New Hope Jazz Nonet with special guest: lap steel guitarist Mike Neer
The New Hope Nonet, a wide ranging 9 piece jazz band featuring 6 horns, piano, bass and drums has had a fourth Sunday of every month residency for almost 2 years at Dharma Bums, 4935 River Road, Pt Pleasant, Pa (5 miles North of New Hope).
To celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Dharma Bums, the innovative lap steel guitar (aka Hawaiian steel) master Mike Neer joins the band for 2 sets of live music this Sunday July 26th from 6-9pm. The centerpiece of the set is a bold reimagining of the 18th century Impressionist composer Maurice Ravel’s classic orchestral composition “Pavane”. It will feature Neer’s steel guitar in front of the 9 piece ensemble, with the well known and beloved piece completely updated and revised for today. Neer will also be performing other pieces with the New Hope Nonet ranging the gamut from Classic Americana, Jump Blues, superior compositions from great jazz composers and more.
Neer’s 2016 released debut CD on steel “Steelonious” (featuring his unique steel in a quartet setting) received abundant airplay and rave reviews worldwide.
“Steel guitarist Mike Neer has just put out a deliciously warped, dare we say paradigm-shifting album of Thelonious Monk covers for lapsteel. You’d be crazy to miss this”
Delarue/New York Music Journal
“One of the truly original instrumental albums in recent memory consists entirely of covers of compositions by jazz piano legend Thelonious Monk played on steel guitar. . Not merely one of the best instrumental CD’s of the year, Steelonious is one of the year’s best CD’s, period!
Dan Forte/Vintage Guitar (Feb 2017)
Neer’s 2nd cd “Keepin’ it Real” (released 2022 featuring compositions by jazz greats including Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner) and “Steel Dossier” (2026, with material from Patsy Cline to Claude Debussy) have continued and expanded on his well received trail blazing path.
Mike Neer has been playing guitar since he was a teenager, and has devoted himself exclusively to lap steel guitar since 2004. He has absorbed the lessons of Hawaiian steel masters such as Sol Hoopii (in fact Neer was bequeathed Hoopi’s steel guitar) and Nashville steel guitarist legends such as Buddy Emmons.. However Neer has taken the lap steel in an altogether new, iconoclastic and jazzier direction.
New Hope Nonet saxophonist, chief composer/arranger and musical director Mike Kaplan and Mike Neer forged a strong personal and musical bond, having played hundreds of gigs together in the 1990s through the early 2000s. This is their first artistic collaboration since Neer made the switch to lap steel guitar.
The New Hope Nonet features some of the the NJ/NY/Pa area’s strongest and most in demand creative and versatile improvising musicians. The band’s book spans a wide range of material from Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton through Monk, Mingus, Shorter through Marvin Gaye and Peter Gabriel, all filtered through the 21st century sensibilities of the bandmembers. NH9’s repertoire also encompasses Latin, funk and World music.
Come this Sunday July 26 and CATCH THE EXCITEMENT!
For tickets: https://dbums.seatengine-sites.com/shows/375712
For info on Dharma Bums: www.dbums.com
For info on New Hope Nonet: www.newhopenonet.com
For info on Mike Neer: http://www.steelonious.com
Seated upstairs with dinner & cocktail service available