, a 2018 AIR in Composition for the Headlands Center for the Arts in California and a 2020 recipient of a Jazz Coalition Commission to create during the pandemic. Victor composed ‘Sirens & Silences’, which premiered in May 2022 in Brooklyn, NY. Victor has been commissioned to write a work for voice and violin entitled ‘Breathe Them In’, premiering at the New England Conservatory in 2023, performed by Eden MacAdam-Somer. Moreover, in the last few years Victor has premiered works for bassoon duos, a bassoon octet, a piece called ‘Factions’ for a small nimble and mutable ensemble, ‘Stumble, Get Up’ for ensemble and audience, improvising works such as ‘Flow to the Next’ and ‘Overlap/Seam.’
————————
Mary LaRose is a forward-thinking jazz vocalist who is known for extending the Jazz “Vocalese” tradition to Post-Bop music, singing her new lyrics to the music of Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy among others. Her unique approach to the music is documented in her many recordings which have included artistic collaborations with artists such as Mark Ribot, Steve Swell, Mark Feldman, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, Steven Bernstein, Dominic Duval, Matt Wilson and her partner and artistic collaborator Jeff Lederer.
She is also a visual artist who graduated with a fine arts degree with honors from Brooklyn College where she studied painting with Philip Pearlstein , Alan D’Arcangelo and William Williams. She is a figurative and portraiture artist who is known for her ability to capture the essence of a person. Her use of color and composition provide a unique lens through which to view her work. Her work takes her on that journey and she is just along for the ride.
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Where is it happening?
Reason & Ruckus, 305 Main St, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-3116, United States
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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