New Rochelle

Zack Lipton Chamber Trio plays pretty art songs from 8pm-11pm

with Michael Valeanu on guitar and Dylan Shamat on Bass.

Brickyard Bistro
16 Division St.
New Rochelle, NY

Back home in New Rochelle for the Hurricane with great friend and bassist Dylan Shamat, and fueled by lucidity and a newfound love for and childlike fascination with recording technology, I'm embarking upon a project of solo saxophone and saxophone duo recordings over these two days. Stay tuned - provided that Irene doesn't confiscate my internet connection, I plan to post rough samples along the way.

Painting by Barrie Hill - La Rochelle 'New Orlens' Jazz Festival 2010

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

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.

Independence day Jazz in New Rochelle with Brian Carter.

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

Opening thoughts: There exists about me a painful legend of undeniable veracity that exposes some bugs in my programming. Most versions of the tale start with me boarding a train with a saxophone and some baggage; they end with me exiting the train with … some baggage. A second thought: I normally despise proselytizing tales of ‘real-life miracles’, blasted through the Internet, in an effort to prove the validity of some system of belief. So take the following harrowing and uplifting tale of midnight madness however you choose.

I awoke this morning early by New Yorkers’ standards, late by Parisians’. I walked off the jetlagged malaise on a stroll through Montparnasse, feating on a salade du saumon and pounding an espresso before attending to some logistical matters, sauntering in and out of a few stores.

My friends at the La Rochelle Sister City Initiative have wisely suggested that I use this website to blog the voyage to our jumelage.

While this site normally serves less as a diary and more as a platform for broadcasting original music and airing opinions on art, medicine and technology, this seems the right opportunity to embrace a less formal rapport with my legions of adoring cyberfans (ahem, Grandma Jean and my parents...).

If Ashton Kutcher can do it, so can I! I'll try to refrain from abbreviating words that are only three characters long to begin with, and will welcome a pie in the face if I stumble so far as to communicate emotions through emoticons.

Until Mid-May, farewell dear New Yorkers. Take care of my rainy, grimy and irritable, but always beautiful ancestral home.

Again, thanks to Peter Korn, Domenic Guastaferro, Sheila Sarkar, David Patterson and Brian Carter of he La Rochelle Sister City Initiative for organizing this trip and selecting me.

Time to watch Shrek V and whatever Ben Affleck bomb American Airlines scooped up in the bargain bin.

Dear friends, googlers and robots,

I am happy to announce that I've been selected to perform in the French coastal city of La Rochelle as a cultural ambassador from New Rochelle, NY from late April through the first week of May. Special thanks to Domenic Guastaferro, Sheila Sarkar, Dave Patterson, Brian Carter, Peter Korn, and everyone else involved in the La Rochelle Sister City Initiative. More information to come!