Music Is a Great Alternative to Shopping | Norman Provizer’s Jazz Notes

If you are trying to recover from Thanksgiving, there are two, big league vocal events to help you along. The first of those events takes place on Saturday and Sunday when singer Petra Haden hits Dazzle with a program called “Sings Jesse Harris.” Petra, one of bassist Charlie Haden’s triplet daughters, has covered a number of musical bases with her voice and violin since the release of her initial solo album twenty-years ago.

During the 1990s, for example, she was part of That Dog and went on to play with the Decemberists, Foo Fighters and even Green Day. She also recorded with guitarist Bill Frisell on two occasions, with drummer Paul Motian on a 2011 disc and performed with family members, sisters Tanya and Rachel and brother Josh. When recovering from being hit by car in Los Angeles, Petra also wrote material revisiting the spirit of the Who with the disc The Who Sell Out.

Her most recent CD is Seemed Like a Good Idea has her singing songs written or co-written by guitarist Jesse Harris. The guitarist, of course, has been on a number of discs from singer/pianist Norah Jones and penned her giant hit “Don’t Know Why.” Harris has also worked with singers Madeleine Peyroux, Nikki Yankovsky and Lizz Wright. He also wrote lyrics for John Zorn’s music and was part of the Ferdinandos with folks like bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen.

Haden and Harris have been on tour and they land on stage at Dazzle, 930 Lincoln, on Saturday at 7 and 9 p.m. and on Sunday at 6 and 8 p.m. (303-839-5100). The great bassist Haden passed away in 2014, but his influence will never die.

The second top-shelf vocal event occurs on Wednesday when singer Cecile McLorin Salvant is at the Newman Center, 2344 E. Iliff Ave., on the University of Denver campus, at 7:30 p.m. with the superb pianist Aaron Diehl and his trio (303-871-7720). McLorin Salvant, with one parent from Haiti and one from France, was born in Miami and went to study in France in 2007 when she was 18.

Three years later, she captured the top slot in the 2010 Thelonious Monk vocal competition and she quickly gathered enormous attention.  In 2013, she came from nowhere to come in second in the rising-star, female-vocalist category. The next year, she managed not only to capture the top slot in the rising-star category in DownBeat’s annual “Critics Poll” but also the top slot among established female singers along with winning album of the year for WomanChild (her debut release in the U.S.) and nailing down the top position as the overall outstanding rising star on the scene. In 2015 and 2016, she continued her winning ways in the female-singer category in the annual DownBeat survey. Add to that a Grammy in 2016 for the top jazz-vocal album, For One to Love and you have an amazing rise in a very short period of time. Her friend and colleague Diehl is also an outstanding player and his trio on tour has Paul Sikivie on bass and Lawrence Leonard on drums.

Also this week, vibraphonist Greg Carroll returns to the area with the Miidnight Blue Jazz Quartet (that has with Andy Weyl on piano, Mark Diamond on bass and Paul Romaine on drums). Carroll is a former director of jazz studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder and a noted educator who, among other things, headed the International Association for Jazz Education. He plays at Dazzle on Wednesday at 7 p.m

On a final note, the University of Northern Colorado has drummer Louis Hayes coming in for a residency from Tuesday through December 4. Included in his stay is a master class on Tuesday on the UNC campus in Frasier Hall  (970-351-1943). He will also be on stage on December 1 at the Moxi Theater in Greeley and on December 2 at Dazzle. There will be more details in next week’s column.

Comments and submissions: normanprovizer@aol.com