Boston Jazz Hero Arni Cheatham (1944-2023) is celebrated in Fly Away Home, an exhibition of Cheatham’s stunning bird photography, with music by his long-time friends and colleagues, jazz veterans Peter H. Bloom, flute, and Richard Nelson, guitar, on Thursday, December 28, 2023, from 7:30 to 9:30 pm, at the Piano Craft Gallery, 793 Tremont St, Boston 02118. The event is free and open to the public. Cover photo for this listing is Semipalmated Sandpiper by Cheatham. For information on the show: Eric Grau, Gallery Director: [email protected] or Rebecca DeLamotte, Americas Musicworks: [email protected]...
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Boston Jazz Hero Arni Cheatham (1944-2023) is celebrated in Fly Away Home, an exhibition of Cheatham’s stunning bird photography, with music by his long-time friends and colleagues, jazz veterans Peter H. Bloom, flute, and Richard Nelson, guitar, on Thursday, December 28, 2023, from 7:30 to 9:30 pm, at the Piano Craft Gallery, 793 Tremont St, Boston 02118. The event is free and open to the public. Cover photo for this listing is Semipalmated Sandpiper by Cheatham. For information on the show: Eric Grau, Gallery Director: [email protected] or Rebecca DeLamotte, Americas Musicworks: [email protected]
In the December 28 event, Bloom and Nelson will play a vibrant mix of bebop, ballads, jump tunes, swing, and other standards as the backdrop for a public viewing of Cheatham’s photographs. The images can also be viewed by appointment through December 31, 2023.
Arni Cheatham (1944 – 2023) was lead alto saxophonist in The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra for 45 of the band’s 51 years. He excelled at styles from the blues to swing to free improvisation to ballads. In addition to his decades with Aardvark, he was a long-time member of The Makanda Project and played with other ensembles including Search, Smoke, and Thing. Cheatham was also an accomplished photographer, known especially for his exquisite nature photography. As the Boston Globe wrote, “A jazz performer, composer, and educator in Boston for more than 50 years, [Cheatham] sought the divine in all creative pursuits — in concert or with a camera in hand, taking a sand-level view of birds he photographed skittering along the shoreline.” Arni lived at the Piano Factory for more than 40 years, where he and his wife Dotty worked to preserve affordable housing for artists and musicians.
Flutist Peter H. Bloom is a veteran of The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, where he performed with Arni Cheatham in Aardvark’s vaunted woodwind section for 45 years. Bloom has toured North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and is featured on 48 CDs. He has shared the stage with Sheila Jordan, Charles Neville, Jimmy Giuffre, Ricky Ford, Geri Allen, Jaki Byard, and other jazz legends. He’s played the Lake George Jazz Festival, Autumn Uprising, The Boston Globe Jazz and Blues Festival, Scullers, Regattabar, St Peter’s Church in NYC, and other noted venues. Praised for “infectious brio” (The New York City Jazz Record), Bloom’s latest CD, Exuberant Ellingtonia: Flute and Piano Sessions, has been called “a treasure trove” (Textura Magazine, Ontario) and “one of those albums we know are unique jewels” (Jazz, ese ruido, Spain).
Guitarist Richard Nelson is a long-time member of The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, where he played with Arni Cheatham for more than three decades. Nelson has performed at festivals, clubs, colleges, and other venues in the U.S. and abroad. He has shared the stage (in his early years) with notables like Joe Henderson, John Handy, George Duke, and Joe Pass, and, more recently, with Adam Kolker, Taylor Ho-Bynum, Steve Grover, and Don Stratton. Richard performs regularly with his own eclectic Imaginary Ensemble, is co-director of The Makrokosmos Orchestra, and has released four albums of his original compositions for large and small ensembles. The New York City Jazz Record praised his music as “bold and striking, … spellbinding, evocative and powerful,” while AllAboutJazz called him “an ambitious and daring composer.”
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