Litchfield Jazz Festival’s Litchfield Jazz Presents series has a new home. Its 3-year-old livestream series will now be presented for both in person audiences and live- stream listeners at the Poli Club at the Palace Theater in Waterbury. This series, run in tandem and collaboration with New England Arts And Entertainment, opens with the Caili O’Doherty Quartet on March 24th.
NEAAE, under the leadership of Mike Gow, has been producing jazz shows at the Poli for the past 10 years. Mr. Gow’s relationship with Litchfield Jazz goes back several decades to when Gow, a local radio personality, began serving as volunteer announcer and host for the Litchfield Jazz Festival. The new joint venture will allow both organizations to better serve jazz lovers in the region and beyond with more programs, more employment for musicians, and the option of “attending” selected shows either in person or virtually via free livestream.
Caili O’Doherty, pianist and award-winning composer, teaches at Stanford Jazz Workshop, Litchfield Jazz Camp and for Jazz at Lincoln Center. She has appeared at international festivals from Panama to Ireland and served as a Jazz Ambassador for the US State Department performing in Colombia and West Africa. Last summer she made her first appearance at Litchfield Jazz Festival– with not a little associated drama.
Caili, who was still on deck from her Litchfield Jazz Camp faculty gig, stepped up to replace pianist Julian Shore for the debut performance of Litchfield alumnus, 20-year-old drummer/composer/pianist Anton Kot. Julian was felled by Covid during his return flight from Japan where he had been touring with guitarist Dave Stryker and Steely Dan to join Anton’s quartet at the Litchfield fest. With a day’s notice Caili stepped up, mastered the almost-all-original music for the set with one rehearsal and a night of burning the midnight oil, and turned in a bravura performance the next day. The audience responded with a standing ovation and kudos sent to the fest organizers for days afterward. In a word, Caili O’Doherty is a pro.
Caili will appear with Cory Cox on drums, Tamir Shmerling on bass and Tim Armacost on tenor sax. Cox, whose higher education was sponsored by piano icon Jason Moran, is a graduate of the prestigious Brubeck Institute. Shmerling has performed with artists Terry Lynne Carrington, Kevin Eubanks and others, and Armacost has played with a long list of jazz greats including Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Roy Hargrove, and Randy Brecker. Coincidentally, the now 80-year-old Al Foster, one of the most revered jazz drummers of all time, will headline the 28th Litchfield Jazz Festival with guitarist Peter Bernstein’s band on July 29.
