Kingston finally has the jazz club it deserves, if only on a monthly basis for now. Though already established as an oasis for avant-garde and experimental improvisatory music (see the Lace Mill, Tubby's, Greenkill gallery) the city's auditory palette has long lacked a regular, more mainstream-adjacent jazz venue.

Which is not to say that tenor saxophonist Peyton Pleninger's come-as-you-are monthly ensembles at the Unicorn Bar don't get out there, winging it off the charts across rhythmic/melodic landscapes and hanging together by the thinnest but most deeply grooving of threads, then going on to pull a chestnut out of the “Great American Songbook” and flirt with cocktail lounge sounds.

That approach reflects Pleninger's background. Now 28, he grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs where he showed a precocious talent for music, playing piano from age 4 and, after switching to sax at age 13, became fascinated with the recordings of John Coltrane. Through a high school creative music program, he studied with saxophonist, composer and 2014 MacArthur Fellow Steve Coleman.

“He's brilliant, you know, had a band forever,” Pleninger told Kingston Wire in a phone interview. “He did workshops and then I'd just follow him around to gigs. I would pester the shit out of him.”

In 2015, Pleninger moved to New York City where — in addition to relentlessly side-gigging and leading the first iteration of his band Biotonic (“exploring the relationship of sound on the human experience and physiology through original compositions, and later evolving to explore moment music by juggling spontaneous and predetermined material”) — he found another major mentor in the person of the late visionary, multi-talented, avant-garde percussionist Milford Graves.

“I was going over to his house every day for the last couple of years that he was alive,” Pleninger said. “And we were doing so much more than just music, you know. We were like, working in the garden, and we built a greenhouse, and we were building sculptures, and we were setting up all these science experiments out there.”

“I started talking to Milford about it, and I was like, man, I don't think the thing to do is to stay in the city anymore. I think I should try and get some space upstate and spread out and do all of these different disciplines. And he was like, 'Man, you should totally do that. That's the way to do it.' And I was like, ‘Well, if you think it's a good idea that's probably the way to go.’”

Pleninger moved to the Mid-Hudson Valley in February 2022, purchasing the defunct Brown's Hilltop Tavern in Stone Ridge, where he lives with the rest of the Unicorn house band, bassist Will McEvoy and drummer Aaron Yanda.

The stars aligned just so to produce the Unicorn series, a conjunction that took in Kingston Wire, one of whose correspondents happened on Pleninger busking outside Rough Draft some months ago. The ensuing conversation touched on Kingston's lack of jazz venues and we rattled off the names of some likely locations, including the Unicorn.

“Francesca [Hoffman, Unicorn owner] was into it, talked about sessions at the old Beverly [predecessor venue at Unicorn location],” Pleninger said. In fact, Hoffman, a skilled musician in her own right, sat in on flute at the first of the series shows.

Chapter two of Pleninger's Unicorn series occurs this Sunday, Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the bar at 224 Foxhall Ave. The event is free to the public.

“I’m feeling good about the series,” Pleninger said. “I’m glad we’re making a format to work on music together, and pass around some information.”