Phred & Friends Jazz Trio at The Marquee
Phred & Friends Jazz Trio at The Marquee on State Street, New London, Friday, September 11, for three hours of jazz led by New London vocalist Phred Mileski, with Ken Fischer on keyboard and James Hunter on bass.
The trio performs from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the recently opened downtown New London jazz bar, giving Mileski a particularly appropriate room for a repertoire that can move from classic jazz standards into funk and R&B.
And because The Marquee opens at 3 p.m. Friday, there’s an earlier option for anyone making a night of it: Happy Hour runs from 4 to 6 p.m.
Phred Mileski Has Sung Jazz From Connecticut to Bulgaria
Mileski is a familiar name in southeastern Connecticut’s music community, but she’s difficult to confine to one musical category.
Her own description of Phred & Friends is wonderfully concise: jazz, funk and classic R&B.
Jazz, however, has been a major thread throughout her career.
Mileski is known for a notably wide vocal range and an improvisational approach that allows her to treat standards as something to interpret rather than simply reproduce. Her performances can move between straight-ahead jazz, funkier arrangements and familiar American popular music.
She’s performed throughout Connecticut and well beyond it, including appearances in New York and Bulgaria.
Closer to home, her long list of venues includes the Arts Café Mystic, Foxwoods, The Bee and Thistle Inn, Captain Scott’s Lobster Dock, Friday Night Folk in New London, the Essex Yacht Club and the Lighthouse Inn.
She’s also appeared in enough different musical configurations that southeastern Connecticut audiences may have encountered her without realizing how much ground she covers.
Phred & Friends Is Only One Side of Mileski’s Musical Life
Phred & Friends is Mileski’s jazz-oriented project, but her other groups reveal just how broad her musical interests are.
Simply Phred is her eclectic solo act.
With Kenny & Phred, she reworks classic rock and pop songs in a largely acoustic setting.
The Too-Timers, her duo with Kipp Sturgeon, gleefully jumps among American standards, jazz, folk, country and calypso while using an assortment of instruments that can include guitar, banjo, ukulele, melodica, harmonica and percussion.
Mileski was also a member of The BeeKeepers, an alternative-folk group with Amanda Sullivan-Schneider and Sylvie Abate. The trio concentrated on original songwriting alongside music written by women from the 1950s forward, with Mileski contributing vocals, piano, accordion, hand percussion and ukulele.
The BeeKeepers’ Songs from the Hive earned recognition as Best EP in the folk/singer-songwriter category from the Akademia Music Awards in 2017.
Before that, Mileski performed with Sullivan-Schneider and flutist Megan Nelson in Celticity, a chamber trio that created classical arrangements of traditional Celtic music.
Jazz is part of a much larger musical vocabulary.
Friday’s Trio Keeps Things Intimate
For this performance, Mileski pares things down.
Ken Fischer accompanies her on keyboard, with James Hunter on bass.
That leaves considerable room inside the arrangements.
Without a large ensemble filling every measure, a singer can interact directly with the keyboard and bass, stretching phrases, changing dynamics and allowing a familiar standard to develop differently from one performance to another.
It’s one of the reasons the jazz trio remains such an effective small-room format.
And The Marquee is very much a small room.
The Marquee May Be New London’s Newest Music Venue
Anyone who hasn’t heard of The Marquee on State Street can be forgiven.
It only opened this summer.
The new bar made its debut in July 2026 at 312 State Street, in the downtown space previously occupied by DEVS, Nico’s and Hanafin’s Public House.
Christopher Leffert created the business with his parents, Sean and Sayra Leffert, combining three ideas that don’t normally occupy the same room: a classic movie palace, a 1920s-style jazz club and a speakeasy.
The result is deliberately theatrical.
Classic-film memorabilia helps establish the movie-house theme, while a small performance stage makes live music central to the room rather than an occasional addition.
The main space seats a little more than 45 people.
There’s also a separate speakeasy area with room for approximately 20.
For a trio built around voice, piano and bass, that’s almost exactly the scale you’d want.
Classic Movies Meet Live Jazz
The Marquee’s owners describe their concept as a place where classic cinema meets live jazz.
That pairing isn’t as arbitrary as it might initially sound.
Jazz and Hollywood grew up together during much of the 20th century.
The Great American Songbook that eventually became central to jazz included music written for Broadway shows and Hollywood films. Composers including George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern wrote songs that later became raw material for generations of jazz musicians.
A song could begin life in a musical, become a pop hit and eventually turn into a jazz standard interpreted hundreds of different ways.
The Marquee takes some of that atmosphere and makes it literal, surrounding live musicians with reminders of classic cinema.
The Bar Was Built Around Entertainment
Live music isn’t an afterthought at The Marquee.
It was part of the concept before the doors opened.
When the Leffert family sought approval for the business earlier this year, plans called for live jazz and other music alongside entertainment that could eventually include comedians, karaoke and DJs.
The goal was to contribute another venue to downtown New London’s existing arts district.
That’s a particularly interesting location for it.
The Garde Arts Center is only a short walk away on State Street. Hygienic Art sits nearby on Bank Street. Restaurants, galleries and small music venues extend through the surrounding downtown blocks.
The Marquee is positioning itself between those worlds: somewhere to stop before a show, somewhere to hear a show of its own and somewhere to stay afterward.
Friday Night Starts Before the First Note
The music doesn’t begin until 7:30 p.m., but Friday’s poster points out another option.
Happy Hour runs from 4 to 6 p.m.
The Marquee is cocktail-forward, with classic cocktails and its own house creations forming an important part of the concept.
Food is available as well.
The venue serves traditional pub food, specialty pizza and shareable small plates, making it possible to arrive early for food and drinks rather than treating the room solely as a late-night bar.
Friday hours extend until 12:30 a.m., so the night doesn’t have to end when the trio finishes at 10:30.
A Local Singer in a Brand-New Jazz Room
There are bigger concerts happening around southeastern Connecticut this weekend.
This isn’t one of them.
That’s part of the appeal.
Phred & Friends puts a singer with years of experience in the region into a room built specifically to make small-scale live music feel like an event.
No arena.
No enormous stage.
No need for elaborate production.
Just Phred Mileski singing, Ken Fischer at the keyboard and James Hunter on bass, with a few dozen people close enough to hear what happens between the notes.
For a new venue trying to establish jazz as part of its identity on State Street, that’s a pretty good Friday night.
Details
Event: Phred & Friends Jazz Trio
Date: Friday, September 11, 2026
Time: 7:30–10:30 p.m.
Venue: The Marquee on State Street
Address: 312 State Street, New London, CT 06320
Performers: Phred Mileski, vocals; Ken Fischer, keyboard; James Hunter, bass
Music: Jazz, funk and classic R&B
Happy Hour: 4–6 p.m.
Friday Venue Hours: 3 p.m.–12:30 a.m.
Setting: Indoor jazz bar and cocktail lounge
Food: Pub fare, specialty pizza and shareable small plates are available
Drinks: Classic and signature cocktails are a focus of the bar program
Venue Phone: 860-446-6037
Seating: The main room is an intimate space with seating for more than 45; a separate speakeasy area seats approximately 20
Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.