The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Folk music, jazz fusion on tap for weekend
Middletown’s North End performing arts center will be hosting musical entertainment this weekend with two evening concerts performed by several individuals.
Singer-songwriters Anne Marie Menta, Fred Arcoleo & Friends will appear at The Buttonwood Tree, 605 Main St., Friday at 8 p.m.
The show will also feature Cadence Carroll and Richard Neal, according to a press release. Admission is $15.
Menta hails from New Haven, where she has been a long-time favorite, The Buttonwood said in the statement. She comes from a family of three brothers, where playing and listening to music was their greatest passion, it said.
In 1998, she released her debut album “Untried & True,” followed by “When the Love Ran Deep” in 2004 and “Seven Secrets” in 2009. Her fourth collection, “Sky Tonight” was released in December 2019.
Menta has opened for artists such as Richard Shindell, The Kennedys, Cheryl Wheeler, Sally Barris, Eddie from Ohio and Linda McRae, and has been a featured performer at the CT Folk Festival in New Haven. She was a finalist in the 2004 South
Florida Folk Festival Singer/Songwriter competition, and a showcase artist at the New England Regional Folk Alliance.
The band featured on “Sky Tonight” includes fellow Connecticut musicians Mark Mirando on piano, Bob Csugie on upright bass, Cadence Carroll on percussion and harmonies, and producer Richard Neal on mandolin, guitar and dobro.
Sky Tonight was recorded at Neal’s 34 West Recorders in Sandy Hook, and mastered by Vic Steffens at Horizon Music group in West Haven.
Her songs range stylistically from contemporary
folk, Americana, acoustic pop, country and folkrock, all featuring her warm vocals and solid guitar, the news release said. The tunes reflect her wide influences and devotion to Joni Mitchell, Rosanne Cash, Emmy Lou Harris, Lucinda Williams, and Mary Chapin Carpenter, to name a few.
“Sober, hard-hitting, and fiercely original, yet cradled in tenderness, Fred Arcoleo’s awardwinning ‘Rally Folk!’ music invites audiences to confront the difficult truths of the current state of our world with composure, optimism, and determination, for as the
Hopi people remind us: ‘We are the ones we are waiting for,’” The Buttonwood said in the statement.
His last compact disc, “Today Again,” made its debut at No. 7 on the Folk DJ National Radio Charts.
The jazz-fusion band Altus will appear Saturday at 8 p.m. Admission is $20.
Altus is a collection of five musicians and composers with friendships reaching back more than 10 years, the statement said. Together, these musicians create “sonic narratives derived from Black American improvisational techniques that blur the line between listeners’ immediate experience and humankind’s mythologies.”
Three of the ensemble’s five members, trumpet player Dave Adewumi, double bassist Isaac Levien, and drummer Ryan Sands, met in Boston fall 2012 while pursuing their undergraduate degrees.
Over the next few years, as their personal and musical connections grew stronger, they met and collaborated with tenor saxophonist Neta Raanan and alto saxophonist Nathan Reising.
Altus had its first performance as a band late 2019. “Just a handful of months later, the band found themselves searching for ways to stay connected, sane, and musically fulfilled while cut off from the interactive and performative elements integral to Black American music,” the press release said.
This led them to their first EP, “Riot Cycle,” a set of collaborative compositions composed and recorded in isolation throughout 2020. Once the full band received their vaccines and grew comfortable performing again, they organized shows, the venue said.
These included a soldout show at Green Lung Studio, a well-received show at Harlem’s Room 623, a collaboration between Flux Studio and Giant’s Ledge Gallery; and multiple performances organized and hosted by the band and Môtô Spirits Distillery.
Altus performs regularly around New York City and is preparing for the 2023 release of its first album, recorded in summer 2022.
For information, visit buttonwood.org, call 860347-4957 or email TheButtonwoodTree@gmail.com.