Name: An Evening of Live Jazz
Start: 2024-11-15T07:30:00-05:00
End: 2024-11-15T10:00:00-05:00
Location: Christ Church New Brighton

About the event
An Evening of Live Jazz
Bim Strasberg, bassist, began his career on the West Coast where he earned his BA from UC San Diego and was one of founding members of the PowerHouse Quintet. In his liner notes to the group’s CD Reunion, trumpet great Brian Lynch, a member of the legendary Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, wrote “There is some music that brings you right in.. Such is the music from the Powerhouse Quintet….Bim Strasberg's stalwart bass playing throughout the recording, along with his skein of well crafted, swinging tunes 'Incanto' and 'Rockermotion'.” On the East Coast, Bim was of the original members of the New York Hard Bop Quintet, along with trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, pianist Keith Saunders, Jerry Weldon on tenor sax, and Clifford Barbaro on drums.
Larry Luger, guitarist and vocalist, has been a professional musician all of his adult life. He started playing gigs in the Bronx while still in high school and has played with scores of singers and small groups ever since, including such jazz greats as Joe Lee Wilson, Al Hibbler, Lou Donaldson, Willis ‘Gatortail’ Jackson, Jack McDuff, Harold Cumberbatch, Percy France and the legendary Lionel Hampton. Larry has also played acoustic guitar in an ensemble at Carnegie Hall, recreating the music of James Reese Europe.
Lawrence “Larry” Marshall is an American actor and singer. Known for his work in musical theater and film, during his junior year at the New England Conservatory, Marshall won a chorus role in Porgy and Bess, touring internationally with the show. After graduation, he continued to perform both touring in the opera and on Broadway, eventually earning Tony and Drama Desk award nominations for his portrayal of Sportin'Life. Marshall's other Broadway appearances include Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Full Monty, and The Color Purple. Marshall's film roles include Cab Calloway in The Cotton Club (Cab Calloway praised Marshall’s portrayal of him), and Simon Zealotes in Jesus Christ Superstar.
Jeannine Otis has been a singular and substantial voice for four decades. Born and raised in Detroit, Otis draws equally from jazz, classical, dance, gospel, and pop genres. Her broad vocal talents stem from her rich and varied artistic background. Her mother was a musical director for a number of Detroit-area churches and community centers and Otis is a cousin to the Motor City’s first family of jazz, the Jones Brothers. At twelve, she sang with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a soloist on the television show American Youth Performs. At sixteen, she enrolled in Wellsley College, the first African American to become a Presser Music Scholar, earned a BA in Sociology and Musicology, followed by an MA in Theater Education and Performance at Emerson College where she landed a teaching fellowship.
Based in Staten Island, Otis has worked with numerous music stars including trumpeter Donald Byrd, Kool & the Gang, the New Shirelles, Bassist Vishnu Wood and has recorded background vocals for Grover Washington, Jr. A seasoned actress, the NY Times critic Anthony Tomassini described Otis as a “showstopper” as Ella Worker in the Downtown Music production staging of The Cradle Will Rock. Equally import to Otis has been her decades-long work with young people across New York City. Her book, The Gathering, a collection of prayers and reflections from inner city youth, was adapted into the music theater piece called Who Am I
The Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art is able to offer today’s program through the support of the
New York City Council Cultural Immigrant Initiative Discretionary Grants provided by City Council Member Joseph Borelli
and City Council Member David Carr.