PHOTO: Left to right: Chris Pitts plays saxophone, Ricardo Pearlman plays drums and Right Richard Hale-Shaw plays bass at Moldova’s Jazz Jam on Tuesday, Aug. 13. Not pictured is Dan Pappas on keyboard. Photo by Christian Maitre
Moldova on Tuesday night had an electrifying buzz—intricate, fast-paced jazz melodies surged throughout the restaurant’s dining room and mingled with the sounds of conversation and hustle of a restaurant life—for the latest of the restaurant’s Jazz Jam events.
Local Jazz musicians were invited to play alongside the house band for a small cover fee infusing their own improvised flute, trumpet, keyboard, bass, drum and guitar solos with the house band’s dynamic and passionate melodies.
“We get all ages across the board,” Richard Hale-Shaw, the house band’s bassist and co-founder of Jazz Jam, said. “We got people who played when they were really young, haven’t played in 40 years, and come back to play again, people who’ve been playing all along but want to play again.”
Each solo received an enthusiastic response from the audience, which Chris Pitts, the house band’s MC and saxophone player, said was an integral part of the live jazz music experience.
“Musicians, especially jazz musicians, respond to the people that respond to what’s going on right at that second,” Pitts said. “So when you clap and yell in approval, or something like that, that feeds the music. And so that energy just keeps swirling around, and you can’t capture that on a record.”
Pitts referred to jazz music as medicine and said he hoped their performance brought attendees peace-of-mind in an increasingly chaotic world.
“It’s medicine people don’t realize they need until they get it,” he said. “When people start getting this medicine, they’re like, ‘Oh, I feel so much better. You know, I’ve forgotten all that terrible stuff during the day.’”
The music harmonizing with the rumble of conversations between sets and the restaurant in full-hustle while musicians riffed with each other on stage is the exact type of vibe Hale-Shaw was going for when he came up with the idea for a live Jazz series in Newton.
Hale-Shaw, Pitts and the house band drummer Gillian De Lear held a similar series at the now-closed Outpost 186 arts center in Cambridge. Hale-Shaw met Moldova’s owner Artur Androvic through other bands he was playing with and helped coordinate Jazz Jams at the restaurant in June of last year.
Hale-Shaw was grateful for the energetic musical talent from both Ricardo Pearlman and Dan Pappas, who subbed for the house band on drums and keyboard respectively.
“I love playing with these cats,” he said. “And there’s only two of us from the core house band tonight, but these guys we got subbing are terrific.”
You can sample a taste of Moldova’s Jazz Jam here: