Soul of the City: New York City

Jim Campilongo Electric Trio at (Mondays at the Living Room, Lower East Side)

“Sonic architect” is another of those frequently-bandied-about music crit terms for a purveyor of heady music, but when Jim Campilongo hoists his Fender Telecaster, it really does feel like a great escape from harsher realities. His playing—all those flights, bent notes and offbeat tones—suggests he seems to think of guitar as voice, Hendrix-style, and not just guitar as stringed instrument. He plays often around New York—and is a member of Norah Jones’s Little Willies side project and countless other groups—but his latest residency is a late night Monday set-up at the Living Room: just Campilongo, his trick bag, and a bassist and drummer. A tad mellow at times, but then perfect in that regard for a cool, calming Monday night.

Jenny Schienman (Tuesdays at Barbes, Park Slope, Brooklyn)

I have jazz wonk pals from parts elsewhere in the country who foam at the mouth over any regional Jenny Scheinman appearance like it’s the Zeppelin reunion, and they frequently take me to task for how little—and I’ll admit, it’s embarrassing—I make it to Scheinman’s Barbes residency.

No question Scheinman is one of the most exciting players—jazz, or any other—in the world right now. Along with the two albums she recently released—one instrumental, one vocal—and her regular slate of frontwoman and sideperson gigs and an inexhaustible number of collaborations, Scheinman maintains this humble weekly summit of brilliant improvisation, tucked unassumingly into a back room the size of a shoebox but long on personality, on a cafe-strewn drag in Park Slope.

In addition to all the facets of her playing, Scheinman is also a pleasure to watch because her eyes dart and she makes expressions alternately beatific and mesmerized–she feels what she’s doing so much and she’ll go wide-eyed whenever a bassist or guitar foil hits a certain pattern and start to drag her bow again. This past Tuesday she was with a familiar collection of players—bassist Todd Sickafoose, drummer Rudy Royston and guitarist Steve Cardenas (who also plays often with Campilongo)—and it’s such a total mindfuck to think that such new-jazz royalty will assemble for less than 100 people while it’s still light out in a cozy back room on a Tuesday evening to do what they do.

Scheinman’s Barbes thing makes Tuesday—undoubtedly the shittiest day of the week, because Mondays mean both weekend afterglow and Monday Night Football—just a little easier to deal with. Thanks Jenny. Please, for the love of god, keep doing what you do.

Dred Scott Trio (Tuesdays at Rockwood Music Hall, Lower East Side)

Keyboardist Dred Scott’s Rockwood residency is about three years old and has already yielded one terrific album (available for free download here.) He’s collaborated a bunch with RatDog saxophonist Kenny Brooks and many others, and a chance sit-in with RatDog some time back led me to investigate the man further than I had in the past, to discover that Rockwood on late night Tuesdays is one of the most consistently great residencies on the Lower East Side. Plus, it was a product of happenstance: Rockwood opened in January 2005 as primarily a singer/songwriter venue, but Scott was able to get the owners to take a chance on a regular jazz trio in a noncritical spot during the week. Signed, sealed, delivered.

Really, it’s a depressurizing experience: it’s too early in the week to be out so late and Dred’s almost never on before midnight, but he’s so comfortable in the room and with his collaborators, drummer Tony Mason and bassist Ben Rubin, that every performance is an intimate bop clinic, alternately a deep chill and an edge-of-seat level of intensity. If you’re lucky, you’ll get their excursion through Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard”—captured with gusto on the Rockwood live album.