Three Shows, Two Cities, One Week
The calendar is heating up, and I couldn't be more excited about the music ahead. This week I'm playing three concerts across New York City and the Philadelphia area, two different piano partnerships, two different vibes, and I'd love to have you there for any or all of it.
Wednesday, April 1 — Mezzrow, NYC
Zach Brock & Jim Ridl
Sets at 9:00 PM & 10:30 PM | 163 W. 10th Street, Manhattan Tickets at SmallsLIVE
I'm kicking off the week at Mezzrow, one of New York's most intimate and beloved jazz rooms, in duo with pianist Jim Ridl. This one's going to be something special.
Jim is what The New Yorker called a "musician's musician," and that phrase really says it all. He performs and records worldwide with a wide range of artists, including the Joe Locke Quartet, the Paul Jost Quartet, and the Dave Liebman Big Band, and his 7-year residency at the 55 Bar in NYC featured the Jim Ridl Quartet (of which I was a member) and Trio performing his original music. He is on the faculty at New York Jazz Workshop and The City College of New York, and has maintained a private studio for over 40 years.
Jim was raised on a farm and ranch in North Dakota, where he discovered his love for piano and jazz at an early age. He attended the University of Colorado at Denver, earned his Bachelor's degree in Scoring and Arranging, and was awarded its Student Achievement Award for composing "Ocean Sojourn," an orchestral tone poem which he performed with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. From those Great Plains roots, he built a career that has taken him all over the world. His tenure with jazz guitar legend Pat Martino produced four outstanding recordings: Nexus, Interchange, Night Wings, and The Maker.
Jim brings enormous depth and warmth to everything he plays. I've long admired his work, and I can't wait to explore the full range of what a violin-piano duo can be with him. Two sets means two chances to catch us, come for one, stay for both.
Friday, April 3 — Klavierhaus, NYC
Concert for Freedom and Justice with Zach Brock & Steve Sandberg
7:00–9:00 PM | 790 11th Avenue, Manhattan | Admission by Donation Donate & Reserve Your Seat
This one is close to my heart. In response to the ongoing constitutional crisis, Steve Sandberg is organizing a fundraising concert for the ACLU, and I'm honored to be joining him. All proceeds go directly to the ACLU Foundation's legal fund, defending civil liberties through litigation and policy work.
Rather than falling into despair or defeat, the idea is to do what we can to help preserve freedom, justice, and liberty, ideals that define the U.S., even when the reality falls short. We'll also play some great music while we're at it.
Admission is by donation. You can give in advance through the GoFundMe link above, or at the door with cash. There will also be a livestream at event.klavierhaus.com/k/live if you can't make it in person. If you've already donated and plan to attend, send Steve a message through GoFundMe to reserve your seat.
Saturday, April 4 — The Dancing Elephant Listening Room, New Hope, PA
Zach Brock & Steven Sandberg: "Conversations Without Words"
7:00 PM | 15 W Ferry Street, Suite B, New Hope, PA | Tickets $38–$50 Buy Tickets
The weekend takes us to one of my favorite kinds of venue, a dedicated listening room inside a fine art gallery, up close and personal. Steve and I are bringing our genre-defying duo to The Dancing Elephant Listening Room in New Hope, Pennsylvania, bridging classical virtuosity, global rhythms, and jazz improvisation.
Steve Sandberg is a three-time Emmy-nominated composer whose scoring, songwriting, and musical direction for Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go!, and Dora and Friends helped make those shows the landmarks they are in children's television worldwide. But that's just one chapter of a remarkably wide-ranging career. He began classical piano studies at age four and won a BMI composers award before attending Yale University, where he majored in musical theory and composition. At Yale, his studies with noted African art theorist Robert Farris Thompson inspired him to immerse himself in the world of Afro-Caribbean music, and upon returning to NYC he played with and arranged for some of the great salsa artists of the 1970s and 1980s, including Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, and Tito Puente.
Steve also toured with David Byrne as keyboardist and vocalist, and served as musical director for Lincoln Center's summer Brazilfest series. He has also studied North Indian raga singing with Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, and performs with South India's violin icon, Dr. L. Subramaniam. The man contains multitudes.
Steve founded the Steve Sandberg Quartet in 2017, featuring me on violin, and our first CD Alaya was released on ArtistShare. All About Jazz called it "a breathtaking composite of world music, jazz, and classical expressions... personal and precise in its direction, yet universal in its language and ability to connect." Our duo performance distills that same spirit into an intimate conversation, voice to voice, no rhythm section, just two instruments finding their way through melody, harmony, and improvisation together.
The Dancing Elephant is a special space. Don't miss it.
Come out this week if you can. See you soon.
zb