10/21/17:</br>Isaiah Thompson Trio

Take three prodigies. Expose them to this music. Give them mentors like Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride, Joe Morello and Kenny Washington. Send them to Juilliard. What do you get? The seriously swinging Isaiah Thompson Trio.

Isaiah J. Thompson. Energy. Poise. Pocket. Two handfuls of technique. Citing Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder, Cedar Walton, Monty Alexander, Phineas Newborn and Duke Ellington as inspirations, Isaiah is burning it up. Just released this week— JALC’s Handful of Keys featuring Isaiah in company of pianists Joey Alexander, Dick Hyman, Myra Melford, Helen Sung, and Dan Nimmer.

Check out Isaiah Thompson in this jack arrangement of Lulu’s Back in Town by Vincent Gardner. Do you really need another reason to join us @exuberance? 

We’ve got two.

Philip Norris started playing the bass at the age of 13. He has played with Wynton Marsalis, Joe Farnsworth, Eric Alexander, Ulysses Owens Jr., Jeff Hamilton, Helen Sung, Catherine Russell, Jerome Jennings, Kenny Washington, ElioVilafranca, Igor Butman among others. His Grammy band audition from two years ago suggests where this young man is headed.

Cameron MacIntosh first picked up the sticks at age 9. He became the youngest ever student of the great Joe Morello. Since then he has studied with Lewis Nash, Kenny Washington and Billy Drummond. He has performed at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Smoke, the Jazz Standard, the Blue Note, Shapeshifter Lab, Fat Cat, Monterey Jazz Festival, and Yoshi’s. Seven and a half minutes with Mr. MacIntosh.

Irritating that their combined ages don’t even touch mine, but that’s prodigies for you. Don’t come to hear these jazz artists because they’re young. Come to hear these phenomenal talents because they swing!

@exuberance parties at Matt’s are by invitation only to provide a dignified, comfortable and acoustically ideal setting for worthwhile art and ideas. Cellphones and other devices are to be holstered during the performances. Between sets, conviviality rules.