Mijazi.com: Tom Ross: Global Jazz Songs: Calendar: Past Events

Tuesday November 7th, 2000, 12:15 pm
Dwire Hall, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, CO. Admission free.

Thursday November 9th, 2000, 7:30 pm
Packard Hall, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO,
with Tom Ross Sr, clarinet and saxophone; Shawn Stanley, bass; and Eric Eberhardt, drums. Admission free.

Wednesday November 29th, 2000, 7 pm,
The Lyon's Den, Wheaton College, Norton, MA. Admission free.

Year 2001

Friday-Sunday November 9-11, 2001
NERFA
Tom is showcasing at the North Eastern Regional Folk Alliance!
For more info: NERFA website

Year 2002

SOULFUL CUP Saturday Nov 9, 2002, 8 pm!
81 W Market St, Corning NY
global jazz songs

THE SUN MUSIC COMPANY Thursday Nov 14, 2002, 8:30 pm!
340 E 71st St (between1st and 2nd Avenue), New York City NY
with Nana
global jazz songs

THE LARKIN Thursday Nov 21, 2002, 8 pm!
199 Lark St, Albany NY
global jazz songs and electronica

SOULFUL CUP Saturday Nov 23, 2002, 8 pm!
81 W Market St, Corning NY
global jazz songs

Year 2003

TOM ROSS BAND at Union College!
Tuesday, Feb 18th, 2003, 9 pm, free admission
Union Coffeehouse, Schenectady, NY

Featuring world premieres of new music and first-ever live band versions of songs from Tom's new album, THE RAIN TAKES OFF HER CLOTHES.

With mbira 'thumb-piano' music from Zimbabwe, jazz standards, and audience participation!

Saturday, April 26th, 2003, 8 pm
Tom Ross House Concert: Liz Woodbury’s abode, Saratoga Springs, NY

Saturday, May 10th, 2003, 4 pm
Tom Ross House Concert: Bill Lenderking’s house, Lexington, Massachusetts

Tuesday, May 13th, 2003, 8 pm
Concert at Alternating Spaces: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York

Tom Ross at The Chapel + Cultural Center!
Friday October 10, 2003, 8 pm
2125 Burdett Avenue, Troy, New York

With Wuji Tableaux. $10.

The Rain Takes Off Her Clothes

TOM ROSS
With a jazz saxophonist (and English professor) for a father and a singer-pianist for a mother, Tom Ross grew up in a musical and verbal family. His first professional experiences were with his father around his hometown of Colorado Springs, which along with encouragement from his mother contributed, Ross says, “solid roots in American improvised music” which are robust today.

Ross has blended his jazz guitar roots with Indian vocal traditions and West African music to create a globally-informed style: hearing his music is like the world speaking a single musical language. His latest album, released while balancing a hectic performing career, is The Rain Takes Off Her Clothes, acoustic guitar-based global jazz songs with Indian and African influences, whose lyrics spring from poets such as Pablo Neruda, Billy Collins and Emily Dickinson. J. Eric Smith of Metroland says that Ross’s first release, Horse of Stone, “could change the face of music!” For more on Tom, visit www.mijazi.com

THE RAIN TAKES OFF HER CLOTHES is Tom Ross’s long-awaited sophomore work after the critically acclaimed Horse of Stone CD album, which was sponsored by David Crosby.

Like Horse, THE RAIN TAKES OFF HER CLOTHES is jazz-based acoustic guitar songs with influence from India and Africa. The textures are leaner and the debt greater to poets such as Pablo Neruda (whose line prompted the title song). Lyrics also based on the work of Emily Dickinson, W. S. Merwin, and George Herriman of the Krazy Kat comic strip.

THE RAIN features reedman Charlie Keagle (also heard on Horse of Stone), Mike Migliozzi on drums, Josh Zucker on bass, Carin Gado on background vocals. Tom does the vocals, guitar, fretless 12-string guitar, as well as sequencing and programming. It was recorded at Babyshoelessland in Schenectady NY and Woods End in Greenfield NY, and mastered at M-Works in Cambridge, MA.

Fans of Horse of Stone will find THE RAIN equally satisfying, while notably sparer, and marked by the view of an artist in middle life. Indian rhythms and tones, as well as vocal styling, imbue many of the songs, even while the African-American funk of Ross’ jazz background provides danceable grooves.

In Fox’s Body, a Zen monk gives the wrong answer to a koan question and is turned into a fox; in Smile in the Stone, a mason on a medieval church discovers his mystical ties to the stone; while Who My Soul Loves adapts sexy love-poetry from the Song of Solomon.

Fans of Horse of Stone will find THE RAIN equally satisfying, while notably sparer, and marked by the view of an artist in middle life. Indian rhythms and vocal styling imbue many of the songs, with danceable grooves stemming from the African-American funk of Ross’s jazz heritage.

THE RAIN TAKES OFF HER CLOTHES is a triumph of song that defies category, and a must-have for the discerning listener.

Year 2004

Year 2006

PARTY FOR REACH IN THIS DREAM ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2006

Tom Ross: global jazz songs
Moon & River Cafe

with Dean Mirabito, tabla
115 S Ferry
Schenectady, NY
8 pm. Admission is free.

Guests receive a FREE copy of Reach plus discounts on other music! With tabla ace Dean Mirabito.

The guitar-drenched project of global jazz songs is all-acoustic, with rhythms and tones from India and Africa. Tom's lyrics spring from poets such as Billy Collins and W. S. Merwin. Joining the composer's vocals, guitars, sax and percussion are Jody Cormack, vocals; Steve Gorn, Indian bamboo flute; Josh Zucker, bass; Dave Black, drums; and Deedee Huntington, Emeralda Ross and Rosa Thomas, background vocals.

The festivities will be enhanced by surprise performances by musical luminaries, with an ART SHOW of the original paintings appearing in REACH's lavish 8-panel foldout. They're acrylics averaging 4 by 5 feet, including the REACH cover of Tom's face-painted daughter as well as the Javanese dancer "Triwik" performing with the Cornell Gamelan, which recently played Tom's piece for gamelan and chorus, "She Rode Through the Fair." And there's the 6 x 5-foot "The Sabetha Cornet Crank Band," developed from a tintype photo of the Kansas band that includes Tom's great-grandfather on cornet.

Be sure to grace this special event on Saturday, November 18th in Schenectady!

Calendar: Past Events

Year 2000