PAST SHOWS
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Jeremy Pelt
Monday, February 22, 2010 at 7:30 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center Trumpet virtuoso Jeremy Pelt, 5-time winner of both the Downbeat and Jazz Journalists Association Rising Star polls, spans the musical spectrum from electric jazz-rock, to pure acoustic jazz, with his current quintet featuring J.D. Allen on sax, Danny Grissett on piano, Dwayne Burno on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Pelt has played with many of today's and yesterday's Jazz luminaries, and has also been featured in a variety of different bands, including the Roy Hargrove Big Band, The Village Vanguard Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Big Band and The Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band. A Kitchings Productions presentation Tickets: $28 General Admission, Limited Seating (Please note: Ticket price subject to $3 per ticket internet convenience fee)
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Catie Curtis
Saturday, March 6, 2010 | 8:00 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center The vivid songwriting of Catie Curtis combines insightful lyrics with soulful strumming and energy. A veteran artist with a 15-year career, Curtis has recorded ten solo albums and has toured with the Lilith Fair as well as Dar Williams and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her songs have appeared in numerous television shows (Dawson’s Creek, Felicity, Grey’s Anatomy and Alias) and independent films. In March of 2006, Catie was named grand prize winner of the International Songwriting Competition, for her song "People Look Around", co-written with Mark Erell, written in response to Hurricane Katrina. In 2009 Curtis, began a youth music endowment (“Aspire to Inspire”) that donates guitars to underprivileged youth and performed at the Human Rights Campaign’s official Obama inaugural ball beside Melissa Etheridge and Rufus Wainwright. |
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An Evening with Leon Redbone -SOLD OUT!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | 7:30 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center With his iconic guise of white fedora, jacket and sunglasses, his gravely voice and mastery of the acoustic guitar, and stage theatrics that gravitate between vaudeville and performance art, the musically resonant and personally elusive Leon Redbone, has continue, over the course of his 30+ year, 15+ album career, his love affair with tunes from the turn-of-the-20th century flapper-era radio ditties, Depression-spawned ragtime and World War II folk-jazz. |
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Benny Reid Quintet
Friday, March 12, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center A fresh and potent new voice on the modern jazz scene, 29-year old alto-saxophonist Benny Reid reveals a unique compositional vision along with an instrumental mastery with influences of Pat Metheny. Reid has performed with such luminaries as Eric Reed, Toshiko Akiyoshi Band, Chico O' Farrell Band, Buddy Rich Band, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Tommy Dorsey Big Band,, Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Valli, The Temptations and others. A New Jersey native, Reid credits both his parents along with his first sax teachers with shaping his early interest in jazz. From age 15 on, Reid’s main mentor was former Buddy Rich alto saxophonist Andy Fusco, and later completed jazz studies at Indiana University. http://www.bennyreid.com/ |
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Gene Bertoncini & Tosh Sheridan
Saturday, March 20, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center In an evening of inspiring acoustic jazz wizardry, jazz guitarist and composer Tosh Sheridan, a New London-area native, shares the intimate Oasis stage with his mentor the world-renowned solo jazz guitarist Gene Bertoncini. Tosh earned his Bachelors of Arts degree in Jazz Composition from Berklee College of Music in 1998, and a Masters in Jazz Performance from City College of New York. |
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Helen Sung "Sung With Words"
Friday, March 26, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center featuring vocalist Carolyn Leonhart Sung With Words is a new 'music-illuminating-poetry-inspiring-music' project created by pianist & composer Helen Sung. The idea for the project grew from her friendship with poet and former National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia, who (re)introduced her to world of poetry. Having generally avoided poetry after the reading required in high school, Sung began to thumb through poem collections found at her local library. During her reading she discovered that imagining a poem(s) to melody helped her with understanding & interpreting the words; she began to compose formal musical settings for poems, starting with Gioia's "Entrance" from his award-winning collection "Interrogations at Noon." It was the first time Sung composed music for words, and the project has since grown to include poems by poets including Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughs, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Friend. Also, in a unique twist, a poem by Rhina Espaillat inspired Sung to write a corresponding poem-vocalese which is interwoven into the Espaillat piece. "Sung With Words" features a core instrumentation of vocalist with jazz piano trio. |
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An Evening with John McEuen
Saturday, April 17, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center A broad spectrum of music Americana, with a bit of "the old country" music thrown in for good measure, has made John McEuen. “America's instrumental poet” . A founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with whom he still tours, John’s musical impressions from over 30 years of worldwide travels are brought to the stage with performing expertise that sets him apart from others, and focuses on acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin. With his band, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, he has made over 30 albums, including the platinum-selling Will The Circle Be Unbroken. His diverse skills on banjo, fiddle, guitar and mandolin have led reviewers and fans to call John McEuen “The String Wizard.” |
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Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks
Wed, April 21, 2010 | 7:30 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center Singer-songwriter Dan Hicks, widely acknowledged since the early 1960’s as one of the central defining figures in American roots music, brings his irresistible sense of rhythm, hip lyrical styling, laid-back vocalizing, and infamous on-stage wit to the intimate Oasis Room. Along with his acoustic ensemble and backup singers The Lickettes, Hicks and his band have deftly blended elements of Swing, Jazz, Folk and Country music to create the appealing sound he sometimes calls "Folk Jazz". The lyrics of his songs range from the simply sublime to the sublimely ridiculous are presented with his uniquely skewed and inscrutable touch. Having recorded with Bette Midler, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones and Brian Setzer, he continues to carve his own way through a number of genres from proto-psychedelic to western swing and jazz; from Tin Pan Alley to country blues, while always cultivating his own unique sound |
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Antonio Sanchez Trio
with special guests Kenny Werner and Scott Colley
Saturday, May 1, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center Three-time Grammy Award-winner Antonio Sanchez is considered by many critics and musicians alike as one of the most prominent jazz drummers of his generation. Born in Mexico City, he pursued a degree in classical piano at the National Conservatory in Mexico and in 1993 he moved to Boston where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in Jazz Studies at Berklee College of Music. He has performed and recorded with some of the biggest names including Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Charlie Haden, Gary Burton and Toots Thielmans. |
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An Evening with Colin Hay
Thursday, May 6, 2010 | 7:30 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center As frontman and principle songwriter for eighties hit machine Men at Work, Colin Hay is responsible for one of the most identifiable sounds in pop music: infectious, Caribbean-spiked blue-eyed soul with a pointedly quizzical lyrical outlook. Classic songs like "Down Under," "Overkill," and "Who Can It Be Now" unfold before the ears like miniature movies, with timeless twists and a bittersweet sense of humor. The wit and warmth that defined the now-classic Men at Work albums is still intact in Colin Hay. Whether fronting an electric band, contributing to a Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band performance, or in a more low-key acoustic setting, Hay's everyman charm, familiar voice, and clever observations still resonate with an audience. He most recently is known for his musical contributions and appearances on the hit TV series, Scrubs. |
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Nnena Freelon and Quartet
Saturday, May 8, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center With her quartet of some of jazz music’s finest musicians, six-time GRAMMY® Award-nominee Nnenna Freelon displays at the Oasis Room her well-deserved international; reputation as a compelling and captivating live performer. A skilled interpreter of the classic songs from the likes of Billy Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, the Cambridge, MA native recently teamed up with the World Famous Count Basie Orchestra, creating new music, new arrangements, and a new recording. In addition to her performing and recording career, Freelon is also active in the education and healthcare fields, has served as National Spokesperson for Partners in Education, and conducts workshops, clinics, and master classes. |
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Patty Larkin
Friday, May 21, 2010 | 8 pm at the Oasis Room of the Garde Arts Center Patty Larkin is part of the urban-folk/pop music phenomenon that spun off of the singer/songwriter explosion of the seventies, reinterpreting traditional folk melodies, rock, pop, bossa nova, drawing on anything from Dylan (Bob) to Dylan (Thomas). A self described “guitar driven songwriter,” Larkin has wound her way through soundscapes of evocative vocals, inventive guitar wizardry and imaginative lyrics. Her songs run from impressionistic poetry to witty wordplay. Over her 25 year career, Patty Larkin has worked with some of the brightest stars in American music, honing a reputation as a “musician’s musician” along the way. Rolling Stone praises her “evocative sonic shading” and she has been described as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly) and a “drop-dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter). |














