Jazz | Milford Arts Council | Musicians
The Farayi Quartet kicked off the Milford Arts Council's 2024 Jazz Concert Series in January. The next performance is Feb. 17 featuring the Brandee Younger Trio. Photos courtesy of the Milford Arts Council.
In front of an audience filled with jazz lovers, the Farayi Quartet kicked off the Milford Arts Council’s 2024 Jazz Concert Series with an evening of musical harmony and artistic passion that warmed up a cold night.
The Farayi Quartet composed of jazz and contemporary vocalist, composer, and educator, Farayi Malek, along with fellow musicians Neil Patton, Ryan Sands and Jason Yeager and under the high ceilings of the MAC – the Milford Arts Council’s intimate performance space – the show began with a smiling Malek, soulfully leading the musical journey.
The January performance was a first trip to Connecticut for Malek who is a Grammy award nominated vocalist and made for a strong start to the Milford Arts Council’s 2024 Jazz Concert Series.
The next performance will feature the Brandee Younger Trio, which is led by its namesake who is an American harpist infusing classical, jazz, soul, and funk influences to the harp tradition. (Click here for tickets),
Farayi Malek Quartet is the continuum of jazz greatness with a style of its own. Blending nuance and overt spirituality, hints of world, gospel, and country music, and theatre, the quartet, however, at its core is rooted in jazz music.
“I wrote you a letter putting my heart on the line,” Malek crooned. “ I wrote you a letter telling you my fears and confessing my regrets…”
As Malek looked out into the audience she spoke with her eyes. A self-proclaimed “theatre kid,” it was clear the stage was her home.
Grammy-award nominated artist Farayi Malek.
With a set list of fifteen songs–including six original–each of the artists had a chance to shine between Malek’s bee-bop scats, recalling the vocal stylings of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Nancy Wilson.
Pianist Yeager’s fingers danced across the keyboard adding precise excitement to each tune in sheer synchronicity with the spirit of the music. As if he could read Malek’s mind, his style receding and engaging like the tide.
Meanwhile, upright bassist Patton plucked out his chords, buoying in a way that only bass can do. Enveloped in the music, he kept up with all that was happening and yet immersed deeply into the pulse of his instrument.
Drummer Sands delivered newborn rhythms alternating between foot, hand, cymbals, drums, and sticks. Often Sands smiled while commanding the percussion into full submission.
“What if a hurricane came and a rose managed to survive?” Malek sang.