by Andrew Frisicano

The annual NYC Winter Jazz Fest starts tonight (Friday, 1/7) and continues Saturday with shows that go late into both nights at a handful of Greenwich Village venues. Like last year's fest - a huge success that spawned a similar festival in the summer - one pass gets you into any of the venues. All are in close proximity, and show hopping is encouraged. You'll also be rewarded for staying put: Take, for example, Saturday's lineup at LPR, which features two guitar slingers, Charlie Hunter and Nels Cline (as Stained Radiance with painter Norton Wisdom), in consecutive sets. For the number of acts (46 on Saturday night alone) at the price ($25 for one day, $35 for both), the festival is pretty can't lose.

Jazz resource and show promoter Search and Restore has two showcases as part of the fest. They'll be celebrating the fact that their Kickstarter campaign met its $75,000 (!) goal. As a result they'll be launching an ambitious project to film four jazz shows a week over the next year (and post the results online as part of an expanded site). Congrats!

Also this weekend are a set of shows at Cornelia St. Cafe that are also part of the APAP conference (the ostensible reason for the Winter Jazz Fest, the show at City Winery tonight, the show at 92YTribeca tonight, GlobalFEST and others). Your Jazz Fest passes won't work there, but the lineups include Theo Bleckmann/Gary Versace/John Hollenbeck, Jon Irabagon & Mike Pride and Mario Pavone's Totem Quartet.

Saxist Tim Berne, who played Cornelia St. Thursday night with his band Los Totopos, will be at the Stone twice on Saturday. The second set is listed as "Tim Berne Duo," with keyboarist Matt Mitchell, but he mentioned that the whole band (Ches Smith on drums and Oscar Noriega on woodwinds) would be appearing. Mitchell will be at the venue on Sunday night too, to play with John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet (who blew away a packed Bitter End at Jazz Fest 2010).

Check out the full Winter Jazz schedule below...

Continue reading "Winter Jazz Fest this weekend, shows @ Cornelia St. Cafe & other APAP events"