"... Here is the singer's singer if labels mean any thing. Listening to Jimmy is like having a performing heart. The experience of life and the art of expression sing through Jimmy and make us partners in his incredible passion. I love him and I never want to say goodbye. When the song stops with Jimmy's last note we're back in the world as it was. Not quite so pretty, not quite so passionate. And we can only wait for Jimmy to sing again and take us that little bit higher." -Lou Reed

Jimmy Scott © Andrea Canter

The world is finally catching up to Jimmy Scott. After more than five decades of being admired by fellow vocalists and a select claque of hipsters, the man whom Joseph Hooper, in a New York Times Magazine profile, called "perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century" is finding a dedicated international audience for his unique, emotionally penetrating art. In her review of a performance at the Dakota in Minneapolis, Pamela Espeland noted that, "It’s evident that after all these decades, he loves to perform. He seemed to grow stronger—his voice, even his posture—as the set progressed. He drew energy from the audience, then turned around and gave it right back to us." Click here to read Pamela's full review.

Chris Potter © Andrea Canter

Born in Chicago and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Chris Potter was introduced to music early, first studying piano and then switching to the saxophone after hearing Paul Desmond’s “Take Five.” He studied jazz and played in the University of South Carolina band as a middle school and high school student. Named by Down Beat Magazine as the top high school jazz instrumentalist at 18, he then moved to New York, first studying with Kenny Werner at the New School for Social Research and later enrolling at the Manhattan School of Music. In 1991 he was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk Tenor Sax competition, along with Eric Alexander and winner Joshua Redman. Over the next few years Potter recorded his first sessions as a leader, with Criss Cross and particularly with Concord; he was in high demand as a sideman and would appear on as many as 20 recordings a year, including a live date at Maybeck with mentor Kenny Werner. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, he toured and recorded with Jim Hall, Ray Brown, James Moody, Steve Swallow, Larry Carlton, Paul Motian and Steely Dan, among many others.

"I can take it anywhere it goes, right? I love to play inside, outside...but the organ swings best when it swings, doesn't it? That's what that organ is good for. You could try to play hip all you want, but when you swing that thing, there's no other feeling like it." - Doctor Lonnie Smith

Dr Lonnie Smith © Andrea Canter