The Flushing Council On Culture And The Arts presented an international ensemble of jazz musicians at Flushing Town Hall Oct. 15.
The Wycliffe Gordon Sextet, composed of a cadre of ethnically diverse musicians, performed on the main stage for an evening of “The Early Roots of Jazz: Music of the 1920s and ’30s.”
Leading his ensemble through a two-set performance of 22 selections spiced with improvisational vocalizing by various band members, Gordon began the evening with “Do You Know What It Means,” and included other chestnuts like “Basin Street Blues,” “Honeysuckle Rose” and “I Cover The Waterfront,” and ending with the a medley of the Duke Ellington classics “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Mood Indigo” and “Caravan.”
Personnel included bandleader Gordon on trombone and lead vocals; Michel Dease on trombone, vocals and tenor and soprano saxophones; Gordon Au on trumpet and vocals; Ehud Asherie on piano; Yaushi Nakamura on bass; Alvin Atkinson Jr. on drums; and guest vocalist Barbara Rozene knocking the house out with her take on the humorously blue double-entendre jazz tune, “Wrong Hole.”
