September’s 2019-20 Season-Opening Concerts

Sound It Out’s 2019-20 season, its eighth at New York City’s Greenwich House Music School, opens in September with two guitar-oriented concerts. On Saturday Sept. 14, guitarist Nick Millevoi‘s Desertion Trio, with bassist Johnny DeBlase & drummer Kevin Shea, returns to rock Greenwich House; the band will be playing tunes from its latest thrill-ride of an album, Twilight Time, a collection of vintage covers. NPR has described Nick’s guitar in full flight as “like a rocket darting skyward between clouds,” while JazzTimes described Twilight Time as “a neon-lit, shapeshifting adventure that gives an avant-garde edge to timeless classics.” And Rolling Stone picked the album’s title track, an otherworldly, reverb-drenched rendition of a vintage Platters number, as one of its “Songs You Need to Know,” calling it “an explosive take on a dreamy pop chestnut.” This season-opening show is a double-bill, starting at 7:30pm, with fiery guitarist Ava Mendoza making her Sound It Out debut by opening the show solo. Knocked out by her solo playing, Wilco guitar hero Nels Cline mused: “What obscure, overlooked master playing in some slashing, raw-yet-virtuosic manner is this?” Tickets are $15 ($12 for students/seniors).

On Friday Sept. 20, guitarist Harvey Valdes — one of the breakout players in Sound It Out’s “Monk on Guitars 2” extravaganza this past June — continues the month’s guitar-centric theme by celebrating the release of his absorbing new album, Solitude Intones Its Echo, with a solo performance. (His solo version of “Pannonica” during the “Monk on Guitars 2” event was a jaw-dropping marvel.) Guitarist-producer extraordinaire David Torn, who mixed and mastered Harvey’s new album, said this about his initial encounter with the younger guitarist’s playing: “When I first heard Harvey, I thought: Well, here’s another badass motherfucker – wow.” All About Jazz has called Harvey’s music-making “cosmic,” while the Free Jazz Collective described his first solo album, Roundabout, as “sublimely beautiful.” This show is a Destiny Records double-bill, starting at 7:30pm, with the duo of guitarists Charlie Rauh & Cameron Mizell opening the night with tunes from their new album on the label, the lovely, Americana-laced What We Have in Common. Tickets are $15 ($12 for students/seniors).