Patty Carpenter and Verandah Porche will perform at Stage 33 Live on Sunday, May 19. Special guest Jon Weeks will be sitting in on wind instruments and percussion. Doors open at 3:00 PM, show starts at 4:00.
Patty and Verandah have been lifelong friends and collaborators. They’ll be playing some of the new songs they’ve written since the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band’s 2010 CD “Come Over”, which they also co-composed.
Patty studied with Archie Shepp and Max Roach, but she also wears influences ranging from Joan Baez to Billie Holiday on her sleeve. She plays in Patty and the Cakes, The Patty Carpenter Jazz Band, and other projects in addition to the Brooklyn-based Jazz/Americana/Soul/Folk collective Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band.
Verandah is a poet and an alt-lit creative collaborator. Her poetry volumes include Sudden Eden (Verdant Books), The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row), and Glancing Off (See Through Books). The Vermont Arts Council presented her with its Award of Merit in 1998; she received the first Ellen McCulloch-Lovell Award in Arts Education in 2015; and Marlboro College honored her with a Doctor of Humane Letters in 2012.
Multi-instrumentalist Jon Weeks will be joining them on flute, sax, percussion, and perhaps some surprises. He studied at Berklee and is a longtime East Coast player with acts like Sol Y Canto, Orquesta Unidad, The Temptations, Cayenne, Viva Quetzal, Joe Velez & Creación, Northside Saxophone Quartet, and many more.
Patty and Verandah were featured in Freedom and Unity: The Vermont Movie.
Verandah writes about their work together:
“In the late ’60s, we landed in the sticks a stone’s throw from each other. Dreams, troubles, changes, crops, communards, kids and lovers: music and language saw us through our duet of abundance and loss. We took a guitar, the kids, and a pencil with an eraser down to the river. We’ve carved these songs out of our long friendship.”
The listening event will be recorded and filmed. Your likeness or voice may be incidentally documented; your presence is your permission. 33 Bridge Street is an accessible space.
* Seating is limited to 40 *
Prepaid entry donations double as chair reservations — we only have 40 chairs, after that it’s standing room. The suggested minimum donation for this show is $10 (plus a few cents to cover the bank fee), more if you can… 100% of all door receipts go to the performers. There will also be day-of-show entry available at the door, but a chair isn’t guaranteed in that case. You can bring your own seating to be safe if you wish. No one will be turned away for lack of money.
Advance entry donations double as chair reservations. Reserved chairs aren’t assigned, just reserved; arrive early for your choice. Reserved chairs will be held until 10 minutes before showtime, so don’t be late. Doors will open at 3:00 for the concert that starts at 4:00. Advance entry donations through the website will close the day before the show. Advance entry donations may still be made after all the chairs have been reserved; when all the chairs have been reserved, we will note that here prominently. If the chairs have already all been reserved, or you didn’t make an entry donation in advance and want to be safe, you can bring your own seating.
The suggested minimum entry donation is $10. A few cents in processing fees that Paypal charges are rolled in. 100% of your entry donation goes to the performers.
Presales are now closed. A limited number of chairs are still available for day-of-show walk-ups — first come, first served
After completing the transaction, you should be redirected to a “success” page and get an email from Paypal. You’ll also get a confirmation email directly from us within a day or two, assuming you entered a working email address. The name you gave will be on a list at the door. All you have to do is show up.
33 Bridge Street is a couple blocks toward the river from the only intersection in downtown Bellows Falls, which is the corner of Flat Iron Exchange coffeehouse and Popolo restaurant. And it’s a T so there’s no way to take a wrong turn. Stage 33 Live is in a brick building on the right after the post office and over the little bridge. The most reliable parking is in the free lot across the street, next to the canal.
Stage 33 Live invites the public to listening events that are recorded and filmed for radio, TV, and the internet. It’s a volunteer run nonprofit on a mission to help local and regional talented and knowledgeable people reach wider audiences on multiple platforms. The stage is also open to established performers and presenters, because their participation helps bring attention to others still getting their foot in the door. We aren’t a bar, club, restaurant, or venue with regular hours. We’re also not a plush theater or a state-of-the-art facility. We’re just good folks doing this fine thing — the homegrown love child of Tiny Desk Concerts, TED Talks, Science Friday, Midnight Special, and The Little Rascals. Stage 33 Live allows only original material.
Mark here with a personal tale. Back in the ’80s in Minnesota where I was born and raised — before I moved into a bus in a ghost town in New Mexico (over the pass from Silver City), before I moved to paved-over Rockville MD (across the street from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grave), before I moved to funky Trumansburg NY (home of the first MOOG factory), before I had any inkling I was going to move to Hinsdale and then Brattleboro and then Bellows Falls where I want to stay — I bought a used copy of a book called Home Comfort, Life on Total Loss Farm at Midway Book on University Avenue in Saint Paul. It was a quirky and delightful book written by a gang of hippies on a commune at Packer Corners in Guilford Vermont. The notion that I’d ever move to Vermont was never considered. But I kept it all those years. I still have it.
Verandah Porche was one of its handful of authors. She’s been a lifelong poet in word and deed. Alt-lit and non-trad. More books since then, awards, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters even. I never figured our paths would cross, not even after I stumbled into her stomping grounds.
Well.
She’s going to be at Stage 33 Live along with collaborating conspirator Patty Carpenter and special guest Jon Weeks on Sunday, May 19, to play songs they’ve written together since the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band album Come Over, which they also co-composed.
Of course you know Patty too, right?, from Patty and the Cakes, The Patty Carpenter Jazz Band, the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band (that Brooklyn-based Jazz/Americana/Soul/Folk collective). Sure, she studied with Archie Shepp and Max Roach, but she also wears influences ranging from Joan Baez to Billie Holiday on her sleeve.
And they’ve roped in Jon Weeks for percussion, sax, and flute — another remarkable human, he plays everywhere cool with everyone good. Nonstop. One of those Berklee guys. I hope he brings the wind-synth.
Minor details like time and ticket stuff are still floaty for the moment, but game day is set. Sunday, May 19. Probably an afternoon show. Punch it in on your phone calendar. Put an alarm on it.
I mean, there’s a load of very swell shows lined up for Stage 33 Live, but for me this one’s been unwittingly brewing for like going on 40 years.
