Jazz leads the menu this evening, as the parade of promised new faces this season resumes.
When the impresario Gary Mandell raises the invisible curtain at 7 o’clock on the second week of the Boulevard Music Summer Concert Series in the Courtyard of City Hall,the unique melodies of the George Kahn Jazz & Blues Revue will waft through the gentle Downtown air.
Mr. Kahn, the pianist, is one of the few entertainers around who “makes jazz both swinging and musical enough for the cognicenti and yet entertaining enough for their dates,” says Mr. Mandell.
“He executes this balancing act by bringing together some of the best locals around, including Grammy winner Dr. Bobby Rodriguez on trumpet.”
Delivering accessibly driving tunes such as “Afro Blue” and “Cantaloupe Island” in a way that would satisfy either the hipster or the Valley girl, Mr. Mandell says that “he does it by incorporating a terrific trio of vocalists Gina Saputo, Crystal Starr and Courtney Lemmon.”
Versatility is their specialty. They deliver the lyrics in both lead and backup form in ways that can veer from cutesie, as on the Andrew Sisters’-inspired “Beat Me Daddy Eight To The Bar” to the stomping STAX R&Bish “I’d Rather Go Blind.”
“The ladies deliver a funky take of the Crescent City classic ‘Yes We Can Can,’” says Mr. Mandell, “while going even deeper down Bourbon Street with Rodriguez’s horn on a growling ‘Summertime.’”
The free-concert evening in the City Hall Courtyard will be rounded off bythe groovy band that recreates the look, the feel and the sound of classic 1960s’ soul and Motown, Stone Soul.
Whether it’s the retro suits and skinny ties or the dead-on renditions of songs from The Temptations, James Brown, Stevie Wonder and others, audiences feel as if they are in the middle of a swingin’ soul revue!
Since 2002, Stone Soul has been entertaining thousands of delighted fans with their spot-on covers of soul and Motown classics, Stevie Wonder, James Brown,the Temptations and Wilson Pickett.
Besides timeless hits from these legendary artists, Matt, Mick, Glenn, Tom, Steve and the Stone Soul Horns leave audiences feeling as though they just have witnessed an authentic Soul Revue.
