(David Leon at Close Up, 10/1/2026, 9:30 PM set; Photo by James Koblin)
Perhaps signaling a reversal of the post-pandemic shuttering of jazz clubs in NYC, in the last few years several exciting new venues have opened. One of the newest and brightest is Close Up, the jazz club on 54 Orchard Street, which just celebrated two years of staging vital and innovative music. The best jazz venues have their own personality and distinct feel. Close Up is a place that boldly presents the young talent of jazz along with seasoned stars of creative music. It’s also a laboratory where the alchemy of musicians brings art to the next level, and maybe most importantly, Close Up is a place that celebrates community, for creators and fans alike.
Further increasing its footprint, the club has just launched a record label, also called Close Up, and dropped nine worthy new albums. All these new records were recorded live at the club, have cover art by guitarist and designer Tim Watson, are engineered by Jimmy Katz, and mastered by bassist Eivind Opsvik. Further, each album has a collection of insightful testimonials by luminaries like Bill Frisell, Mary Halvorson, Jason Moran, Miguel Zenón, Immanuel Wilkins and many others, which make discussion by a mere “critic” quite irrelevant! The albums are digital only, and I really hope Close Up will consider issuing physical formats in the future, but it was a pleasure to listen to all this music and I’ll share my thoughts.
One of the main delights of the new Close Up albums is the sheer cornucopia of sounds. Rather than documenting a particular language or aesthetic, judging by the albums they’ve released so far, Close Up (the label) presents a diverse array of musicians and approaches, some audibly related to jazz and others traditions, and others quite far removed. Another theme is the participation of jazz stalwarts mixing it up with newer players. For example, an especially impressive entry is Strands by reed master Tony Malaby. Malaby has been making records for over 30 years, but Strands is one of my favorites I’ve heard from him – his often moody, intense playing is captured beautifully as he leads a band of Jacob Sacks on piano, Eivind Opsvik on bass, and Dan Weiss on drums. The originals by Malaby feel like a journey that builds to a three-part “Strands” suite. The final section (called “Scratch the Horse”) has an especially blistering climax where drummer Weiss lays down a swampy groove while Malaby and Sacks play deliciously bent music over the slightly demonic beat. The set ends with a lovely cover of “Abacus” by Paul Motian. Regardless of what time this set was recorded, it sure sounds like the late set.
Pianist Sacks also plays with another older master on the new one from bassist Carmen Quill. That master is drummer Billy Hart, who contributes his authoritative sound to Quill’s I’ll Be Thinking of You on Thursday. Quill is a young bassist whose debut is from 2021, and she provides originals that blend seamlessly with classic repertoire like John Coltrane’s “Big Nick” and Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House.” There are some fascinating choices here, like playing those two covers at a noticeably slow tempo that defies the band to keep swinging (yes, they do). In the liner notes, Quill writes movingly of meeting Hart when she worked at the Village Vanguard, but it’s at Close Up where they had the chance to play together and make this engaging album.
Strands and I‘ll Be Thinking of You on Thursday are respectively in the classic jazz modes of sax-led quartet and piano trio, and both albums are fascinating in how they update those received forms. Other albums on Close Up have much less precedent, such as my live record, released by the electronic keyboard/iPad forward band called My Trio, which is led by Yvonne Rogers. Rogers has made a mark with her piano playing, and I especially like her beautiful solo piano album The Button Jar (2026, Pyroclastic Records), which I wrote about here. The music on the new my live record goes to an altogether different place, mixing beats from rock, prog, and metal with more open zones of instrumental experimentation. I love the clarity of this album that balances intense tunes like the opener “Voice Instrument” and “Dust Monster Return to Dust” with the cool synth atmospherics of “Give ‘em Heaven.” You can hear how much fun they must have had playing this unconventional music – go see them live!
Drummer Daniel Prim’s Fiesta En Casa could not be more different. Prim explores folkloric Venezuelan themes through the prism of jazz imagination, and he’s assembled the perfect band for the concept. Prim’s trap work is matched with Tony Davis’s high-energy syncopated guitar riffs and the virtuosity of trumpet star Adam O’Farrill, with additional percussion by Manny Márquez Jr. It’s music that takes traditional forms and presents them in a way that’s exuberant and joyously melodic.
I’ll make a quick mention of other fine albums on Close Up that I don’t have time to write about in any detail. On MCHL LIVE percussionist Caleb Michel covers the ballad “Se Me Olvido Que Te Olvide” by Mexican composer Lolita de la Colina and then plays his own originals, which aim to create a “scene in time that is reaching out begging for a witness,” as he describes in the liner notes. Michael sings and is aided by a quartet including My Trio guitarist Tim Watson and vibraphonist Joel Ross. For a truly otherworldly vibe, check out Kayvon Gordon’s blood memory, an hallucinogenic suite of electroacoustic material. A Mysterious Letter is an appropriate title from trombonist Zekkereya El-magharbel, an exploration of ancient-sounding melodic material supported by beautifully conversational drumming from Tomas Fujiwara. On Haven, drummer Eliza Salem plays a set that floats in time and space, buoyed by evocative guitar from Emmanuel Michael which ends, seemingly inevitably, with a sizzling cover of “Minority” by Gigi Gryce.
As good as this all is, I’ve saved my favorite for last. I’ve written here before about reed player and flautist David Leon, whose brilliant Bird’s Eye is one of my favorite albums of 2024. Leon’s new album, Panamerican Orchid Club, is on Close Up, and in many ways is an even deeper exploration of the space between folkloric and avant-garde musical forms. Leon’s new album was recorded live at Close Up on May 16th, 2025, and documents a trio of Leon with vibraphone player Joel Ross and Daniel Prim’s drums and percussion. You can tell what a personal album this is by looking at Leon’s liner notes, an autobiographical essay about Leon’s memories of family and home. This nostalgia is inextricably connected to Leon’s study of Cuban rhythms, the new album being a direct outgrowth of those studies.
The album opener “Panamerican Orchid Club” feels like a statement of purpose. Throughout the album and especially on this title track—which is built on bars of a joyous seven-note figure—rhythmic repetition is a central concept. The magic comes from the sense of wonder evoked by the almost naive sing-song melody, as Leon’s alto flute beautifully ornaments the loping cadence. Throughout the rest of the album, Leon builds music from units of repeated rhythmic figures, but with enormous variety—on “Tropical Brutalism,” his alto and Ross’s vibes take turns stating a fragmented theme while Prim provides kinetic commentary from his trap kit. “El Palacio de los Jugos” uses a shifting array of rhythmic figures as Leon plays on top of those structures with both alto sax and alto flute. This tune and “El Rey de las Fritas” reminded me of the melodic, but open, aesthetic I hear in the sax and vibes of Marion Brown and Gunter Hampel on the recently unearthed Live in Europe 1968 & 1972 (2026, No Business). On “Leap and a Net will appear,” the composition is a springboard for solo flights from Leon that embody the risk-taking of the title, a title that is a wonderful descriptor for this group’s spontaneous and alive playing. On an album that features many abstract structures, Leon’s melodic sax playing on this tune is especially evocative. The same goes for the meditative “a fleeting sparkle,” which may have the most moving alto flute soloing on the album.
As I’ve listened to Panamerican Orchid Club, each time I hear new things and find deeper layers to the music. I’m very much still absorbing what’s going on – the mystery and excitement of discovering what’s been captured here is part of what makes this album so special. David Leon has created a rich and complex work of arresting beauty. This is a personal work created from deeply felt connections to memory and the past, and from musical concepts that continue to reveal themselves as you listen closely. Music is a journey; listen and discover a new world.