The NY Hot Jazz Festival sets Players Club on Fire – Opa!

Do you like swing? Jazz? Getting dressed up and dancing? How about a party? Well, then you should have come to the second annual New York Hot Jazz Festival!

The festival this year was held at the Players Club, a member’s only club in Gramercy Park. It embraced the wildness of this year’s event and was a perfect setting for the festival that made you feel as if you traveled back in time. 

With nearly a hundred musicians scheduled to perform throughout the day, the festival had a little bit for everyone. You could come for the full 12 hours of wonderful music (the festival ran from 1 pm until 1 am) and stay well into the night for the jam session. Alternatively, you could get yourself a half-day pass and still have a great time. 

The festival presented three options for music: the Ballroom, where most of the headliners performed, the Library  and the Piano Room. One of the most memorable acts for me was David Ostwald’s Louis Armstrong Eternity Band. They were swinging hard, but they also had a very strong presence on stage, joking in between songs and delighting the crowd with mind blowing solos. The bands played more or less  simultaneously and the guests were free to wander around, enjoy the music, sip on cocktails or scotch and, of course, dance. It might have been just a little bit too hot inside for my taste, but that was a very minor inconvenience.

The Piano Room had a nice, light breeze and was slightly less packed than the Library and the Ballroom. It featured a variety of solo pianists, who played delightful stride and ragtime piano. The library was a little tight on space but had a very casual atmosphere with people sitting on the floor and dancers taking the center room, drawing almost as much attention as the musicians themselves.

 

New York Hot Jazz Festival was a wonderful event and I hope that it continues to bring musicians and fans together for years to come. Find out more from the people who made it happen – Bria Skonberg and Misha Katsobashvili, they  conceived the idea and executed it with elegance and class (Patrick Soluri is the third member of the team).

 

Anna: What’s the story behind the New York Jazz Hot Jazz Festival?

Misha: We have such an incredible, vibrant community that sprung up, hot jazz community in NYC …So I thought “why don’t we come together for a day of celebration” … and I went to Bria, and asked her if she wanted to do it. And she said yes!

Bria: He (Misha) is like the ambassador of music. He goes everywhere – jazz, cabaret, gypsy music .. And this is really Misha’s brainchild, he brought it all together.

M: I really think of myself as playing a minor role in this enterprise compared to Bria.

B: I am just someone that knows the local scene. I am a musician so I knew what the musicians’ needs were .. Misha, when did you pull in Patrick?

M: Patrick came two month later. He had organizational qualities, he put events together before.

B: He has a company named the Salon and he puts together events for swing dancers in different parts of the city, so he already has a bit of a built in audience and ideas on how to organize those things … So between the three of us we had a lot of strength.

A: Teamwork! And what were the most memorable moments from last year for you?

B: I have a very general idea of what the festival was like, but it was like a one big party, there were so many things going on, and there were so many generations of people mingling. We had people who play on the streets and representatives from  the Sidney Bechet Society, one of the most established groups in NY and they were coming together and commingling. And it was really exciting to see the things that came out because of it over the past year. There has been a lot of musical connection made and people who didn’t know each other before are playing together now. And I thought that Mehanata was a beautiful place. 

M: Sasho really saved us when a couple of venues fell through. The gypsy music community opened its doors to the hot jazz community for the inaugural festival.

B: And it was hot, it was sweaty, it was August ..but it was awesome.

A: And all of the bands this year are new, except for the Hot Sardines, correct?

M: Yes … We have mostly new musicians this year, maybe 10-15% are the same, but in different musical outfits. It’s impossible not to have cross-pollination. But the majority of the musicians are new people.

A: What does Hot Jazz represent for both of you?

M: Party!!! OPA

B: I am a trumpet player and a musician and I grew up in a town where we had traditional jazz festival. When I was 14-15 I was learning how to play jazz and how to improvise, that’s when I got into it. And then I went to college, etc. And at some point it became obvious that a lot of jazz education skips over the first 40 years of jazz, it just skims over it briefly whereas it’s like the nutrients of jazz music…I think that I had a very organic educational experience, but I don’t think that it’s the case nowadays. So this is also an opportunity to bring more attention to it, as a respected art form. And it is also another way for the musicians who play jazz to have a broader picture of what they are playing and why. There is also a lot of history involved in this music […] and it’s also about playing music that makes you feel something, reconnecting with the soul. And it’s a party! And the musicians are really quality. I mean we can go over the headliners and who is there and why .. Who is the youngest musician?

M: Mike Davis is 22 and Kate Davis is 22 I think.

B: And the oldest one is 87 … so we span over 6 decades of musicians. And they are going to be mingling. And that’s really cool. And it will be reflected in the audience as well. It’s super cross-generational. It’s almost like a mentorship program; there is a real system that evolved here. And it’s not just about one day, not just the festival.

A: I am curios about the selection process – was it invitation only or did you ask for submissions from musicians?

M: You had to be the best! 

B: It was hard not to pick people – there are so many more that should have been there!

M: And amazingly now over the past several years Hot Jazz Community has experienced somewhat of Renaissance. With younger generation embracing the music and not like something that is old and needs to be dusted. Not that it ever became old or stale. And I don’t think that the younger generation is on a mission to preserve the music, they just want to play the music because it is great music to play.

A: Can you tell us a little bit about the screenings?

M: Yes, it’s two mini marathons. First half is all Louis Armstrong. A noted scholar and a writer of Louis Armstrong biography, Ricky Riccardi, will be curating it. It’s going to be very rare footage. The second half of the day will be almost six hours of hot jazz clips … I mean we want people to concentrate on live music but if you need to take a break and retire for a little bit, that’s the place to go.

A: That’s wonderful. So what are the plans for the future? Do you expect the festival to turn into an annual thing? Like the Winter Jazz Festival or Charlie Parker Festival?

M: Hell yeah!

B: Yes, it will absolutely happen again. And it’s also something that happens year round. And we hope people come out and support live music.

 

Anna Yatskevich is Flowers In A Gun’s glamorous jazz & beyond critic! Catch more reviews from her here and follow her on Twitter @jazzaddikt.