There are no superstars in this month’s Glory Festival presented by Great Women in Music, a six-year-old city celebration of women in blues, jazz and soul. The nine acts, ranging from inventive French-Beninese vocalist Mina Agossi to pedigreed local jazz stylist Carolyn Leonhart, are seldom heard on the radio and unlikely to appear in gossip rags. A closer listen to their music vaults to heights where celebrity positions others. Unlike the lucky pop star, these women have cultivated their instrument and pristinely present it in live sets. They also share a creative boundlessness: blending genres, mining cultures and manipulating language.
Take Barbara Sfraga for a prime example when she hits the
Jazz Standard on October 9 with her band Center Search Quest to celebrate the
release of their new album Timelessness Frozen in Time. The Long Island native can count the legendary jazz
singer Mark Murphy as one of her mentors, but she explains that she abandoned
trying to fit her “square music thing into the round peg of jazz.” For those
expecting the skillful covers from her last solo release, Under The
Moon, Sfraga points out, “this is very,
very, different. It runs the gamut from free jazz to reggae to a little swing
ditty” and notably only includes one cover, a Stevie Wonder tune.
A week later, Alyssa Graham also raises her voice
at the Jazz Standard. Graham’s debut, What Love Is, wowed listeners with its plush poignancy appreciably
shaded by her extended travels to Brazil. Graham is currently working on a
follow-up of mostly original compositions. Cross your fingers for a preview of
“Involved Again,” a Jack Reardon composition written for and rehearsed by
Billie Holiday just before her death and, therefore, never recorded. A neighbor
of Graham’s mother-in-law, Reardon approached the singer after listening to her
debut and suggested she record the stowed away gem. “There is no way I can
remind him of Billie Holliday,” Graham says, “but he found something in my
voice that made him excited for me to give that song a rebirth.”
While almost half of the festival takes place amidst the
barbeque and chocolate cake of the Jazz Standard, Upper West Side haunt Smoke
hosts Sunnyside Records recording artist Carolyn Leonhart October 12
(performing with her husband saxophonist Wayne Escoffery’s quintet) and
Harlem’s Creole Restaurant welcomes Boston-bred folk funktress Titilayo Ngwenya
on the 21st. Afro-British hip-hop and soul hybrid Floetry are certain to play
to sold-out crowds (October 25-26) thanks to consistently energized sets and
affable stage personas. But the honor of capping off a month of great, if
unfairly obscure, music goes to forward-thinking chanteuse and avowed Jimi Hendrix
disciple Mina Agossi with a stateside showcase of pared-down jazz
fusion taking place on Halloween.
Through Oct. 31 at various venues. Barbara Sfraga, Oct. 9. Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. (betw. Park & Lexington Aves.), 212-576-2232; 7:30 & 9:30, $15.
