Jazz Vespers: Leena Conquest, Hana Igarashi, Saadi Zain

NYC's unique jazz prayer service, Sundays at 5 since 1965. All are welcome. Free to attend! This week, we welcome Leena Conquest (voice), Hana Igarashi (piano), and Saadi Zain (bass). About Leena Conquest When Leena sings, people listen. She weaves and treads that intimate, revelatory sonic ground that she's known for by merging the familiar with the surprising. This Texas-born chanteuse has appeared at New York's Vision Festival, Jazz At Lincoln Center and tours internationally. She has worked with a host of jazz luminaries including pianist Dave Burrell and is an ongoing collaborator with bassist William Parker. She is featured with his Raining on the Moon ensemble and sings on the recordings Voices Fall from the Sky, Cornmeal Dance, the 2011 Downbeat Critics Poll Top 10 Album / Plan to Stay a Believer and more. Indeed it is her vocal dexterity paired with an intuitive, world-wise quality that enables her to deliver these songs with a depth of feeling that is nuanced and profound. Her vocals enliven and resonate with soulful expression rooted in the jazz tradition. Leena is an alumna of Stanford University, attended NYU's Tisch Graduate School of the Arts and trained at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Conquest's extraordinary voice can tell countless tales in the space of one line. (Billboard) About Hana Igarashi Pianist Hana Igarashi is from Osaka, Japan where she began studying the Yamaha method and classical music at the age of three years old. Her focus also included performing and after hearing recordings of legendary alto-sax player Charlie Parker she became interested in jazz. In 2019, she went to IMEP Paris College of Music where she studied with musicians Rick Margitza, Peter Giron and Manuel Rocheman. In 2023, she received a scholarship to the New School where she continues to study under the tutelage of bassist/composer Reggie Workman, pianists Fabian Almazan and Cyrus Chestnut and more. About Saadi Zain Bassist Saadi Zain is busy performing in a multitude of musical genres including jazz, classical, world music and popular music and also performs on Broadway as a musician in the pit orchestras. As a jazz musician, he was one of a fortunate few of his generation to have learned and honed the artform directly through meaningful, long-standing relationships with jazz masters: first with Jackie Mclean, as a student at the Hartt School of music and later as long-standing bassist with master drummer Charli Persip. His most significant musical mentorship and relationship has been with legendary bassist Ron Carter, with whom Saadi continues to perform and studied with at the City College of New York. Saadi has also served as principal bassist of the South Asian Symphony Orchestra in India, toured Africa as a jazz ambassador of the U.S. State Department and performed in multiple productions of the Nina Simone musical "Little Girl Blue." For more information about Saadi and his recent performances, visit [hidden] More Info below.