Ekep Nkwelle, Riley Mulherkar, and the Ethan Iverson Trio headline the three-day Hudson Jazz Festival Oct 4-6 at Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York.
A free Community Day kick-starts Festival, Sep 28, featuring Melanie Charles’ Make Jazz Trill Again: Trill Mega Jam and More.
Taking place during the stunning autumn season throughout the bucolic town of Hudson in Upstate New York, this year’s Festival celebrates several firsts: a free outdoor block party launching the start of the Festival; a city-wide expansion to several different venues; and a shift from Winter to Fall to take advantage of the region’s famous leaf-peeping season. Having grown in both size and reputation since it first began in 2018, this seventh annual Hudson Jazz Festival presents world class headliners with wide-ranging musical influences and styles in a celebration of music, art, and community.
Festival curator Cat Henry and singer Ekep Nkwelle joined WBGO's Doug Doyle to talk about the festival.
Henry is excited about this year's changes.
"We've got lots of new venues. The great thing about moving from February to October is that it's a completely different environment weather-wise. It gives us the opportunity not only to spread out into the community with late-night concerts, but we are also going to be outside in all kinds of different spaces all over the city from pocket parks to different bars. We even have music at the Amtrak station to kick off the festival at four o'clock on Friday, October 4. There will be a great local band called Phat Incorporated. They will play for a couple of hours and welcome people as they come off the train and arrive in Hudson."
Cameroonian-American vocalist and two-time Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition finalist Ekep Nkwelle will later that night on October 4 with an evening dedicated to the indomitable spirit of Ella Fitzgerald.
"Even though Sarah Vaughan was my first introduction in high school to this music, when I went to Howard University for my undergrad studies, Ella Fitzgerald was the main vocalist, woman and musician that we were studying. We did a lot of transcriptions. Ella Fitzgerald's music, story, virtuosity and spirit inspires me even to this day. Watching videos of her performing, from a young age to the later years of her life, you see that same virtuosity, joy and skill didn't let up, even though her voice changed that skill stayed on 100 percent."
You can SEE the entire interview with Cat Henry and Ekep Nkwelle here.
