Bettye LaVette
Friday, January 13 – 8:00 p.m.
W.C. Handy Award winner Bettye Lavette—a compelling vocalist of whom The New York Times has said, “classic soul singing doesn’t get any better”—is one of the unsung greats of “northern soul.” Best known until recently for a handful of 1960s R&B hits (including “My Man, He’s a Lovin’ Man,” recorded when she was only 16), Lavette is finally the star she should have been years ago, thanks to best-selling albums like Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook—on which she covers the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Moody Blues and Pink Floyd— The Scene of the Crime, I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise and A Woman Like Me.
Jane Monheit
Saturday, January 27 – 8:00 p.m.
Two years after being a finalist in the prestigious Thelonius Monk Vocal Competition, critically acclaimed vocalist Jane Monheit rocketed to the top of the jazz world with the release of her best-selling debut album, Never Never Land, in 2000, earning the young singer from New York such lavish praise as “Jane Monheit can’t miss. She has, in a word, everything” (Time). Inspired by such legendary singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Barbra Striesand, Monheit sings jazz standards and classics from the Great American Songbook, yet her crystalline voice and velvet-smooth phrasing defy easy categorization.
Douglas and Alexandre Lora with Dudu Maia
Thursday, February 16 – 7:30 p.m.
Extraordinary Brazilian guitarist and composer Douglas Lora, one-half of the celebrated Brasil Guitar Duo and a member of the choro and samba band Caraivana, moves easily—and at a high level—between classical, pop and world music. In a review of his first album, Classical Guitar magazine enthused that “the maturity of musicianship and technical virtuosity is simply outstanding.” For this special Louisville appearance, Lora will perform on a seven-string guitar in a swinging acoustic trio with his brother Alexandre Lora (percussion) and Dudu Maia (10-string mandolin), two of his bandmates in Caraivana.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops
Thursday, February 23 – 7:30 p.m.
In the summer and fall of 2005, three young black musicians, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson, made the commitment to travel to Mebane, N.C., every Thursday night to sit in the home of old-time fiddler Joe Thompson for a musical jam session. Joe was in his 80’s, a black fiddler with a short bowing style that he inherited from generations of family musicians. He had learned to play a wide ranging set of tunes sitting on the back porch with other players after a day of field work. Now he was passing those same lessons on to a new generation. The Grammy–award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops have added two new musicians to the band: human beatboxer Adam Matta and multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins. The two join the group as founding memberJustin Robinson departs to take up new challenges.