Jazz ensemble returns with Valentine’s Day in mind

The Private Stock Jazz Ensemble will play at a Valentine's Dance at St. Mark's in Mount Kisco on Feb. 11. It performed at the church's Holiday Dance in December. DAVID MCKAY WILSON PHOTOS

By DAVID MCKAY WILSON 

Celebrate Valentine’s Day a few days early by dancing or listening to a broad repertoire of love songs, performed by the Private Stock Jazz Ensemble, featuring vocalist Nicole Pasternak. They’ll take the bandstand at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mount Kisco on Wednesday, Feb. 11, as part of the congregation’s social dance program, which is now in its second year.

Bandleader Marc Pekowsky, who debuted his 17-piece big band at St. Mark’s in October, returns for the ensemble’s third performance in the church’s historic parish hall. He said the evening’s musical theme will be love songs, in keeping with the traditional mid-February celebration. 

Standard tunes they’ll play will be “All the Things You Are,” composed by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein in 1939, and “S’Wonderful,” composed by George Gershwin a decade earlier. Other tunes will include “My Funny Valentine,” “You Make Me Feel So Young,”” and “What is This Thing called Love?” 

“The whole evening will be centered around the theme of love,” said Pekowsky. 

The evening will be a reunion for Pasternak and Pekowsky, who performed with the Sonny Carroll Orchestra in the 2000s and 2010s. Angelo Testanero, whose stage name was Sonny Carroll, was the spritely well-dressed bandleader whose ensemble played regularly for dancers and music lovers at Sciortino’s Restaurant in Brewster on Sunday afternoons. 

As Testanero approached his 100th birthday in the summer of 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pasternak put together a video of old performances as part of the celebration. Pekowsky organized a caravan of musicians and swing dancers, including this writer, who were to be attired in T-shirts proclaiming his centenary,  with the plan to perform outside his home to wish him well.

Much to everyone’s sorrow, Testanero passed away on Aug. 5, the day after his birthday when the drive-by was planned. 

Testanero was a prolific arranger of jazz standards, known for the charts he wrote for his 20-piece orchestra. Pasternak recalled when she started playing in his band, he’d handwritten charts for another 300 tunes, creating the sheets of music for each of the big band’s 20 players.  

“When all was said and done, he’d written more than 1,200,” Pasternak recalled. “He’d tell he’d get up early in the morning to write, and then get back to his charts at night.” 

Over her singing career, Pasternak sang in duos with a pianist or guitarist, as well as with jazz quartets, quintets, and big bands. She also performed with  her husband, Ralph Lalama, a veteran jazz saxophonist and mainstay at the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra for decades.  

In 1986, she kicked off what would be a six-year residency at Winslow’s, a Westport restaurant where Nicole & Friends would play every Friday night. She sang jazz standards with the small groups at Winslow’s, and she’ll be singing them on Feb. 11 at St. Mark’s. The lyrics remain embedded deep within her. 

“Those lyrics are so memorable,” she said. “They make so much sense — the words to ‘It Could Happen to You’ or ‘This Time’s the Dream’s on Me.’ How could you forget them?” 

Pasternak, who began playing with the Sonny Carroll Orchestra in the early 1990s, said she enjoys singing with a big band in a ballroom filled with dancers.  

“They are equal partners with the musicians,” she said. “The dancers are interpreting the music in their own way while we are interpreting the songs musically,” she said. “There’s a symbiosis going on there, a special kind of chemistry. The dancers are responding with their whole body instead of just using their ears.” 

She likes the feeling of collaboration among the dancers as they interpret the music through movement, just as the musicians are collaborating with each other in the big band. 

“Like the musicians, they are listening to one another, and working together,” she said. “The musicians are also partnering on the bandstand to set the tempo and set the mood.” 

Pasternak started singing as a child, inspired by recordings of a young Shirley Temple singing jazz standards in the 1960s.  

“That’s where I found my first love of singing,” she said. “It became all about pleasing people, touching their hearts and reaching out through lyrics and sound. My husband calls me the Shirley Temple of jazz.” 

She studied classical violin in third grade, and played in school bands and garage bands in Ridgefield, Conn., during her teens. 

“When I got into my 20s, I started thinking that it was something that I could do,” she says. 

In her early 20s, she took singing lessons with Sharon Anthony, the grandniece of suffragist Susan B. Anthony. 

“She helped me find my voice,” said Pasternak. “I was good at emulating other singers on the radio — Judy Collins, Janis Joplin or Carole King. She helped me tap into my inner voice, which made all the difference. I was no longer imitating others. There wasn’t a formula to it. I found a way to create my own sound.” 

The evening begins with a swing dance lesson with Cameron Kelly at 7 p.m. The band starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets at $30, with coffee and desserts. Make table reservations at 914-602-6194. The event is a collaboration with St. Mark’s and Westchester Ballroom. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is located at 85 East Main St., Mount Kisco.

David McKay Wilson, a veteran Westchester journalist, has danced swing from Manhattan to Poughkeepsie for 40 years. He heads up the St. Mark’s social dance program.