Friday Ilse Newell concert features World Jazz Trio

The last Ilse Newell Fund for the Performing Arts concert in February features the contemporary sounds of modern jazz and pop standards. 

On Friday, Feb. 25, at 8 p.m. the World Jazz Trio will perform at Apalachicola’s Trinity Episcopal Church. The trio performs regularly as part of the Tallahassee club scene and features Michael Bakan on drums, Brian Hall on bass, and Panayotis “Paddy” League, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. 

When not performing, Bakan is a professor of ethnomusicology at Florida State University and director of the Balinese gamelan ensemble Sekaa Gong Hanuman Agung. Gamelan music is one of the most popular forms of music in Bali. 

Hall is a professor at Florida A&M University where he teaches strings. He started playing piano at age 8, and at age 14 received a bass guitar. He loves playing jazz on his upright bass, and is heavily influenced by jazz greats such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington. 

League specializes in Greek, Brazilian, and popular American genres of music, and has performed and recorded extensively with artists in the Americas and Europe. Recently he was named a Master Artist by the Florida Folklife Program, for preserving and disseminating the music and poetry of the Greek island of Kalymnos. He teaches musicology at FSU where he is director of the Center for Music of the Americas.

Admission to the World Jazz Trio is $20 per person, with children and students admitted free. Advance tickets are available at www.inconcertapalachicola.org, or attendees can pay cash at the door. 

Doors open at Trinity Episcopal Church 30 minutes prior to the concert. Seating is open, vaccinations assumed, and masks optional. Programs are partially funded by the Franklin County Tourist Development Council.