Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Ferrante's musical freedom reshapes his career
Admission: Free.
Where: The Cabaret, Theater Square, Downtown.
Details: 412-471-6070.
Bob Karlovits can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7852.
"After you're 40, you don't want to do it for fun anymore," says the leader of the group Modern Times, which was busy on the local jazz scene 15 years ago.
But now?
Well, the band is still around, and a quartet version of the band, which sometimes expands to eight pieces, will be playing at the Cabaret at Theater Square, Downtown, Tuesday.
It will offer a repertoire a little different from the one Modern Times provides, he says. But he says he is pleased about having a gig where he and his stage-mates will be allowed to play what they want.
He adds that is the key to working dates that are not filled with overwhelming paydays.
"If I'm not going to make a lot of money on a job at least I should be able to play what I want," he says.
He will be joined by keyboardist Greg Lutz, drummer Jay Constable and guitarist Eric Emmons.
Ferrante, 42, says he started to reshape the direction of his career in the late '90s, around the time of the closing of the Balcony in Shadyside. Club life changed with the disappearance of that busy venue, he says. Fewer sites were interested in jazz. Of if they were, the pay wasn't too great.
When Don Aliquo Jr. left town for a teaching job at Middle Tennessee State University, Ferrante succeeded him teaching performing arts, band and digital music at the Ellis School, Shadyside.
With a master's in music education from Duquesne University, Uptown. Ferrante was no stranger to teaching. He had taught at the Winchester-Thurston School in Shadyside part time "and it was something I always loved."
He is in his sixth year at Ellis and says he enjoys trying to show students a route to the arts through jazz.
But the full-time job entails more demands "and I didn't think it would be good to get up early in the morning after being out until 1 or 2 the night before, so it made me look at what the band was doing more."
Modern Times started focusing on private events -- as it still does, sometimes doing two a weekend. It will work at concert venues and Ferrante says he is always enthusiastic to do a public show.
He also works with the Opek band, the aggressive forward-looking ensemble led by sax player Ben Opie. That provides him with a great deal of musical challenges, he says, pointing out sessions such as the "Mostly Miles" concert in April, which was made up of new arrangements and conceptions of Miles Davis music.
In a similar way, he is pleased with the small-group gigs he does because they provide so much freedom.
"It is a really nice venue and the people who come the come to hear the music," he says about the gigs at the Cabaret that are just in their second month. The free, midweek concerts are indoor, winter versions of the shows the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust sponsors in the summer.
"The best thing about this is that is says they could happen in other parts of the city, too," he says.
More Arts & Entertainment headlines
- Squirrel Hill teen will be on 'Jeopardy!'
- CMU symposium answers call mobile phones
- Hot picks: 'Laugh to Keep From Crying,' Identity X
- Tickets on sale Friday for Gabriel Iglesias show
- Behrendts offer pragmatic advice with witty core
- City tours continue the frights through November
- Who's there? National Knock-Knock Day
- Rug hooking guild show set in Shaler
