Next year brings with it Charlie “Yardbird” Parker’s 100th birthday. Kicking off the commemoration celebrations a little early – this Saturday, in fact – is award-winning, vibrant young jazz saxophonist Alexa Tarantino. She’s gathering a quintet of today’s top women in jazz to perform a program titled Seasonal Bird, highlighting the iconic bebop recordings and repertoire of the holiday season. Other greats of the genre, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie, will also get a Santa-hatted nod.
Sponsored by the Catskill Jazz Factory and hosted by the Woodstock Playhouse at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 21, Seasonal Bird: A Very Charlie Parker Holiday will feature Alita Moses on vocals, Nadje Noordhuis on trumpet, Liya Grigoryan on piano, Noriko Ueda on bass and Allison Miller on drums, fronted by Alexa Tarantino on sax and woodwinds.
Founder of Massachusetts’ Rockport Jazz Workshop and currently on the faculty for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Youth Programs, Tarantino has worked with Wynton Marsalis & the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Ogresse, Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, Sherrie Maricle & the Diva Jazz Orchestra, LSAT and the Alexa Tarantino Quartet. Her debut quartet record on the Posi-Tone Records label, Winds of Change, came out in May of this year.
Ticket prices for Season Bird range from $40 to $55 for adults, $15 for children plus handling fee. To purchase, call (845) 679-6900 or visit www.woodstockplayhouse.org/seasonalbird. To learn more about Alexa Tarantino’s oeuvre, visit www.alexatarantino.com.
Seasonal Bird, Saturday, Dec. 21, 7:30 p.m., $55/$45/$40/$15+, Woodstock Playhouse, 103 Mill Hill Rd., Woodstock, (845) 679-6900, www.woodstockplayhouse.org/seasonalbird
Join the family! 
