Linda's Jazz Nights was founded in 2010 by Linda Manning, Eric Alexander and Joe Farnsworth. The trio met while their children were going to school at P.S. 24 in the Bronx. Linda, with her career in the theater, was asked by the Parents Association at P.S. 24 to help put together a performance benefit for the school. She reached out to Eric Alexander as their kids were in class together. Eric brought in Joe Farnsworth and the rest of his band, and the benefit was a tremendous success.
While hanging out after the benefit Eric and Joe mentioned that they would love to have a local gig in the neighborhood where they all live.
Linda, feeling her artistic soul fed by their music, was excited to work with them and produce and host the gig.
Ten years later they are still at it!
Learn more about their individual work at:
LindaSManning.com
EricAlexanderJazz.com
JoeFarnsworthDrums.com
While hanging out after the benefit Eric and Joe mentioned that they would love to have a local gig in the neighborhood where they all live.
Linda, feeling her artistic soul fed by their music, was excited to work with them and produce and host the gig.
Ten years later they are still at it!
Learn more about their individual work at:
LindaSManning.com
EricAlexanderJazz.com
JoeFarnsworthDrums.com
Riverdale Resident Linda Manning Proves Triple Threat in Thriving
Bronx Arts Productions
As an actress, playwright and producer of local jazz performances, Manning is a force on the local arts scene
By Corinne Lestch
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, December 29 2011, 6:00 AM
Photo by Lev Gorn for New York Daily News
For producer, playwright and performer Linda Manning, art is life.
The Riverdale resident hosts a monthly jazz night at An Beal Bocht Cafe, where she coordinates performances for two jazz musicians and a larger
band. She met saxophonist Eric Alexander and drummer Joe Farnsworth about two years ago when they played a benefit concert at PS 24 in Riverdale, where all of their children attend classes, and she was hooked.
“They’re just extraordinary; it’s like watching an athletic event,” said Manning, 49. “They have the melody line of the song but they improvise
and...it’s just powerful. It affected me greatly.”
For the past six months, she’s gotten them gigs and wants to expose them to a larger audience.
But Manning also has her own art to attend to. She’s written several scripts, and often stars in her own plays. One currently in development, titled “Bite the Apple,” is an adaptation of Grimm’s Fairy Tales which depicts the six heroines about 20 years later, when they’re approaching middle age.
“I put them in a modern context - now that they’re married to Prince Charming, where are they now?” Manning said. “I take the basis of it, and then
being saved by a man and thinking that’s going to fix everything, and it just doesn’t. That’s a common theme in young women’s lives.”
There will be a third reading of the play in January, and Manning said she hopes to start production soon afterwards.
In the meantime, she has three other scripts in the works and she takes care of her two daughters, ages 10 and 13.
“They’re absolutely an amazing part of my life,” the married mother said.
Though Manning grew up in Colorado and went to college there, she feels that New York - where she has spent the last 20 years - is her
home.
And she’s looking forward to the first jazz night of the New Year. “I think there’s nothing better than seeing art being made right before your eyes,” Manning said. “I think we need art to understand what it is to be human, and figure out what matters to us in life.”
The next performance will be at An Beal Bocht Cafe, 445 W. 238th St., Wednesday, Jan. 4 at 8 p.m. For more information or to make reservations, email lindasjazznights@gmail.com.
clestch@nydailynews.com
Jazz Greats Now Playing Weekly in Riverdale
Riverdale Press
July 1, 2010
By Adam Wisniesk
“Let’s get a heartbeat here,” said drummer Joe Farnsworth between sets at Ibiza Lounge. Thursday nights at the club are now devoted to jazz, and Mr.
Farnsworth is determined to make the club the beating heart of the music in the Bronx.
Last Thursday, Mr. Farnsworth took the stage with renowned tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, bassist John Webber and alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo at Ibiza. The walls were covered with white sheets and umbrellas leftover from the previous week’s “White Party Affair,” a club night where everyone was supposed to dress in white. The four jazzmen seemed a little out of place. Not only were they in a borough where most of them hadn’t played, they were in a space known for wild Latin dance parties, not bebop or blues. But when Mr. Farnsworth called out the first song, “Blues for Rosaline,” the band started playing and nothing else mattered. The music transformed the room into the type of jazz club traditionally found only in Manhattan.
“Any place the people are interested in the music and they enjoy what we do, we’re happy, because we love to play,” said Mr. Alexander, a renowned tenor sax player who won Artist of the Year in JazzWeek in 2003.
