MUSIC: 2013 Exit Zero International Jazz Festival Wraps Successful 2nd Edition

(Marc Cary Focus Trio)

The 2nd annual Exit Zero International Jazz festival bowed Veteran’s Day weekend in Cape May, NJ highlighted by an especially strong Saturday lineup that featured both jazz legends and emerging talents and everything from salsa to vocal jazz to Afrosoul.  

Motema Music, the Harlem-based indie label that has scored hits recently with records by Gregory Porter, Pedrito Martinez Group and others, is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2013, and Motema artists were out in number at Exit Zero. Pianist Marc Cary, fronting a slightly retooled version of his Focus Trio, played a powerful set that showcased his virtuoso chops and his ability to craft rhythmically-complex compositions that marry elements from a wide-range of influences, including post-bop, classical, Indian music and hip-hop.

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MUSIC: 2013 Exit Zero International Jazz Festival Hits Cape May

Bassist Christian McBride and Inside Straight perform at the 2012 Exit Zero International Jazz Festival

Long known for its summertime beaches and gingerbread Victorians, Cape May, NJ now has an attraction to lure visitors in normally blustery November: the Exit Zero International Jazz Festival, which kicks off next Friday 11/8 with performances by Grammy-winning vocalist Dianne Reeves, up-and-coming pianist Aaron Diehl, and others. Reeves and co-headliner Eddie Palmieri, who performs two sets on Saturday 11/9, top a lineup that includes jazz notables Kenny Garrett, Joe Locke, Charnett Moffett, and Henry Butler, along with emerging talents like vocalist Robin McKelle and percussionist and composer Jaimeo Brown, whose 2013 debut Transcendence has critics buzzing. A complete lineup and ticket information is available via the festival’s website at www.exit0jazzfest.com.

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FILM: Bushwick Film Festival Opens, Screens 'Sion Fullana: Camera Obscura'

The BFF Team: From LEFT: Alison Underwoood, Social Media Intern; Melanie Balousek, Community Outreach Director; Kweighbaye Kotee, CEO/Director of Programming; Meenakshi Thirukode, Director of New Media; Casey Johnson, Director of Marketing and Social Media

Stated is honored that our short documentary, Sion Fullana: Camera Obscura, was named an Official Selection of the Sixth Annual Bushwick Film Festival.

The Festival runs through Sunday at Lightspace Studios in Bushwick and includes films from over 80 participants.

Saturday’s program includes a presentation and panel discussion of new media projects plus screenings of feature films Boxie, writer/director Nick Frangione’s drama about the complicated relationship between two therapists, and Una Noche, director Lucy Mulloy’s narrative about a Cubano youth’s dream of escaping to Miami. Presented by Spike Lee, Una Noche won acclaim earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival where it captured awards for Best Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best New Narrative Director.

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MUSIC: An Evening with Black Francis at Symphony Space

This coming Friday, Symphony Space—2537 Broadway at 95th Street, NYC—presents an evening with Black Francis, aka Frank Black, aka Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, founder and front man of the Pixies, one of the most influential alternative rock bands of the mid-80s and early-90s.

Fans who know Thompson mostly from the Pixies may be surprised to learn that as a solo artist he has released 19 albums since 1994. Most often recording as Frank Black, Thomspon has pursued a more melodic, country and western-influenced course, but while his music has been decidedly calmando compared to the often explosive electric guitar-based sound of the Pixies, Thompson has by no means forgotten how to rock, especially on those occasions when he has stepped out as Black Francis, either with or without the reunited Pixies.

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MUSIC: 2012 Philadelphia Folk Festival

(Cedric Burnside. Photo: Thomas V. Hartmann)

Over the course of its 51-year history, The Philadelphia Folk Festival Festival has evolved to become a showcase for a wide range of contemporary music, from traditional American folk and other roots music to bluegrass, alt-country, world, and blues, as well as music that isn’t so easy to categorize, like the jazz-soul-funk fusion of this year’s headliner, Trombone Shorty. See the full PFF lineup HERE.

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