The
Saugerties Sunday Jazz Session
By Peter Aaron
“Shoop-ba-deeeeeeee!
Doo-bop. Bah-dee-bop. Dee-bah. Deebah. Bah-deeeeeeeeeeeahhheeeeahhh!
Bada-boo—doop! Bahdee- dah. Dee-dah. Dee-dahhhhhhhhh!”
It’s
a Sunday night at the Pig Bar & Grill in Saugerties and all
is right in the world—well, at least in the world of Hudson
Valley music. Irrepressible vocalist Pamela Pentony is once again
on stage at 110 Partition St., scatting away like a joy-filled nightingale
as she leads the area’s only weekly jazz jam session, just
as she has since the fall of 2003. When the song is through it’s
time to change up the players.
“How
about someone new on bass?” Pentony announces. “Is Alan
Murphy here? Let’s get him up here!” Lew Scott steps
down and turns the instrument over to Murphy, and one tall, rock-solid
bassist takes the place of another. “‘Monk’s Dream.’
Whaddya think, how about that one?” says Pentony. She snaps
her fingers, counting off the tricky, angular classic. As the evening
flows on, new musicians drop in and trade places with those on stage
roughly every two or three tunes. Even Pentony succumbs to the night’s
kinetic spirit, giving up the mic to a visiting singer.
Like
jazz itself, the shifting lineup is constantly surprising and totally
different every time. It regularly features the region’s topmost
professional musicians, and gives up-and-coming players the chance
to work with seasoned greats in a friendly, supportive atmosphere.
In the time before jazz was something you could study in school
or pick up from instructional videos, musicians learned their craft
chiefly on the bandstand. These days, however, the number of venues
offering a similar chance to witness what has been called America’s
only indigenous art form being reshaped and....
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