Concert Previews - John Chacona writes

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

Published 5 April, 2022 By John Chacona

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

Published 31 March, 2022 By John Chacona

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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Re-Birth: The Iconic Cleveland Improvising Trio Returns to the Happy Dog

Published 27 March, 2022 By John Chacona

Birth Josh Smith, Jeremy Bleich Joe Tomino — *from left: Josh Smith, Jeremy Bleich, Joe Tomino*

If you were born any time after 1975, you couldn’t avoid Jefferson Starship’s spectacularly dreadful “We Built This City on Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Even if that lyrical flex were true, it pales before the real-life exploits of the band Birth, who built the stage at one of the city’s great rock landmarks, literally. Next Saturday, the Cleveland-born band will return to that stage for the first time in many years, not with power tools, but with their instruments, for a long-overdue homecoming gig at the Happy Dog.

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A Man A Plan: Michael Formanek Brings A Palindromic Trio To Bop Stop

Published 22 March, 2022 By John Chacona

Michael Formanek Drome Trio: Vinnie Sperazza, Chet Doxas, Michael Formanek — *from left:* Vinnie Sperazza, Chet Doxas, Michael Formanek

When you think of the tradition of getting together to play music on the back porch, you probably imagine a bunch of guys with guitars and fiddles and maybe a washtub bass deep in a backwoods hollow. But when the back porch is in suburban North Jersey, things look a little different.

So when Chet Doxas and Vinnie Sperazza joined bassist Michael Formanek outdoors last summer, they brought saxophones and a drum kit respectively. And though the gatherings started as a way to make music collectively in those dark, pre-vaccine days, they ended as the Michael Formanek Drome Trio, a new band that makes its Cleveland debut Tuesday, March 29 at Bop Stop.

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Trefoil, An All-Star Team of Ambrose Akinmusire, Gerald Cleaver & Kris Davis, Come To Bop Stop

Published 16 March, 2022 By John Chacona

When the final buzzer sounded at the NBA All-Star Game on February 20, it was the end of All-Star weekend in Cleveland but it was the opening bell for an all-star month of jazz. First came the March 3 appearance at Tri-C of the Jazz Gallery All-Stars (previewed here), a band that in every way lived up to its name. Starting Sunday, the action shifts to Bop Stop at the Music Settlement where Ambrose Akinmusire and Dr. Eddie Henderson, two of the leading voices of the jazz trumpet will appear in a three-day span. And that’s not all.

Akinmusire will be in Cleveland as part of a new trio, Trefoil, of pianist Kris Davis and drummer Gerald Cleaver, all-stars in their own right. The term supergroup is overused, but there’s no other way to describe this collaboration.

Category: Concert Previews

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

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

Re-Birth: The Iconic Cleveland Improvising Trio Returns to the Happy Dog

A Man A Plan: Michael Formanek Brings A Palindromic Trio To Bop Stop

Trefoil, An All-Star Team of Ambrose Akinmusire, Gerald Cleaver & Kris Davis, Come To Bop Stop