Ensemble Newsletter · October 19, 2026
Jon Faddis plays Dizzy on Dizzy's birthday, Meshell Ndegeocello comes to BAM, and three soloists sit down to play piano trios
NYC picks, jazz and classical, updated weekly
Three picks for the week of October 19: a birthday tribute by someone who learned it from the man himself, a double bill at BAM, and an hour of chamber music played by people who normally headline alone. Two of the three are one night only. Here is where we would be.
Dizzy Gillespie Birthday with Jon Faddis — Dizzy's Club
October 21 is Gillespie's birthday, and the club named for him is marking it with Jon Faddis, who joined the Gillespie orbit as a teenager and has spent a career carrying that sound without imitating it. The bent horn and the puffed cheeks were the showmanship: the harmony underneath is why bebop happened. One night, two sets.
Event details →Meshell Ndegeocello, Samora Pinderhughes — Brooklyn Academy of Music
Ndegeocello has spent thirty years refusing to stay in one genre, and her recent work has drifted toward something closer to jazz composition than to the bass-forward soul she broke through with. Pinderhughes writes quiet, politically direct songs for piano and voice. Pairing them is BAM making an argument rather than filling a slot.
Event details →Artist Spotlight: Batiashvili, Capuçon and Thibaudet — David Geffen Hall
Three piano trios in one sitting: Shostakovich's First, the Debussy, and Dvorak's Third. Batiashvili, Capuçon, and Thibaudet each tour as soloists, which makes a trio program the interesting choice: the whole form is about yielding. The Shostakovich was written when he was 17 and it shows, in the good way.
Event details →