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| Saturday, April 1 @ 7 & 9 PM |
SKIDMORE JAZZ ENSEMBLES
Benefit for Caffè Lena |
$5 |
 www.skidmore.edu/academics/music/curriculum/skidjazz.htm
Join us for a night of inspiring talent, diverse jazz styles and a huge array of instruments including guitars, brass, vibes, keyboards, percussion and reeds. The energy of these world-class student players is jubilant and their talent will leave a lasting impression. Arrive early to get a good seat as there is often a waiting line to get in. |
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| Sunday, April 2 @ 7 PM |
THE HOOVERVILLES
Jeff Wilkinson, Sara Milonovich and Greg Anderson |
$16/14 |
 Hudson Valley songwriter Jeff Wilkinson teams up with award-winning fiddler Sara Milonovich and talented multi-instrumentalist Greg Anderson for an evening of bluegrass, blues, gospel and soul music.
Wilkinson writes rootsy, literate ballads of poetic realism often about people and their places in life. Several of his songs are now part of the Smithsonian Folkways collection.
Both Sara and Greg have become renowned as players adept at combining a firm grounding in folk styles with a rich palette of modern and world music influences. All three maintain international touring schedules. |
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| Wednesday, April 5 @ 7 PM |
POETRY OPEN MIC
With Featured Reader Sarah Craig |
$3 |
 Poetry Open Mic takes place on the first Wednesday of every month. Our host is poet Carol Graser. Each participant will read two short poems or one longer poem. The featured reader will perform for about twenty minutes.
This month's feature, Sarah Craig, is the recent winner of Caffè Lena's second annual Poetry Slam. Many of her poems address our cultural journey away from rural simplicity into modern life. Although she has been found hosting on Caffè Lena's stage every weekend for the past eleven years, this will be her performance debut. |
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ACOUSTIC BLUES WEEKEND
Starts on Friday evening with John Hammond playing two shows, followed by three workshops on Saturday afternoon, and a Saturday evening concert featuring the instructors of the afternoon workshops.
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| Friday, April 7 @ 7 & 9:30 PM |
JOHN HAMMOND
Mark Tolstrup and Little Toby Walker - opening at 7 PM
Mark Tolstrup and Pat Wictor - opening at 9:30 PM |
$25 |
 www.rosebudus.com/hammond
This treasure of American roots music returns to Caffè Lena to kick off our Acoustic Blues Weekend. With a career spanning five decades, dozens of albums, and several Grammy nominations (including a nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album for his latest, In Your Arms Again), John Hammond has taken the songs of the greatest blues artists and made them his own. |
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| Saturday, April 8 |
Blues Guitar Workshops |
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Registration will be available to the first twelve people per class. Cost is $25 per session, or $75 for all three classes plus the evening concert. Each class will last approximately 90 minutes.
11am to 12:30 pm - Mark Tolstrup: "Bottleneck Delta Blues Slide Guitar"
Learn bottleneck Delta blues slide in the style of Son House, Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton. The Delta blues is defined by a rhythmic groove and a passionate delivery. In this class, Mark Tolstrup teach you to break the slide style down into interchangeable pieces, focusing on rhythmic structure and "keeping the groove going."
www.marktolstrup.com
Lunch Break - 45 mins
1:15 to 2:45 pm - Pat Wictor: "The Elastic Song: How to Make a Song Your Own"
After you learn a song, how do you make it sound like YOU, instead of simply imitating Skip James, or Son House, or anyone else? Known for his striking rearrangements of songs, Pat Wictor will show you how to twist, bend, and stretch songs to put your own stamp on them. Starting with the lyrics, and your strengths as a performer, Pat will then show you 4 musical techniques for rearranging songs effectively. www.patwictor.com
3 to 4:30 pm - Little Toby Walker: "Portable Hot Licks and Tricks from the Blues Masters"
In this workshop you'll not only learn those cool fills, turnarounds and endings that made masters like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Boy Fuller and Lonnie Johnson famous, but Toby Walker will show you how to incorporate those ideas into any blues song in any key. www.littletobywalker.com |
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| Saturday, April 8 @ 8 PM |
MARK TOLSTRUP, PAT WICTOR & LITTLE TOBY WALKER
Acoustic Blues In the Round |
$15/12 |
Three modern acoustic bluesmen put their own spin on the classics and keep the tradition growing with new songs.
Mark Tolstrup is Saratoga's hometown steel slide master whose guitar rings with echoes of the Delta and Tin Pan Alley.
