FREE EVENT
(Donations Graciously Accepted)
Doors open at 7pm - GA, seated
Featured Set at 7:30 followed by a jazz jam session, bring your axe to sit in!!
Special Mardi Gras celebration: Haneef Nelson (trumpet) and Samirah Evans (vocals) with the Green Street Trio, plus a jam session.
During her career as a performer and recording artist, Samirah Evans has become known for her dynamic and soulful approach to music, especially
in the jazz and blues genres. Her musical style is heavily influenced by the New Orleans sound where she was one of the city’s most popular and
in-demand singers for nearly 20 years.
Her 1990 debut at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival began a run of 15 consecutive appearances, either as a leader or featured
vocalist, and she was a fixture in clubs and concert venues throughout the Crescent City, including Snug Harbor, Tipitina’s and the House of Blues.
Evans has toured North and South America, Europe and Asia, sharing stages with a multitude of New Orleans notables and legendary
artists, including James Brown, B.B. King, Dr. John, Aaron and Charles Neville, Sheila Jordan, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison Jr.,
Michael Franks, Poncho Sanchez, Katie Webster, Bob Dorough, Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty, Duke Robillard,
Levon Helm, Jaimoe (of the Allman Brothers), and Sam Kininger.
Hurricane Katrina caused Samirah to relocate to her husband’s hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont. She has since been performing in venues and
festivals throughout the northeast with her band, Samirah Evans and Her Handsome Devils, and her classic New Orleans R&B choir, the
NOLABratts, among other projects.
The New Orleans Times Picayune named Evans’ debut CD, Give Me a Moment, the fifth best new release of 2002. She has recorded two
other full-length CDs as a leader, My Little Bodhisattva (2007) and Hot Club: Live at the Vermont Jazz Center (2009), in addition to several
downloadable singles. She has also appeared as a featured or supporting vocalist on other artist’s recordings in New Orleans and New England.
Evans dedicates time to perpetuating American Jazz and blues music. She is currently an Artist Associate in Jazz Voice at Williams College,
and offers vocal instruction from her home studio. She founded the “Ladies in Jazz” series to highlight collaborations between female singers
and musicians, and the “Sam’s Sunday Set and Shed” musical mentoring program to spotlight artist-protege relationships in the region. In New
Orleans, Evans participated in the Blues Schoolhouse sponsored by the House of Blues Foundation and hosted a show for the N.O. Jazz &
Heritage Foundation radio station, WWOZ.
Haneef Nelson is a New York native who has made Hartford, CT his home for the last 20 years. He is an alumnus of the Long Island High School of the Arts and Uniondale High School where he studied with Dave Burns, an unsung legend of Jazz Trumpet. In addition, during his middle school/high school years he also studied at the famed Jazzmobile in Harlem, NY where we was taught trumpet by Jazz Masters, Dr. Donald Byrd, Cecil Bridgewater, and Eddie Preston along with music theory and ensemble classes by Charles Davis, Roland Guerrero, Max Roach, and several others. With the guidance of both Dr. Donald Byrd and Dave Burns Haneef went to the Hartt School at the University of Hartford to study with Jazz Legend Jackie McLean. He earned his Master’s Degree in Jazz Composition and Arranging at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where he would study arranging with Jeff Holmes and Dr. Felipe Salles.
Haneef has performed in a variety of musical genres and settings with various people. In Jazz he has performed with: Avery Sharpe, Tina Fabrique, Lafayette Harris, Onaje Alan Gumbs, Helen Sung, Steve Davis, Nat Reeves, Chico Freeman, Frank Lacy, Feya Faku, Joe Ford, the Makanda Project, the New London Big Band and Jon Faddis to name a few. In Gospel as well as R&B/Soul he has performed with: Doobie Powell, Musiq Soulchild, Billy “Church Boy” Powell, Hubert and Jacqueline Powell, the Watson’s among several others. Haneef has also played in symphony and chamber orchestras, brass quintets, as well as solo classical trumpet literature. He also leads several groups of his own and manages the Jazz Monday Jam Sessions in Hartford, CT.