Feehan Sunday Jazz: Marty Elkins & Janice Friedman
Sunday, December 16, 2018 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm
The Feehan Sunday Jazz series brings professional jazz musicians from throughout the Tri State area to play.
Two of New York City's most in demand Jazz performers,
Marty Elkins (vocalist), and Janice Friedman (pianist and vocalist), will play swingin' traditional Jazz and Holiday songs.
Light refreshments will be served.
This series was made possible by the Feehan Insurance Agency, Inc. Arts on the Lake thanks the Feehan family for supporting the arts in our community.
Feehan Sunday Jazz: Marty Elkins & Janice Friedman in the News
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About the Event
As a child Marty Elkins, listened mostly to the soul stations in New York, and the late night R&B shows like Jocko’s Rocket Ship. She left there for college in Boston, and while in college was given a copy of Ella Fitzgerald and Ellis Larkins. She was also exposed to Charlie Parker, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, and Louis Jordan, but the life changing day was when she found a copy of Billie Holiday’s “Lady in Satin” in a local Woolworth bin in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Literally holing up in her room with this recording, and a Bessie Smith record she acquired, she became devoted to jazz. Not Finding many other opportunities to sing up there, she moved to New York in the early eighties. Meeting more musicians in the few remaining clubs from the Fifty-Second street era - Jimmy Ryan’s and Eddie Condon’s - she began singing with Max Kaminsky’s band. She also began doing some gigs with Spanky Davis’ “Jimmy Ryan All Stars” at the Cat Club. She had a steady gig at Cousin’s in Brooklyn with Tardo Hammer and Lee Hudson, and really began to develop her style with them. There was also a steady gig at the Savoy Lounge in midtown Manhattan, which was with a young organ trio - Adam Scone, Coleman Mellett and Craig Wuepper. She was in a vocal group, also, “The Sweethots”, and with them worked with the Stan Rubin Band and the Cab Calloway Orchestra, under the direction of Christopher Calloway Brooks. That trio did a radio show with Spanky Davis, Clarence Hutchenrider (the clarinetist featured on the 1930’s hit record “Smoke Rings” by the Casa Loma Orchestra) and Vince Giordano, “The Sweethots” also often played at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City.
Janice Friedman established her career path early on — fed (by her pianist mother) a diet of Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson, Marian McPartland, Bill Evans and Ahmad Jamal; playing organ and then piano before starting kindergarten; seriously studying classical piano and then jazz piano while playing for school and private events well before high school. After earning a jazz studies degree from Indiana University and touring with the Woody Herman Orchestra, she made her way back to her native New York, soon appearing at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and many of Manhattan’s famed jazz clubs, and eventually touring with pianist Marian McPartland’s as well as performing on her NPR show Piano Jazz.
Three albums furthered her reputation — her own Tryptych: A Trio of Trios, Finger Paintings and Swinging for the Ride, her first displaying her vocal as well as keyboard talents–as did her contributions to many other artists’ recordings. Then came her long-awaited solo project, Solo: Half and Half, covering a swath of twentieth-century music from Fats Waller and Hoagy Carmichael to Duke Ellington and Lennon & McCartney. From ballads to boogie, from swing to bop, these mostly familiar musical choices are given fresh interpretation, along with one original composition.