Lap slide player Pat Wictor hails from New York City where "he plays heart-felt blues-based roots music like the only begotten son of Bonnie Raitt (same red hair!) and Chris Smither." -Jim Motavalli, WPKN Bridgeport.
Long Island's Toby Walker is a finger-picking master who teaches at Jorma Kaukonen's Fur Peace Ranch. He keeps his audience throroughly engaged with wry songs and stories. |
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| Sunday, April 9 @ 7 PM |
MIKE VIOLA with "Hector on Stilts"
With Special Guest Brian Bassett |
$10 |
  www.myspace.com/mikeviola
Mike Viola, former frontman for the Candy Butchers, matches "the sunny melodicism of Squeeze and Marshall Crenshaw with the sour lyrical attitude of early Elvis Costello and Graham Parker." -Rolling Stone
His new album, Just Before Dark, pares his ornate pop style down to acoustic guitar, piano, and his incomparable voice.
Cousins Jeb and Clayton Colwell, frontmen of Hector on Stilts, harmonize with the clarity and conviction of taller Everly Brothers. The band's enigmatic humor fuels a live show that's part rock, art discotheque, and just a hair '80s prom.
Special guest Brian Bassett, an acoustic power-pop whiz, will open the show with tunes off his recently released EP. |
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| Friday, April 14 @ 8 PM |
JANINE POMMY VEGA AND ANDY CLAUSEN
A Celebration of National Poetry Month |
$10 |
  Honest, passionate, and exhilarating, Janine Pommy Vega brings her own voice to the Beat pilgrimage with political poems that are fierce yet never strident and that always begin in closely observed human particulars. Other poems range from the tender to the celebratory and she makes them all remarkably vivid with her wonderfully musical voice.
This widely published poet is a dynamic performer, who has captivated audiences throughout the world, and is returning to Caffe Lena after a long absence.
Andy Clausen has performed his poetry all over the world. Since his beginnings as a beat poet in 1965, his work has reflected a driven and intrepid lifestyle and his aspirations to be a champion of the underdog.
With nine books of verse under his belt, this exciting poet, that Allen Ginsberg called "The Future of American Poetry", will energize you with his resonant, troubadour voice. Opening the show for Janine and Andy will be several outstanding poets from our local poetry scene. |
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| Saturday, April 15 @ 7 PM |
STEVE FORBERT
With Special Guest Chris Trapper |
$18/16 |
  www.steveforbert.com
Sometimes called "Folk Rock's Poet Laureate," Forbert has spent the past three decades charting the choppy waters of American life from youth to middle age with compelling songs that are at once disarmingly personal and universally true. He deftly weaves together strands of folk, rock, country and R&B.
Opening the show will be Boston's Chris Trapper, former frontman of The Push Stars, whose original songs blend the joy of pop-rock with the deep roots of folk music. www.christrapper.com
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| Sunday, April 16 |
CLOSED FOR EASTER |
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| Friday, April 21 @ 8 PM |
PAUL AND STORM
Professional Singing Persons |
$12/10 |
 www.paulandstorm.com
A Lennon/McCartney comedy songwriting team, Paul Sabourin and Greg "Storm" DiCostanzo are known to millions from the years they spent as one-half of the widely acclaimed a cappella band Da Vinci's Notebook.
Bravely picking up instruments in 2004, Paul and Storm continue to write the kind of material that helped make their former band a hit at clubs and major festivals across the country. No subject is sacred to this energetic pair as they keep audiences laughing with their humorous jabs at corporate America ("Rejected Commercial Jingles"), opening bands ("Opening Band"), or over-earnest folk singers ("The Ballad of Eddie Praeger").
They are frequently heard on the nationally-syndicated "Bob and Tom" morning radio show, the "Dr. Demento" show, and their original songs have been featured on "The Drew Carey Show", Comedy Central, and on the popular web cartoon site Homestarrunner.com. |
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| Saturday, April 22 @ 8 PM |
BURSEN, DAVIS, AND GROSSWENDT |
$12/10 |
   Otherwise known as the Smashing Bumpkins! Howie Bursen is known for his gravity-defying fiddle-tunes and is one of today's foremost practitioners of clawhammer banjo.
Jeff Davis's knowledge and skills as a singer and instrumentalist of traditional music run as deep as that of anyone we know.
Martin Grosswendt began his career more than three decades ago, and while his name is not a household word, he is sort of an underground legend, a musician of extraordinary talent. Known as an interpreter of 1920s and 30s blues, he is equally at home playing old-time, Cajun or Creole music.
