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Author: John Chacona

Vibraphonist Chris Dingman Brings His Journey of Healing to Cleveland’s Bop Stop

Chris Dingman

Listening to music has increasingly become a solitary, disembodied experience, these days. Yet an opposite if so far unequal reaction is rising: a new interest in music that serves a social purpose.

In the dim past, all music was social. It was used for celebration and worship, to lull children to sleep and to blunt the drudgery of hard, repetitive labor. The social music that Chris Dingman will bring to his solo concert at Cleveland’s Bop Stop on Thursday is similarly intentional yet with a somewhat different purpose: healing.

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Roll Call: April 8, 2022

I get a lot of music for my consideration, already more than 220 new releases so far this year. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So, when I’m not previewing live events in Northeast Ohio, I’ll offer hot takes on recent releases. Like these.

TheYuval Amichai - My 90s Summer - cover title cut from Yuval Amihai‘s My 90s Summer (Fresh Sound Records) begins with the leader’s warm-toned guitar over dewdrop Rhodes and a head-nodding backbeat rhythm. Where have I heard this before?

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Saxophonist Diego Rivera Makes Up for Lost Time Saturday at Bop Stop

 

Saxophonist Diego Rivera‘s 2020 gig at Cleveland’s Bop Stop is one that he’ll never forget, but not for the usual reasons. The Michigan saxophonist’s engagement at the Hingetown club was the first event to have been canceled as the darkness of the COVID pandemic descended on a terrified world.

“We actually canceled the morning of the gig,” Rivera said in a Zoom interview. “This was going to be my first performance under my name at the Bop Stop, and we talked for quite a while trying to make this happen. I was really looking forward to it, but Gabe [Pollack, the club’s director] was incredibly professional, very gracious, and really supportive. He was like, ‘You know, it’s the right thing to do. Don’t worry about it. We’ll do this again.'”

Pollack was as good as his word and so this Saturday Rivera will bring a hard-charging quintet to Cleveland for a concert that’s been 25 months in the making.

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“Perpetual” Motion: The Venerable Organ Trio of Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart Come to Tri-C

Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart
Peter Bernstein, Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart

On the surface, Perpetual Pendulum, the new release by the trio of organist Larry Goldings, guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Bill Stewart who will appear Sunday at Tri-C follows the comfortingly familiar path established by generations of organ trios. But spend some time with this recording and a world of subtleties reveals itself.

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