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The Socks will be performing on Tuesday, July 27th live at the Luca Lounge. Come out!

Zachary Lipton - Saxophones
Tobin Chodos - Piano
Christopher Mees - Bass
Kassa Overall - Drums

The Socks perform Zachary's original composition "I Love the 90s" at the first annual New Rochelle Jazz Festival, July 10th, 2010.

Zachary Lipton - Tenor Saxophone
Tobin Chodos - Piano/Keyboard
Dylan Shamat - Bass
Kassa Overall - Drums

The Socks perform Zachary's original composition "Sweet Pea" at the first annual New Rochelle Jazz Festival, July 10th, 2010.

Zachary Lipton - Tenor Saxophone
Tobin Chodos - Piano/Keyboard
Dylan Shamat - Bass
Kassa Overall - Drums

And they say Twitter is pointless:

@zacharylipton: @wholefoodsnyc I bought a green tea with $40 cash back on Saturday and got so distracted that I left my bottle of ito en! You owe me a tea!

@wholefoodsnyc: @zacharylipton ironic that your last name is lipton :) we're happy to replace your tea. Which store?

@zacharylipton: @wholefoodsnyc Thanks! Your customer service is astounding, a tip of my hat to you. 14th Street Union Square. Where do I go for my tea?

On this matter, I have a much more thorough entry forthcoming. But, to apply pressure to ensure that I actually finish that post, and more importantly, to get the ball rolling on this exciting new project, I offer this unedited mission statement.

Flummoxed by the inadequacies of conventional medicine at offering sound lifestyle recommendations for individuals with autoimmune diseases and inspired by Raymond Kurzweil and Sergey Brin, both of whom have balked at the rigid use of the scientific method in medicine, suggesting instead that medicine can be approached as a data mining problem, I have decided to turn myself into a data factory.

For the last year I have kept a somewhat well maintained journal of my medicines, relapses, and periods of relief. Yesterday I came to the startling conclusion that this data in this form is pathetically useless. Reading through it, I could hope to identify a bona fide cure, if one existed. But I couldn’t possibly hope to discern, for example, whether a vegetarian diet conferred a 20% reduction in the duration or severity of flares. My journals diligently documented daily events but provided little basis for analysis across long periods of time.

In the new incarnation of my record keeping, I plan to maintain measures of progress (some objective i.e. number of episodes of limb numbness, no of fasciculation attacks, as well as a wide number of environmental variables, ranging from granular dietary data, to exercise, location, medicines, etc. Surely, some trivial correlations will emerge - hours slept would correlate highly with symptom severity. Not because sleep causes symptoms but because fatigue is itself a symptom during exacerbations.

Ultimately this exercise in pattern recognition can serve both as a hypothesis generator and enable me to explore my health statistically, slicing up data across periods of time, making month over month comparisons etc, far beyond the capabilities of my old analog record-keeping system. If only I had begun this path when I first fell ill, I could have racked up over a 1000 data points, and potentially derived statistically significant insights.

La Rochelle sits on the west coast of France, an ocean away from its sister city New Rochelle. Face-to-face communication between residents of the two cities is rare at best. However, the cities are connected through music, jazz specifically. Through the Sister City Initiative, New Rochelle sent 24-year-old musician Zachary Lipton to La Rochelle to both play jazz and to be an ambassador to represent the Queen City of the Sound.

I love music. I have loved music for as long as I have played it, and even before then. As a child learning to fundamentals of the saxophone and encountering jazz, this love manifested as a single-minded devotion. Music was not simply a passion, a fascination, and an avenue to self-expression. My love for music was religious; music was sacred. If someone quoted John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” over a corny funk tune, it was not simply heavy-handed and distasteful; it was sacrilegious. Music was not just an art; it was a spiritual experience, and it demanded not only serious study, but reverence.

As a high schooler, I subscribed earnestly to this notion of jazz musician as hero. John Coltrane was this master samurai who honed his talent to honorably push forward the musical zeitgeist into a new realm of consciousness. He was a messiah who would bring about change on earth through the comprehension of his improvisations, the study of his harmonic theories, the inspiration of his dedication. Jazz music was serious business, and had to be treated as such. The Bad Plus, at the time a newly formed jazz trio with a penchant for interpreting pop anthems, was heretical. They dishonored jazz - I thought then.

Come out to see my new band at the Underground Lounge on June 25th at 8pm. We'll be unveiling some new songs!

Excited to be performing some new and original music with an inspiring band at the Luca Lounge at 8pm on Wednesday, June 9th.

Zachary Lipton - Saxophones
Tobin Chodos - Piano
Dylan Shamat - Bass
Kassa Overall - Drums

$5 cover.
$5 drink specials all night for concert attendees (Beer, Wine, Mixed Drinks)
FREE PIZZA!!!!

222 Ave B (Between 13th st and 14th st).

Facebook Event Page

Playing a big band gig at Swing 46 at 8pm on 46th st between 8th ave and 9th ave.

The Socks are performing opening act at New Rochelle's Bastille Day celebration in the Hudson Park bandshell.

Tobin Chodos - Piano
Ryland Kelly - Bass
Andrew Atkinson - Drums

There's certainly no shortage of young jazz musicians vying for attention in New York. The sizeable amount of fresh-out-of-college idealists scouring the city's jam-sessions makes one wonder how a young tenor saxophonist like Zack Lipton could ever stand above the crowd and be heard. The answer may lie in artistic integrity, avoiding shifting trends and remaining true to the essence of the jazz genre. Lipton's debut as a leader, First Steps covers all of the above, resulting in an enjoyable, modern jazz release. The disc also features trumpeter Theo Crocker, pianist Tobin Chodos, bassist Jeff Hanley and drummer Craig Weinrib.

The New Rochelle Sister City Committee is proud to announce the selection of saxophonist Zachary Lipton as the city’s musical ambassador to the La Rochelle, France, “New Orleans Jazz Festival” this April. Lipton, 24, is a 2003 graduate of New Rochelle High School and a 2007 graduate of Columbia University.

C'était il y a deux ans. À quelque 60 ans passés, René Bigot était à New York pour courir le marathon. Un saut de puce plus loin, du côté de New Rochelle, ce fou de jazz découvrait Zachary Lipton, 24 ans, diplômé de Columbia et musicien prodige. Un échange avec de jeunes jazzmen rochelais plus loin, Zachary déboulera cette fin de semaine en Charente-Maritime où il sera l'une des attractions majeures de la dixième édition du Festival de jazz New Aunis - New Orléans, qui débute le 30 avril pour s'achever le 7 mai.