New Jazz Venue in NYC

[Kreilly]

http://www.thestonenyc.com/index.html

[.:.impossible]

The Birth of The Stone

A New Artists' Space in the East Village

The Stone is a not-for-profit performance space dedicated to the

EXPERIMENTAL and AVANT-GARDE.

All expenses are paid for by the MUSIC itself — through the online sale of special Limited Edition CDs released yearly on the Tzadik label. Each month a different musician is responsible for curating the programs with 100% of the nightly revenue going directly to the musicians. There are no refreshments or merchandise at The Stone. Only music.

All ages are welcome.

The Stone is booked purely on a curatorial basis. We do not accept demos of any kind.

.:. This sounds like a fantastic idea. There are some real heavies on the April schedule. Milford Graves, Joe McPhee, Perry Robinson, Pheeroan Ak Laff, and lots in between. They are booked solid! Looking forward to some of these recordings, and hopefully catching a show or two before we move.

[maren]

This has just got to be named in honor of Irving Stone -- no, not the guy who wrote "Lust for Life" and "The Agony and the Ecstasy" -- but the guy known even to his wife as "Stone" -- before his recent death, he and Stephanie were "The Stones"...

Some reminiscences about Stone can be found here:

http://www.jumparts.org/essays3.html

http://www.jumparts.org/concerts4.html

[7/4]

This has just got to be named in honor of Irving Stone -- no, not the guy who wrote "Lust for Life" and "The Agony and the Ecstasy" -- but the guy known even to his wife as "Stone" -- before his recent death, he and Stephanie were "The Stones"...

Some reminiscences about Stone can be found here:

http://www.jumparts.org/essays3.html

http://www.jumparts.org/concerts4.html

I thought it was.

The Derek Bailey DVD "Playing for Friends on 5th Street" is dedicated to Irving & Stepanie Stone. I was at that show.

Edited March 31, 2005 by 7/4

[Jazz Kat]

This is perfect!

[maren]

Posted not so much for the performance reviews, more for the highlighted parts:

For Jazz Musicians and Fans, a (Tiny) Room of Their Own

By Ben Ratliff, New York Times, 4/5/2005

The Stone, John Zorn's new performance space at Avenue C and Second Street in the East Village, has no smoke and mirrors. The club, which opened Friday night in a tiny ground-floor space that was once a Chinese restaurant, is about 15 feet wide and 50 feet long. Rows of plastic chairs back up to the front door, and in front of the musicians squares of foam rubber have been arranged for cross-legged sitters. There is a basement and a restroom, and that's it.

As the club's creator, Mr. Zorn is working to turn the glory back onto the musicians and the fans that support them. There are no drinks or merchandise at the Stone, and the club is giving all the door proceeds to the musicians; each month's six-nights-a-week programming will be booked by a single musician (commitments have been made into 2007); and the operating costs will be covered by Mr. Zorn's record-making on his own label, Tzadik.

The place was packed for opening night, and the first set was eight rounds of free improvisation involving musicians from Mr. Zorn's circle. It's the kind of show Mr. Zorn has often put on - most recently at Tonic, which was, before the Stone, the closest thing to his performing home base in New York.

In the first set, the cast included two generations of downtown musicians: Mr. Zorn and Marty Ehrlich on alto saxophone; Ned Rothenberg (the first month's curator) on alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet; Okkyung Lee on cello; Shanir Blumenkranz on bass; and Kenny Wollesen, Lukas Ligeti and Tony Buck on drums. The music proceeded in groups of two and three and four at a time; some of it used the language of free jazz, but more of it was simply nonidiomatic improvising.

There were texture improvs, high-energy improvs, gestural improvs, shifting-tonal-center improvs; some of them took off, some of them didn't, and they reached their peak in the middle. The set began with Mr. Zorn and the two drummers, playing all-out, scrabbling free jazz touching down in Jewish scales. The third, with Mr. Rothenberg, Ms. Lee, Mr. Blumenkranz and Mr. Ligeti, developed more traction; that was followed by Mr. Ehrlich, Mr. Blumenkranz and Mr. Wollesen in a strong trio, and then another trio, this time of the three alto saxophonists, who followed one another around from key to key. At the end, as usually happens in these situations, all hands reappeared for one last blowout. There were eight people standing, and Mr. Zorn pretended that he would have to play in the bathroom; he was almost serious.

The Stone was named for Irving Stone, an inveterate concertgoer who died in 2003. Mr. Stone had gone with his wife, Stephanie, to hear Mr. Zorn perform hundreds of times over more than 20 years. Stephanie Stone had the club's prime seat on Friday night, and it was her evening as much as anyone's.

[7/4]

what ** is ** "nondiomatic improvising"?

Maybe it's a nice way of saying they were making noise.

[alankin]

what ** is ** "nondiomatic improvising"?

Maybe it's a nice way of saying they were making noise.

Or that Ratliff found that his bag of adjectives was empty...

[AllenLowe]

When I played at the Knitting Factory with my group John Szwed came up to me afterward and told me it must have been a hip gig because Irving Stone showed up - and he introduced me to Mr. Stone, who was a real nice man - I was quite honored -

[slide_advantage_redoux]

May this venue succeed. Hats off to John Z for underwriting it.