NICK BALKIN
Courtesy Photo Rebecca Cline
Jamaica Plain based Latin/jazz fusion band Enclave will play the Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival—Boston’s most popular and largest outdoor festival—Sat., Sept. 27 from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m., on the Target Stage in Boston’s South End. The performance is part of BeanTown’s free, all-day block party sponsored by Berklee College of Music taking place from noon to 6 p.m. on three stages on Columbus Avenue starting at Massachusetts Avenue.
“We’re so excited to share our music at the Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival, an event which is becoming such a great fixture on the Boston scene,” said Enclave pianist and JP resident Rebecca Cline.
The brainchild of Cline, who is a professor at Berklee, and JP resident saxophonist/percussionist Hilary Noble, Enclave updates the Latin/jazz fusion for the 21st century. Often described as fiery, refreshing, and forward-looking, the group’s music reflects diverse influences from both Afro-Latin traditions and the jazz canon.
Cline was a finalist in the prestigious Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Piano Competition, and has performed or recorded with Giovanni Hidalgo, Pedrito Martinez, Paulo Braga, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez, Charles Neville and many others.
The quartet plays with a broad palette of free, fusion, and post-bop jazz colors, as well as a wide range of Latin rhythms from Brazil, Argentina and Cuba. This is music for the heart as well as the head. “It’s fun and intellectually challenging, flawlessly performed yet marked by a spontaneous elan,” said a reviewer on www.allaboutjazz.com.
Enclave puts on a riveting live show. Powerhouse Noble leads the charge on tenor, soprano, and flute, and then cooks in the rhythm section on the congas. On piano, Cline mixes percussive energy with “harmonic and melodic lyricism…[and] a seemingly unstoppable flow of ideas,” according to Ejazznews.
Bassist Fernando Huergo and drummer Steve Langone anchor the sound of the ensemble, which has been evolving with unchanging personnel for three years.
The group’s first CD, “Enclave,” was released in 2005 to widespread critical acclaim on ZOHO Music. Audiences from Boston, New York, and San Juan, Puerto Rico have thrilled to performances of material from the recording. Enclave has received airplay on WGBH (Boston), WEMU (Detroit), KUVO (Denver), and WSDS (San Diego), among numerous other stations nationally and internationally. In May 2006 they performed live on WGBH 89.7’s “Eric in the Evening” in celebration of Eric Jackson’s 25th anniversary at the station.
Now in its eighth year, BeanTown will transform the Hub into a musical, multi-cultural Mecca for jazz, world, blues and grooves, as superstars and local treasures come together for an event that last year drew upwards of 70,000 people of all ages from every neighborhood in Boston and all over New England. More than 15 bands and 120 musicians are on tap to perform this year.
For a complete list of all events, venues, and performers, visit www.beantownjazz.org.
The writer is a publicist at Berklee College of Music.