The Dot Jazz Series, a collaborative project of Mandorla Music and Greater Ashmont Main Street, brings live jazz to the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, MA.

2023 – 2024 Live Concerts

Dot Jazz, a presenting collaboration between Greater Ashmont Main Street and Mandorla Music, returns to Peabody Hall for a live and in-person show. We will be offering evening concerts throughout 2023 – 2024. Additional show details are below.

March 16th, 2024: Wayfaring (Katie Ernst & James Falzone)

Taking its name from a beloved American folk song, Wayfaring is a duo project between bassist/vocalist Katie Ernst and clarinetist James Falzone. What began as a casual meeting between like-minded players has formed into a collective of unusual nuance and depth, drawing on source material from the jazz tradition, hymns, folk songs, and original compositions from Ernst and Falzone.

“One of the most austerely beautiful recordings of the year sounds very much like a balm for troubled times. Elements of jazz, folk, pop, blues, and other genres course through this work, but it’s the long-lined lyricism and pervasive warmth of the music-making that leave the deepest and most lasting impression. ” — Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune.

“Modern jazz history is rife with strong duos, but Wayfaring stands out by channeling ideas from American folk tradition or the church into music that extends well beyond the language of jazz. A stunning record.” — Peter Margasak, The Chicago Reader

$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students with ID $10 at the door. Under 18 free.

February 15th, 2024: Witness Matlou Trio

Witness Matlou is a pianist, composer, arranger, performer, and educator. He is a professor of Harmony and Piano at Berklee College of Music, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree and his master’s degree, studying under the direction of Danilo Pérez, Terri Lyne Carrington, Joe Lovano, John Patitucci, Yoron Israel, and George Garzone.

Matlou’s compositions and arrangements bring jazz piano into conversation with traditional music of his native South Africa, folk, gospel, soul, and classical music. He has performed at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the DC Jazz Festival, the Twin Cities Jazz Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival (Netherlands).

The Witness Matlou Trio also features John Lockwood (South Africa) on bass and Lee Fish (USA) on drums.

 

$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students with ID $10 at the door. Under 18 free.

January 20, 2024: Fred Woodard Collective – ‘Indigo’ Release Concert

We’re delighted to welcome the Fred Woodard Collective back to Dot Jazz. Anyone who was there for their 2019 appearance can attest that it’s a joy to see and hear veteran Boston guitarist Fred Jr and violinist son Fred III play off each other as they play dad’s tunes and interpretations of soul jazz favorites, with bassist Melvin Graham and drummer Matthew WIlliams taking care of business underneath. This time, they’re celebrating the release of ‘Indigo,’ Fred’s first new album in too long and first with this band.

 

$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students with ID $10 at the door. Under 18 free.

Thursday December 7, 2023: Ana Petrova Organ Project feat. Mark Walker & Lihi Haruvi

Anastassiya Petrova is a jazz pianist/organist from Kazakhstan currently based in Boston. We’re excited to have the opportunity to present a new project of hers at Dot Jazz. The Ana Petrova Organ Project features Lihi Haruvi on alto and sopranino saxophones and Grammy winning drummer Mark Walker, and will play a selection of original compositions, songs written by female composers and organ jazz classics.

Anastassiya has been playing the piano since the age of 5. In 2015 she was granted a full-tuition scholarship to Berklee College of Music and later on was accepted to the Berklee Global Jazz Institute program, where she was mentored by renowned musicians such as John Patitucci, Danilo Perez, Joe Lovano, Terri Lyne Carrington, Ben Street, George Garzone, and others. She holds bachelor’s degree in Performance and Professional Music from Berklee College of Music and a master’s degree from Berklee Global Jazz Institute majoring in Global Jazz Performance.

Throughout her musical career, she has been given opportunities to share the stage with renowned musicians such as Chris Potter, Noah Preminger, Allan Chase, Patricia Perez, Ben Street, Adam Cruz, Marco Pignataro, Ellis Hall, Catherine Russell, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Liebman and others. She participated in international festivals such as Umbria Jazz Festival 2013 (Italy), Wave of Ideas 2015 (Bulgaria), Panama Jazz Festival 2020, 2021 (Panama), Beantown Jazz Festival 2018 (Boston, MA), Monterey Jazz Festival 2018 (Monterey, CA), and appeared at “The Voice” TV show in Kazakhstan and TEDx Talks at Suffolk University.