This show will be a folk-lovers delight featuring six- and twelve-string guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, bass, Cajun accordion, Dobro, laughs, stories, and songs galore! |
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| Sunday, April 23 @ 1 to 3 PM |
KID'S OPEN MIC |
$3 |
| Our first open mic just for kids aged twelve and under! Come play your instrument, sing a song, tell joke, dance, do a magic trick, put on a skit--whatever you like to do to make people laugh, clap, or simply sit in stunned amazement at YOUR unique talent! Each performer gets up to five minutes on stage to do their thing. Sign up is from 12:30 to 1 PM. Our host this month will be Kate Blain. |
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| Sunday, April 23 @ 7 PM |
ROBIN & LINDA WILLIAMS AND THEIR FINE GROUP |
$18/16 |
 "The real deal..." --Bluegrass Unlimited "
...their voices can melt cheese..." --Garrison Keillor
www.robinandlinda.com
Robin and Linda Williams have thrilled folk, bluegrass, and country audiences throughout America for more than twenty years, from their many appearances with Garrison Keillor on "A Prairie Home Companion" and "The American Radio Company," to "Austin City Limits" and "The Grand Old Opry" to their tours with Mary Chapin Carpenter, Emmylou Harris, The Seldom Scene, and many others.
In concert they are joined by Jim Watson (formerly of the Red Clay Ramblers) on bass and harmony vocals and bluegrass veteran Jimmy Gaudreau on mandolin. |
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| Wednesday, April 26 @ 7 PM |
TRIPLE PLAY
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$15
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 www.brubeckmusic.com/tripleplay.html
Peter "Madcat" Ruth on harmonica, guitar, jaw harp, percussion and vocals;
Joel Brown playing folk and classical acoustic guitar and vocals; and Chris Brubeck on electric bass, bass trombone, piano and vocals.
Chris Brubeck is the third son and long-time musical collaborator of the legendary Dave Brubeck. In the past few decades he has earned international acclaim as a composer, performer, and leader of his own groups. Dave Brubeck's harmonica player, Peter "Madcat" Ruth, is truly one of the finest in the world.
Guitarist Joel Brown is a Skidmore music professor who shines on all sorts of American music. Collectively they bring a rare level of joy, virtuosity, and American spirit to folk, blues, jazz, funk and classical music. |
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| Friday, April 28 @ 7 & 9:30 PM |
CHRISTINE LAVIN
With Special Guest Eric Erickson |
$22/18 |
  www.christinelavin.com | www.ericerickson.com
She's back at last! Acclaimed by the New York Times as a "comic observer of contemporary manners," incisive singer-songwriter Christine Lavin sparkles (both literally and figuratively) in concert.
Armed only with a guitar, a miner's headlamp, a pair of batons, and boundless insight into popular culture, Christine takes the house by storm with her giddy stories, rants, and riotous original songs on a broad spectrum of unlikely subjects, from sensitive New Age guys to "permanent reminders of temporary fads."
She has released sixteen solo album in an illustrious career that includes seven years as a founding member of the Four Bitchin' Babes, numerous awards, television and radio appearances, and a serious knitting obsession. |
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| Saturday, April 29 @ 8 PM |
HOMEGROWN STRING BAND |
$12/10 |
 www.homegrownstringband.com
The Homegrown String Band is a genuine family band, consisting of Rick and Georgianne Jackofsky and their daughters Erica and Annalee. This exhuberant, talented family plays all sorts of traditional instruments including fiddle, guitar, mandolin, dulcimer, and the jawharp, just to name a few.
Best of all is their thrilling percussive flatfoot dancing. When Mom the girls get into a dance show-down, the audience is in for a huge treat! They write most of their songs, tell stories, and bring the audience back to simpler times.
The Jackofsky family is the subject of a new documentary film that will air on cable television in New England and Mid-West in 2006. |
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| Sunday, April 30 @ 7 PM |
SEAMUS KENNEDY |
$12/10 |
 www.mcnote.com/seamus
Seamus Kennedy, originally from Belfast, has been entertaining audiences all over the United States for the past 32 years. With a ready wit and a vast store of songs, he travels the country performing for audiences which range from Popes and presidents to bartenders and bricklayers, from college students to kindergartners. Seamus Kennedy has the repertoire and the ability to make folks forget their cares for a while, to relax and enjoy themselves.
He encourages the crowd to sing along to silly lyrics and daft ditties or act out the choruses of children's songs. When he plays a lively Irish jig or a reel, Seamus will often coax someone to jump up and dance to the music of his guitar or bodhrán - to the delight - and often amazement - of their friends. His audience participation songs and tongue-twisters have amused the ablest of participants and the nimblest of tongues. |
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