Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen will ache with possibility at four Joe's Pub shows
Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St.
November 8, 14, 21, 22, $20, 7:00
212-967-7555
www.myspace.com/jenkinsrosen
www.joespub.com
The dynamic duo of guitarist Louis Rosen and vocalist Capathia Jenkins return to Joe’s Pub for a four-night engagement beginning November 8 and continuing on November 14, 21, and 22 in celebration of their smashing new CD, THE ACHE OF POSSIBILITY (Di-Tone, November 10). Previously, the pair collaborated on albums with lyrics based on poems by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and Nikki Giovanni; the new record includes four songs with words by Giovanni in addition to nine originals by Rosen. Jenkins, a Brooklyn girl who sang in her family’s church choir and has gone on to perform on Broadway and toured in DREAMGIRLS, and Rosen, a Jewish guitarist and composer from the South Side of Chicago who wrote the book THE SOUTH SIDE: THE RACIAL TRANSFORMATION OF AN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD, make an unusual but thrilling pair, combining for an infectious sound that grabs you and never lets go, mixing jazz, R&B, blues, cabaret, Americana, and soul in sweet ways. The expert band adds tasty flourishes, particularly Andrew Sterman on flute, saxophone, and clarinet, Richie Vitale on trumpet and fluegelhorn, and Mark Sherman on vibraphone and percussion.
New album features four songs with lyrics from Nikki Giovanni poems
Jenkins, who has quite a set of pipes, sums up the album on the finale, “Love of Song,” in which she sings, “There are songs that will move you / And songs that you move to / And prayer songs / And moon songs / Love songs / Birth songs / We fill the earth with songs,” which gets right to the point – THE ACHE OF POSSIBILITY is filled with the love of song. On an earlier tune, “I Need You,” Jenkins and Rose share the vocals, with Jenkins proclaiming, “I need you / Like pleasure needs pain,” and Rose responding, “I need you / Like confession needs sin.” Rosen himself takes over lead vocals for the shuffling “The Middle-Class (Used to Be) Blues,” in which he declares, “My shoes need soles / And my soul needs love / But my love needs money like a cold hand needs a glove / So it’s shoes or love, I guess I gotta choose.” The album gets political several times, including in the superb title track, in which Jenkins explains in a sometimes whispery voice, “Phones are tapped to ease our mind / Suddenly torture’s redefined / Terror threats to scare us blind / And still another child gets left behind.” Jenkins and Rosen make quite a pair; these Joe’s Pub shows are indeed filled with limitless possibility.