Soirée: Jocelyn Pleasant Quartet: Medusa featuring Corey Hutchins

Soirée: Jocelyn Pleasant Quartet: Medusa featuring Corey Hutchins

Fri, Feb 13, 8pm, $5.

From The Hartford Courant-
Jazz music and tap dancing share a history that's easy to overlook. As big-band swing gave way to bebop after WWII, and tap strengthened its ties to certain strains of jazz, it also went off in search of newer, more fertile rhythmic terrain — rock music, funk and hip-hop — to plant its roots. These days, tap dancers and small-band jazz combos rarely occupy the same bandstand.

That's part of the appeal of Medusa, a Hartford-based jazz quartet that plays mostly standards, contemporary R&B and some original compositions. Drummer Jocelyn Pleasant co-founded the group with tap dancer Corey Hutchins, whom she met through the Artists Collective in Hartford, a few years ago. After a few lineup changes, pianist Orice Jenkins and bassist Matt Dwonszyk, two terrific musicians, are solidly on board too.

Pleasant, a Middletown resident who teaches music at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, said she and Hutchins wanted to bring something unique to the local jazz scene. "We wanted to do something that's not in Hartford," Pleasant said. "Tap dancers are an integral part of the origins of jazz."

For one thing, there's the rhythmic complexity, like adding a second drummer; Hutchins and Pleasant can equally chop up the beat while playing around with the groove. "It's actually great for me," Pleasant said. "Corey and I have a lot of the same rhythmic sensibilities, and we work really well together."

Then there's the obvious visual appeal. To some extent, all good players are fun to watch, and Hutchins can hang to the side, vamping along with Pleasant, while Jenkins or Dwonszyk take solos. When it's his turn, Hutchins, a veteran of the Broadway production of "Riverdance" and the artistic director for CT Tap Productions, is quite amazing.