Café
Noctambulo at Pangea, the premier supper, jazz and cabaret club that’s bringing
back a taste of the cool, classic heyday of NYC nightlife of the 60’s and 70’s
to Manhattan’s East Village, is excited
to announce famed baritone jazz vocalist and pianist Andy Bey as its debut
headlining artist.
Celebrating
the release of his latest album Pages From an Imaginary Life, the
multi-talented performer takes the stage on consecutive Fridays and Saturdays,
September 12-13 and 19-20 with two shows nightly at 8 and 10 p.m.
Bey will
be playing the venue’s rebuilt and reconditioned 1960s era Baldwin Grand Piano
that the club’s Artistic Director Christopher Gines says they got “for a song.”
After
a long absence from recording, Bey - once a regular presence in The Village,
whom Aretha Franklin once called “a jazz original…brilliant and precious” –
returned to the studio for his HighNote debut in 2013 with The World According
to Andy Bey. The acclaimed album won a prestigious Academie Charles Cros Coups
de Coeur Jazz Award and was a Grammy finalist.
Bey’s
combination of enormous vocal range and communicative piano playing with a
distinct focus on atmosphere has long transported audiences to a “Lotus-Eater
Land” where listeners are asked to meet his unique renditions on their own
terms as they seemingly erase from memory all previous versions.
There
will be a $30 music charge in addition to a $20 food/beverage minimum per
person for all of Bey’s highly anticipated performances.
The
cozy, 50-60 seat club’s still growing entertainment element currently features
singer/pianist Eric Comstock every Tuesday night from 8 p.m. to midnight and
will begin hosting renowned jazz singer Hilary Kole on Wednesday nights
starting September 10 from 7 – 11 p.m.
Returning
to his piano bar roots, Comstock – who has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln
Center and virtually every important nightclub in NYC and across the country –
has been hailed as “the heir to the cabaret throne” by Stephen Holden of the
New York Times.
Kole,
who has performed in NYC everywhere from Birdland, The Blue Note, Iridium and
Jazz at Lincoln Center, has recorded and/or performed with numerous icons,
including Oscar Peterson, Michel Legrand, John Pizzarelli, Monty Alexander,
Michael Feinstein and Dave Brubeck. On her new independent full-length album,
the world reknowned vocalist and musician paints A Self Portrait with
illuminating stylistic brushstrokes and an expansive repertoire that takes her
far beyond her storied roots as a purveyor of the Great American Songbook.
There is
a $20 cover charge and a $20 minimum for all performances by Comstock and Kole.
Occupying
what was previously a popular party space at the back of Pangea, a casual
Mediterranean-Italian restaurant and mainstay in the East Village with a
colorful 30 year history in this location, Café Noctambulo is the vision of
Christopher Gines, who has spent more than two decades as a crooner of classic
American Songbook and jazz standards and has toured the U.S. and
internationally for many years.
“I
wanted to create a special place that was affordable and fun and not
pretentious and stuffy, a great spot to hang out with friends and enjoy
sensational food and a wide array of music and entertainment by world class
performers in a fun, relaxed and informal setting,” he says. “For me, Café
Noctambulo is the realization of an idea I have wanted to do for a long time –
and it’s a true joy to have the opportunity to give this kind of home to
artists I enjoy while helping create a spot that people from all over the city
and beyond can call home as well.”
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