Ana currently teaches at both Berklee College of Music and Longy School of Music of Bard College.

$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students with ID $10 at the door. Under 18 free.

Saturday November 18, 2023: Taylor Ho Bynum & Tomas Fujiwara

Over the past thirty years, over twenty-five albums and hundreds of gigs in dozens of different bands, drummer Tomas Fujiwara and cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum have developed one of the deeper levels of creative communication in the contemporary music scene – in groups under Fujiwara’s leadership like Triple Double and Shizuko, ensembles led by Bynum including his Sextet, 9-tette, and PlusTet big band, and collective projects like Illegal Crowns (with Mary Halvorson and Benoit Delbecq) and the Thirteenth Assembly (with Halvorson and Jessica Pavone). Throughout this history, they’ve maintained their duo, which has released four albums: “True Events” (2007), “Stepwise” (2010), “Through Foundation” (2014), and “Notice” (2022).
Described as “a ubiquitous presence in the New York scene…an artist whose urbane writing is equal to his impressively nuanced drumming,” (Point of Departure) Brooklyn-based Tomas Fujiwara is an active player in some of the most exciting music of the current generation. In addition to this duo project, he leads the bands Triple Double, 7 Poets Trio, and Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up; is a member of the collective trio Thumbscrew (with Mary Halvorson and Michael Formanek); and engages in a diversity of creative work with Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid, Matana Roberts, Nicole Mitchell, Ben Goldberg, Amir ElSaffar, Benoit Delbecq, and many others. In 2021, he won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Drummer, and premiered two suites of new music as part of his Roulette Residency: “You Don’t Have to Try” (with Meshell Ndegeocello) and “Shizuko.” His most recent work is “Dream Up,” a suite for percussion quartet, commissioned by NYSCA and Roulette Intermedium. “Drummer Tomas Fujiwara works with rhythm as a pliable substance, solid but ever shifting. His style is forward-driving but rarely blunt or aggressive, and never random. He has away of spreading out the center of a pulse while setting up a rigorous scaffolding of restraint…A conception of the drum set as a full-canvas instrument, almost orchestral in its scope.” (New York Times)
Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, teacher, and writer, with a background including work in composition, performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, production, organizing, and advocacy. His expressionistic playing on cornet and other brass instruments, his expansive vision as composer, and his idiosyncratic improvisational approach have been documented on over twenty recordings as a bandleader and over a hundred as a sideperson. His past endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he traveled to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation (which he served as executive director from 2010-2018, producing and performing on many major Braxton projects, including two operas and multiple festivals). Bynum has worked with other legendary figures such as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor and currently enjoys playing with friends in collective ensembles like his duo with Tomas Fujiwara, Illegal Crowns (with Fujiwara, Benoit Delbecq, and Mary Halvorson), and Geometry (with Kyoko Kitamura, Tomeka Reid, and Joe Morris), and as a sideperson in groups led by Fujiwara, Reid, Jim Hobbs, Bill Lowe, Bill Cole, and William Parker, among others. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Baffler, Point of Departure and Sound American, and he has been the director of the Coast Jazz Orchestra at Dartmouth College since 2017.
$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students with ID $10 at the door. Under 18 free.

 

$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students with ID $10 at the door. Under 18 free.

Thanks for an excellent 2022-23 Season!

  • Thursday May 11th, 2023: Claire Dickson with Magdalena Abrego
  • Thursday March 2, 2023: Rick McLaughlin Trio
  • Thursday January 19, 2023: Gregory Groover Quintet
  • Saturday November 5, 2022 at 8:00pm: Yulia Musayelyan Quartet
  • Saturday May 21, 2022 at 8:00pm: Ian Coury & Catherine Bent
  • Saturday March 19, 2022 at 8:00pm: Naledi Masilo