Second Tuesdays...

  We discovered Tuesday night that we'd missed way too many of these choice gatherings at the Capital Ale House's music hall downtown on East Main.  The Richmond Jazz Society's Guest Educators' Series is a monthly dinner show in one of the city's top music venues enhanced by a fine sound system, a great bar menu, and as you probably know, a serious cornucopia of draft and bottled beers.  This special night featured Courthouse Records recording artists the Butterbean Jazz Quartet.  RJS president Robert Payne set the proper tone, deftly turning the sometimes rowdy space into a respectful listening room as he introduced gifted vocalist Terri Simpson and her supporting cast:  bassist Rusty  Farmer, pianist Lee Covington and drummer Keith Willingham.  Augmenting the mix were Terri's hubby and super saxman Kevin Simpson along with great young guitarist John Conley.  Terri proceeded to demonstrate why she's a 2008 Theresa Pollack Award winner with a long and winding set starting with Rodgers & Hart's "Thou Swell," and moving artfully through a fresh and fascinating arrangement of "Autumn Leaves," a sweet take on Joni Mitchell's "My Old Man" and an elegant encore selection in folk favorite "The Water Is Wide."  So much talent in this town...if you weren't part of the full house at Capital Ale, catch the Butterbeans some Sunday at their long-running weekly Sunday gig at Bottoms Up Pizza.  And the 2nd Tuesday in February will bring Charlottesville's Stephanie Nakasian to town with her music mate Hod O'Brien and others in tow.  Hats off to the venerable Richmond Jazz Society for its continued enrichment of the local scene.

In the house was RJS board member and keyboard king Bob Hallahan who put a copy of his new CD in our hands, ...the street where you live.  It's a solid collaboration with area guitar legend Adam Larrabee and its artistry grows with every listen...we've already been through it twice. We'll let you know when it's out.  Another package worth picking up is another duo effort with Winfield, KS champion six-stringers Todd Hallawell and Robin Kessinger.  Their new project is entitled Ear Candy and it is a high-calorie confection packed with some of the cleanest and most tasteful guitar teamwork you're likely to hear.  You might have caught them at the Folk Festival over the past few years and we're working on a local stop sometime in May.  Meantime, check out the CD here.

JAMinc is excited about opening our 2010 season of In Your Ear Studio Concerts with the versatile DC-area Celtic band IONA on January 22nd.  Reservations are going fast at our Website.  Coming up, former Starland Vocal Band member and multi-Wammie winner Jon Carroll in February and in early March,  the sensational string quartet, the Bee Eaters, about whom Darol Anger says, "The Bee Eaters are the instrumental cream of the brand new string nation. ...somehow these kids have absorbed everything we had to offer and alchemized it into a whole new musical world." 

Congrats to 11-year-young Harper Price and her supporting cast who SOLD OUT Ashland Coffee & Tea last night!  Wish I could've witnessed that.  Hope you saw the nice piece about her in last Sunday's T-D.  If you didn't, click here.  And coming to AC&T on Wednesday, February 3rd are Laura Wortman and Keagy Parrish, collectively the Honey Dewdrops.  We were first enchanted by them during a late-night jam on the front porch at Graves Mountain back in '08, fresh from their 1st-place finish in A Prairie Home Companion's "People In Their Twenties Talent Show."  For a $5 cover, you can't afford to miss them.

We're off to a great start.  Come on along....TT

(Bee Eaters photo from their Website)