Rivergigs: Jazz brunch! With Chiara Izzi Duo & Joy Brown Duo

"Rivergigs"

You're invited to our first-ever jazz brunch!

Brunch - 12:00 noon

Blueberry pancakes, eggs, fruit, grilled cheeses - yummy eats
Mimosas, bloody marys, OJ, coffee - yummy drinks

Joy Brown / Dan Nicholas Duo - 2:00pm

Dan Nicholas, guitar
Joy Brown, vocals

Chiara Izzi / Perry Smith Duo - 3:30pm

Chiara Izzi, vocals
Perry Smith, guitar

Contribution to save your space:
$18 online / $20 at the door (all net proceeds go to the artists)

Seating is first-come, first-served

Light snacks and drinks will be provided; additional offerings welcome

We're planning on having a jam session afterward - bring your instruments!

First up will be the talented guitarist Dan Nicholas, returning to NYC after playing in notable clubs around the world, who will be accompanied by the exciting vocalist Joy Brown. Then, another wonderful vocalist, Chiara Izzi, who blasted onto the international scene by winning the Montreaux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition in 2011 and has been wowing crowds in NYC and around the world ever since, will play with Brooklyn-based guitarist Perry Smith, who's also been tearing up the NYC scene at places like Smalls, Blue Note, Dizzy's Club at Lincoln Center, and top international jazz festivals as well.

Bios:

Joy Brown (pictured above)

Joy Brown is the favorite jazz vocalist of a great number of musicians on the NYC scene. With a background in Gospel music and a strong influence from the great Dinah Washington, she can be found bringing the house down at venues such as Dizzy’s Club, Mezzrow, The Django and more with the likes of Barry Harris, Sullivan Fortner, Grant Stewart, Michael Weiss, Bruce Harris and many others.

Dan Nicholas

Based in the Netherlands, guitarist Dan Nicholas is a native of New York City and New Jersey, where he got his start in jazz studying with pianist Barry Harris. He specializes in straight ahead jazz and is an active performer internationally, having performed at such venues as London’s Ronnie Scott’s, Paris’ Duc des Lombards, and The Django NYC. Nicholas has worked with the likes of Gary Smulyan, Mike LeDonne, Barry Harris, Grant Stewart, Dado Moroni, Gregory Hutchinson, Jeremy Pelt, Leon Parker, and many of the top musicians on the Dutch jazz scene including Benjamin Herman, Ack van Rooyen and Peter Beets.

Chiara Izzi

Chiara is an award-winning jazz singer-songwriter from Italy who has been based in New York City since 2014, three years after Quincy Jones awarded her first prize in the 2011 Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition. Since arriving, she’s become one of New York’s busiest vocalists, having already had the chance to perform in prominent venues like Iridium, Birdland, The Blue Note, Apollo Theater, Smalls, and 55 Bar, sharing bandstands with such luminaries as Kevin Hays, Leon Parker, Ken Peplowski, Diego Figueiredo, Jeff Hamilton, Aaron Goldberg, Bruce Barth, Eliot Zigmund, Warren Wolf, etc. Chiara first documented her formidable talents on her well-received 2013 debut album, Motifs (Dot-Time), singing in English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese on an 11-track program that spanned the American and Brazilian Songbooks, Tango, high-level Euro-Pop, and Mainstream Jazz Vocalese and Scat. She navigates each idiom fluently, displaying her prodigious vocal instrument, refined musicianship, inherent soulfulness, and ability to convey both emotional transparency and ebullient swing. In an All About Jazz review, Michael Bailey praised Chiara as “a force of nature,” while in Jazz Times Travis Rogers described her as “a talent to be heard, admired and anticipated.” That talent has evolved and blossomed since Chiara moved to New York is apparent on her 2019 release, Across The Sea (Jando), a cooperative project with pianist Kevin Hays. The rising star and established master, functioning as equal collaborators, address well-wrought original pieces and lyrics by each protagonist and highly personalized interpretations of songs from composers and songwriters who both artists love and admire. Like a true New Yorker, Chiara is already working on new projects that include a prospective album of Chiara’s original music with her band, and a forthcoming live duo album on Dot Time Records.

Perry Smith

Guitarist Perry Smith combines the tradition of Jazz with broad influences from contemporary music to create his signature style. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Smith is now based in Brooklyn where he leads his own groups and is a sideman for local and touring artists. Smith’s extensive performance resume includes notable venues and festivals such as the Blue Note Jazz Club (NYC & Tokyo), Smalls Jazz Club (NYC), Dizzy's Club Coca Cola (NYC), Montreal Jazz Festival, Java Jazz Festival (Indonesia), Jazz a la Calle (Uruguay), Rochester Jazz Festival, Philippine International Jazz Festival, The Healdsburg Guitar Festival and SFJazz.

Smith is an active player in the greater New York jazz scene and from 2014-2018 he hosted a weekly series in Brooklyn called The Nest Session. Every Wednesday for 4 years he performed with a different group of NYC's finest jazz musicians. The session continues today at the Nest as a grant-funded series providing opportunities to a wide array of jazz artists in New York City.

In addition to leading his own projects and working as a sideman, Smith is a founding member of the critically acclaimed New West Guitar Group. Based in Los Angeles featuring guitarists John Storie and Will Brahm, NWGG has been performing internationally for over 10 years and they are recognized as one of the premier guitar ensembles in the country. In 2011 he completed his Masters in Music at New York University studying with the great John Scofield. Smith was named the “Outstanding Graduate” for 2011 in the NYU Jazz Department.