What an amazing night of jazz it was at Zinc Bar in Greenwich Village at the closing of Charles Carlini’s inaugural Guitar Masters Festival!
Zinc Bar had just celebrated its 30th anniversary. The owner, Alex, recalled those early days when the fledgling club was only large enough to house guitar acts. That’s when the club was on Houston Street and they had not yet acquired a house piano.
On April 29th, the guitar made its triumphant return to Zinc Bar as the predominant instrument with three legendary jazz guitarists – two long-time stalwarts and one pushing the boundaries of the instrument.
Act One: Pasquale Grasso
The New Evolution of Jazz Guitar
Alex introduced the opening act as “the future of jazz guitar.“ With that emerged an unassuming man in his 30s wearing a dark suit and necktie, holding his auburn vintage hollow body electric guitar.
In 2016, Downbeat Hall of Fame guitarist Pat Metheny told Vintage Guitar magazine that Grasso was “the best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life.” I couldn’t agree more. He may just be the new evolution of jazz guitar.
Specializing in his own self-created unique hybrid of bebop jazz, classical, and flamenco, Grasso is certainly carving a niche out for himself as one of the top players in modern jazz. He can best be described as Joe Pass 2.0: he combines the best traits of Pass, Django, Tal Farlow, and Bud Powell all wrapped in one!
While performing standards from the American Song Book such as “Gone with the Wind,” “The Chase,” “Time After Time,” and “Groovin’ High,” Grasso used alternate sweeping, hybrid picking, and classical guitar finger style in between his beautiful chord melodies. I believe he is currently unmatched in the world of jazz guitar.
Grasso’s Trio consisted of jazz veterans Ari Noland on double bass and Keith Balla on drums.
Act Two: Rodney Jones Trio
Next up was a long-standing stalwart of jazz guitar, Rodney Jones, who teamed up with bassist Lonnie Plaxico and St. Louis-born drummer Ronnie Burrage.
Jones is a well-known American jazz guitarist who most notably has worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Chico Hamilton, Maceo Parker, and for many years was the guitarist and musical director for the great Lena Horne. He is currently a faculty member at Julliard, and is cited as a guitarist who uses modern quartal harmony.
Jones is a traditionalist whose material and playing style is most reminiscent of past jazz greats such as John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and McCoy Tyner. Plaxico is a highly respected bassist celebrated for his profound influence on the realms of jazz, R&B, and beyond. Burrage is an esteemed drummer recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to jazz and fusion music.
Act Three: Ed Cherry
The Cherry on Top of the Cake
Last but not least, we had the Ed Cherry Band, featuring the jazz guitar legend Ed Cherry, teamed as a Super Group quartet with three amazing young jazz musicians.
Cherry is known for his guitar work with Dizzy Gillespie from 1978 to 1993, and for his own recordings and projects as a band leader. He is widely known for his melodicism, exuding a deep expressiveness on the guitar attributed to great singers such as Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Frank Sinatra.
Ed featured a first-time All-Star lineup of great swingin’ jazz musicians specifically curated for the Guitar Masters Festival—Yotam Silberstein on guitar, Alexander Claffy on upright bass, and Ofri Nehemya on drums. Incredibly these musicians never played together before they went on stage that night—not even a rehearsal—a testament to their great talent, adaptive skills, and listening abilities.
Together they performed classic jazz and jazz blues standards from the American song book, such as Chant, Chitlins Con Carne, Peace, Take the Coltrane, and Sweet and Lovely.
Silberstein’s often rapid fluid single note lines laid down a perfect counterpoint to Cherry’s jazz blues comping Cherry’s and Yotam’s guitars that blended beautifully together. The counterpoint between their playing enhanced the overall experience. It was a spectacular performance. Ed Cherry is the tastiest player on the jazz scene today.
Read this article where I originally wrote it in The Village View:
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KAJU ROBERTO is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify.