Across 7 Street

Sunday night patrons didn't ride in on the Friday and Saturday night bandwagon. Sunday nights at Smalls were for listeners and people off the beaten path. They came to listen to the music and thumb their noses at Monday morning. For nine years, they came to Smalls every Sunday to hear Across 7 Street. The smart, dark-edged music of this quintessential New York jazz group was the perfect tonic, a reminder that there was intelligent life in the universe.

The name of the group is an oblique reference to the unheralded passing of an underground legend, the late saxophonist Clarence "C" Sharpe, who performed with members of this group, and who made the abstract progression from the University of the Streets on one side of East 7th Street, to the Peter Jarema Funeral Home on the other side. The tribute might now be extended as well to the late Frank Hewitt.

The members of Across 7 Street were all born and raised in NY. All were early standouts, establishing themselves on the New York jazz scene in their teenage years. Chris, Ari, Sacha, and Danny excelled in Barry Harris' workshops in their early years, and learned much from accompanying the elder players on the New York scene at the time, players such as C Sharpe, Frank Hewitt, Junior Cook, Lou Donaldson, Vernel Fournier, and Tommy Turrentine. John Mosca, who is also the director of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, is the consummate veteran soloist, ensemble player, and teacher, a longtime pillar of the NY jazz scene. It is the unique blend of influences from the rich New York scene that gives this group its flavor. Over the course of nine years of weekly Sunday night features at Smalls, Across 7 Street developed an impressive book of fifty or so original compositions to maturity. This volume presents the first dozen of those compositions for the first time on record. The music is difficult, dark-edged, hard swinging, harmonically rich, and deeply rooted, and the listener is sure to be rewarded.