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With the New York Five, the people may change, but the music is constant.

The Five are far from strangers — more like mentors and mentees, all longtime fixtures on Manhattan's jazz scene. So when the quintet takes the stage at Capitol Theatre Saturday night at the GAM Foundation's JazzSLC pre-holiday show, the flow will be seamless, says band leader and drummer Lewis Nash.

"We will be swinging — put it that way."

Nash is the driving force behind the group. Joining him onstage will be Houston Person on tenor saxophone, Russell Malone on guitar, Bill Charlap on piano and Rodney Whitaker on bass.

"Over the course of a career, you have certain people who you know you enjoy playing with," Nash says. "I put who I enjoy playing with at the top of the list, who I might not have played with for a while, which groups of musicians fit together in a way that enhances the music."

Charlap has recorded with Wynton Marsalis and Tony Bennett and is the artistic director of the Jazz in July Festival in New York City. Malone started playing guitar at 5 years old and recently played in Harry Connick's and Diana Krall's bands. Person, the elder statesman of the group, was a musical partner for singer Etta Jones. And Whitaker is a professor of jazz double bass and director of jazz studies at Michigan State University.

Nash grew up in Phoenix listening to his four sisters' R&B recordings and his parents' gospel and soul albums. He got his first drum set at age 10 and started mimicking the beats of pop music. But a high-school band teacher set him on a different trajectory when he introduced Nash to jazz.

Nash never intended to make music his career; he studied broadcast journalism at Arizona State. But a serendipitous gig playing with New York "hard bop" veteran drummer Freddie Waits the summer of 1979 sent him to New York City as an intern. That was the end of journalism (other than a little voice work for NPR for Jazz at Lincoln Center).

"I'm somewhat of a latecomer," the 57-year-old musician says. "But it just blossomed."

Nash thrives on the give-and-take, call-and-response nature of jazz percussion.

"Most people think of the drums as carrying a basic beat all the way through the whole song," he says. "But in the jazz world, the drums are able to be more expressive, more creative. You're able to use more sounds and more textures at your own discretion.

"In one moment you might be playing a waltz, in another, it's Afro-Cuban. You can change it up and all the other musicians are listening and able to go with it."

At Saturday's show, Nash says, audience members will hear a lot of jazz standards with unique improvisations from some of the best working jazz players in the business. —

The New York Five

Bill Charlap (pianist and composer), Lewis Nash (drummer), Russell Malone (guitarist), Houston Person (saxophonist) and Rodney Whittaker (bassist) take the stage as The New York Five for this exclusive JazzSLC concert.

When • Saturday, Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m.

Where • Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City

Run time • 130 minutes including 10-minute intermission