You don’t ordinarily think of special things happening on Thursday — Friday morning work looms — but September 1, 2011, will be a special night for beautiful improvisations in New York City. If you can get to 211 West 46th Street between 7 and 11:30, you will hear some splendid music.
The occasion is another one of Michael Kanan’s beautiful piano evenings, taking place at Sofia’s! Michael, Larry Ham, Tardo Hammer, and Pete Malniverni will be alternating at the keyboard for the entire evening — ably supported by Lee Hudson, bass; Eliot Zigmund, drums.
From those names, you know that lyrical explorations of melody, of songs newly reconsidered and ones you haven’t heard in a long time, will be the consistent subject. All the pianists on this bill are friends; they have their own deep ways of exploring music without falling back on the usual post-bop cliches, and they are players who easily get to the heart of a song.
Michael is not only a subtle man at the keyboard; he has a subtle architectural way with musical evenings. Rather than organize his friends into possibly lengthy solo showcases, he makes these Sofia’s evenings a series of small surprises, a tumbling cornucopia of musical gifts. Each of the four pianists will perform two songs and then get off the piano bench for his colleague. The result is not only a night of bright moments and subtle contrasts, but each of the players, in his own way, reflects what he’s just heard — so the evening is much more than one improvisation after another, it takes on its own shimmering shape — as if you’d eaten a wonderful layered multi-course meal, seen a moving three-act play. It’s a chamber concert of the finest kind for jazz listeners.
Sofia’s is at 221 W. 46th Street, NYC (between Broadway and Eighth Ave): no cover, no minimum, just quiet jazz mastery.
