Count Basie News

Catherine Russell and Her Sextet, Pete Zimmer, Jay Leonhart Quintet and Special Guests, Tribute to Marlene VerPlanck, and more lead the coming week at Birdland!

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra hosts College Night on Saturday, February 24, at State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick. A special $10 student ticket includes entrance to the Orchestra's 8 pm performance of Brahms' First Symphony and Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, as well as a post-concert all-student party with light refreshments and live entertainment.

"Music speaks" in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's 2018-19 season, announced today by the Orchestra and Music Director Xian Zhang. Classical, pops and family offerings feature works that bring to life great stories, poems and speeches, from Kate Whitley's Malala Yousafzai-inspired Speak Out to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade to sarod master Amjad Ali Khan's Samaagam to Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Mary Poppins performed live to picture.

Birdland will kick-off their great week of programming with the following acts:

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Brahms' First Symphony and Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer February 22-25 in Englewood, New Brunswick and Newark. Grammy-nominated Norwegian mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland joins the Orchestra and guest conductor Rune Bergmann for Mahler's first song cycle. The program of late-Romantic works opens with the Overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Board of Trustees and Northern New Jersey Musicians Guild, Local 16-248 of the American Federation of Musicians, have ratified a five-year contract agreement. The agreement between the NJSO and the musicians union is retroactive to September 1, 2017, and runs through August 31, 2022.

The NJSO Chamber Players perform a diverse program of works by immigrant and refugee composers as part of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's 2018 Winter Festival America, Inspiring January 23 in Rumson and January 25 in Summit.

Birdland will kick-off their great week of programming with the following acts:

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents the second program of the 2018 Winter Festival, America, Inspiring, January 19 21 in Princeton, New Brunswick and Newark.

Next month, the Harris Center joins Capital Public Radio in celebrating a historic moment in the history of jazz. The date was January 16, 1938 at Carnegie Hall the hallowed venue for respectable classical music. There, Benny Goodman's band played swing music for the first time, with one of the earliest racially-integrated jazz groups.

Vincent Herring's The Story of Jazz: 100 Years, Eric Comstock and Sean Smith, The Wee Trio with special guest Luis Perdomo, and more!

You can't stop the beat in the Maltz Jupiter Theatre's big and bold Broadway blockbuster about one girl's inspiring dream to dance!

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Hot Latin Nights with the Mambo Kings February 16 18 in Red Bank, Newark and New Brunswick. From the sultry melancholy of Astor Piazzolla and the burning Afro-Cuban rhythms of Tito Puente to the rhythmic playfulness of jazz great Dave Brubeck and the pop strains of The Beatles, the Latin jazz tour features original orchestral arrangements and compositions from the US, Peru, Argentina, Cuba, Puerto Rico and beyond.

John Pizzarelli returns to Cafe Carlyle with an all-new show, March 20-24. The New York Times recently described John Pizzarelli and his wife Jessica Molaskey as the supreme nightclub act of our time. Jazz Weekly recently raved about John Pizzarelli's Johnny Mercer program: A gig like this oozes with style, class and fun, with Pizzarelli being one of the best ambassadors for the Great American Songbook. One of his best.

Since 2003, Hologram USA has delivered more than 700 successful projects, making groundbreaking strides in how people experience live events and communicate with each other using dynamic, cutting edge Holographic 3D technology. Their holographic experiences allow audience members to sit in a theater and feel as if they are attending a live three-dimensional concert or nightclub performance right in front of their eyes. Sounds too incredible, right? That's what I thought until I attended their latest creation, Billie Holiday Alive! at the new Hologram USA Theater in Hollywood

WRITE ACT REP announces PREZ, a solo show written by playwright Willard Manus, in celebration of Black History Month, and returns to Los Angeles, as part of a Festival Series at Write Act Rep's Brickhouse Theatre called THREE BY WILL IN REP. The Series includes two World Premiere's along with the return of the acclaimed PREZ, which chronicles the unique life of jazzman Lester Young, featuring Leslie A. Jones. The intimate drama is produced by John Lant II, and will be directed by Daniel E. Keough. The show is set to open February 4th, 2018. All performances for PREZ will be on Sunday at 2PM, through March 11th, 2018, as part of the three production Series, 'THREE BY WILL IN REP'.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presents Sci-Fi Spectacular, featuring music from Star Wars, Star Trek and more, January 6 7 in Newark and New Brunswick. Marina Sirtis, best known as counselor Deanna Troi on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the four feature films that followed, hosts.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Xian Zhang close the 2018 Winter Festival, America, Inspiring, with the masterwork that embodies its theme Dvo k's New World Symphony. Presented January 26 28 in Newark, Red Bank and Morristown, the program also features Britten's Simple Symphony and Korngold's Violin Concerto with soloist Chlo Hanslip.

Birdland Jazz Club lays out schedule for January 15-January 21

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association will present the 40th annual Playboy Jazz Festival June 9-10, 2018, at the Hollywood Bowl. It is the LA Phil's fifth year presenting the event, and in keeping with tradition, the Festival will feature a first-rate slate of emerging jazz artists as well as renowned superstars of the genre.