On Monday, January 25, join the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Jazz Project for our latest installment of the Mysterious Traveler’s 2 Jazz Series. We music librarians see the popular concert set, the art of the exhibition, as the logical endpoint of hours spent at the people’s university—the Library—poring over our music scores and fakebooks, books about instruments and musicians. We invite you to the show!  

This is the first month of synthesis with the theme Great Migrations, for which each artist will handle the theme of the mighty journey of African Americans to Philadelphia from the South, to which we owe our rich urban musical heritage.

To reserve your spot at this concert, you can get FREE tickets through Free Library of Philadelphia's Music Department: eventbrite.com/e/mysterious-travelers-2-madison-rast-tickets-18353239032

To see the lineup for the entire series, past and future, please take a look at our program guide.

To hear recordings, both live originals from Montgomery Auditorium or previously released recordings from our streaming music services of established jazz classics that some of these musicians are re-imagining, check out our blog.

Up Next! Madison Rast
Bassist, composer, and Temple University faculty member Madison Rast migrated to Philadelphia at the turn of the century after a long period of intense study at several prestigious music schools in the South. He is among our city’s most in-demand sidemen. His deeply grounded bass lines have supported Mickey Roker, Orrin Evans, Sean Jones, and Joanna Pascale. Rast’s debut album of original compositions and recordings of the poetry of Walt Whitman set to original music—in collaboration with pianist Garry Dial and saxophonist Dick Oatts—is soon to be released.

Recapping Anthony DeCarlo
Guitarist Anthony DeCarlo played to an auditorium of more than150 concertgoers in our third installment of Mysterious Travelers 2: Great Migrations. This month’s concert featured younger musicians, highlighting the intergenerational dialogue in this series. The musicians—Scott Zigler on Bass, Anwar Marshall on drums (he also participated in his Mysterious Travelers last year), Jordan McCree on percussion, and Anthony—played a patchwork of funk, reggae, jazz, and blues. They're all founding members of the Tasker House collective. Anthony’s a recent University of the Arts graduate, and one highlight was when he gave a moving talk about his guitar professor Tom Giacabetti, who passed recently, and then played a tribute of Someone to Watch Over Me on solo guitar. As an extra visual touch, Philadelphia's Department of Human Services had earlier in the day hosted their annual Kwanzaa celebration, and the musicians played under unfurled flags bearing the seven principles of Kwanza.