Click here for the entire article.
July 1, 2010
By Adam Wisniesk
“Let’s get a heartbeat here,” said drummer Joe Farnsworth between sets at Ibiza Lounge. Thursday nights at the club are now devoted to jazz, and Mr.
Farnsworth is determined to make the club the beating heart of the music in the Bronx.
Last Thursday, Mr. Farnsworth took the stage with renowned tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, bassist John Webber and alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo at Ibiza. The walls were covered with white sheets and umbrellas leftover from the previous week’s “White Party Affair,” a club night where everyone was supposed to dress in white. The four jazzmen seemed a little out of place. Not only were they in a borough where most of them hadn’t played, they were in a space known for wild Latin dance parties, not bebop or blues. But when Mr. Farnsworth called out the first song, “Blues for Rosaline,” the band started playing and nothing else mattered. The music transformed the room into the type of jazz club traditionally found only in Manhattan.
“Any place the people are interested in the music and they enjoy what we do, we’re happy, because we love to play,” said Mr. Alexander, a renowned tenor sax player who won Artist of the Year in JazzWeek in 2003.
Click here for the entire article.
Riverdale Press
September 30, 2010 For the entire article click here.
Eric Alexander
Photo by Karsten Moran / The Riverdale Press
Riverdale: Jazz lives here!
By Adam Wisnieski
“The theme you play at the start of the number is the territory, and what comes after, which may have very little to do with it, is the adventure,” is a
famous quote from jazz innovator Ornette Coleman. Taking that quote literally, the Bronx is my territory. I wasn’t born here, but I live here. I’m a music addict and I like Bronx history, so I’ve always known the Bronx has a lot of famous dead jazz musicians. Duke, Miles, Billie and Max are all buried in Bronx dirt. Until recently, I didn’t know there were live ones here, too. But there are. They’re up here in the northwest corner of the great northern borough, 200 blocks above 52nd Street and over a hundred past Harlem. They’re here, young and old, adventuring. I first met Eric Alexander outside Ibiza Lounge on 242nd Street and Broadway before a gig over the summer. He’s a world renowned tenor sax player and Riverdale father who gigs so much he says he’s “somewhere other than here about 50 percent of the time.” He plays regularly at Smoke on 106th Street and Broadway, not far from Harlem. “Once you get past Harlem there’s not a real big live jazz scene in New York City,” Mr. Alexander said. He is trying to change that at Ibiza with the help of some of his friends, including drummer Joe Farnsworth and bassist John Webber. Every Thursday, a rotating cast of musicians from all over stop by to jam. Mr. Alexander comes in when he’s not trekking around Europe or Asia. Last Thursday, he and his legendary friend, George Coleman, took turns soloing on John Coltrane’s classic “Blue Train.” For what seemed like an hour, I stood frozen at the bar with my jaw on the floor as the players paid homage to Trane. . . .
Riverdale: Jazz lives here!
By Adam Wisnieski
“The theme you play at the start of the number is the territory, and what comes after, which may have very little to do with it, is the adventure,” is a
famous quote from jazz innovator Ornette Coleman. Taking that quote literally, the Bronx is my territory. I wasn’t born here, but I live here. I’m a music addict and I like Bronx history, so I’ve always known the Bronx has a lot of famous dead jazz musicians. Duke, Miles, Billie and Max are all buried in Bronx dirt. Until recently, I didn’t know there were live ones here, too. But there are. They’re up here in the northwest corner of the great northern borough, 200 blocks above 52nd Street and over a hundred past Harlem. They’re here, young and old, adventuring. I first met Eric Alexander outside Ibiza Lounge on 242nd Street and Broadway before a gig over the summer. He’s a world renowned tenor sax player and Riverdale father who gigs so much he says he’s “somewhere other than here about 50 percent of the time.” He plays regularly at Smoke on 106th Street and Broadway, not far from Harlem. “Once you get past Harlem there’s not a real big live jazz scene in New York City,” Mr. Alexander said. He is trying to change that at Ibiza with the help of some of his friends, including drummer Joe Farnsworth and bassist John Webber. Every Thursday, a rotating cast of musicians from all over stop by to jam. Mr. Alexander comes in when he’s not trekking around Europe or Asia. Last Thursday, he and his legendary friend, George Coleman, took turns soloing on John Coltrane’s classic “Blue Train.” For what seemed like an hour, I stood frozen at the bar with my jaw on the floor as the players paid homage to Trane. . . .