Jazz Meets the Great Brazilian Songbook – Sam Martinelli, drums, Ken
Peplowski, clarinet/sax, Ehud Asherie, piano, Martin Wind, bass, Carina
Calistro, vocals
POLI CLUB, May 10, 2024, 7 & 9PM
The creator of this exciting project, Sam Martinelli, is one of the most
talented young Brazilian musicians to make New York his home in recent
years. A drummer, composer, and educator Martinelli, has worked in the
band of legendary trumpeter Claudio Roditi, and with Hendrik Meurkens,
Marcus McLaurine, Jay Leonhart, Itaiguara Brandão, Tomoko Ohno, Dr Andre
Thomas, and others.
Sam and Ken Peplowski recently joined forces to produce a recording
entitled Jazz Meets the Great Brazilian Songbook, and, out of the gate, it
earned a FOUR STAR DownBeat Review. This collection of sambas, choros,
bossa novas and classics represents the great Brazilian tunesmiths Antonio
Carlos Jobim, Ivan Lins, Joao Gilberto and others.
The record and this Poli Club program include Jobim’s Correntaza (The
Stream). According to DownBeat reviewer Larry Appelbaum, it features “a
delightful piano chorus by Ehud Asherie that could have continued
indefinitely.” But, “most moving” he said was Martinelli’s own contribution
Serenade to a Friend (for Claudio Roditi), the closing track. Claudio, who died
in 2020, was a long-time faculty member at Litchfield Jazz Camp where Sam
Martinelli, his protégé, joined him there as a young teaching assistant.
Ken Peplowski is one of the preeminent clarinetist/saxophonists in jazz today.
He began playing with polka bands while he was still in elementary school,
joined the Dorsey Orchestra in his teens and was hired by Benny Goodman in
1984. Ken has played on soundtracks for Woody Allen films and has

collaborated with artists like Mel Torme, Leon Redbone, Peggy lee, Madonna,
Rosemary Clooney. He can be heard on over 450 records.
Ehud Asherie has worked with Cecile McLorin Salvant, Wycliffe Gordon,
Catherine Russell, John Piazzarelli and others. His playing can be heard on
the 2020 Grammy-winning soundtrack for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. He has
appeared twice with Ken Peplowski on the Litchfield Jazz Festival and with
his own trio there in last summer. This is his second appearance for Litchfield
Jazz Presents @ The Poli Club.
Martin Wind is a member of the trios of Bill Mays, Dena DeRose, Bill Cunliffe,
Ann Hampton Callaway, Ted Rosenthal, as well as the quartets of Matt
Wilson and Ken Peplowski and tours with Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine.
He has recorded and/or performed with Mstislav Rostopowitch, Lalo Schifrin,
Monty Alexander, Pat Metheny, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton, Toots
Thielemans, Anat Cohen, Benny Green and many others. He teaches at New
York and Hofstra Universities.