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John Chacona writes Posts

Roll Call: March 8, 2022

Published 8 March, 2022 By John Chacona

I get a lot of music for my consideration, already more than 160 new releases in 2022. 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.

Anniversaries and theme celebrations generally make writers groan, but editors love them. At let’s call this, I wear both hats, and this week I’ll give my editor side the benefit of the doubt. Thus today’s Women’s History Month roundup of notable new releases by women. There’s more than a common editorial conceit behind the post; these four recordings are outstanding by any measure and make a strong case for the increasing and long overdue prominence of women who play, write for and lead bands at the forefront of improvised music in the Black American tradition.

Julieta Eugenio JUMP cover

Looking at the cover photo for JUMP (Greenleaf Music), you might be forgiven for mistaking tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio for a teenager, but she is no kid. 

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The Jazz Gallery All-Stars Finally Land in Cleveland for a March 6 Concert

Published 1 March, 2022 By John Chacona

Back in the 1980s, listings of events in The New Yorker’s Goings On About Town section were introduced with this charmingly worded caveat: Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives that are subject to last-minute change; it is therefore always advisable to call ahead.

For presenters and musicians who ply their trades during winter on the Great Lakes, that advice goes double, especially when high winds and more than a foot of snow arrived to slam the door on the Feb. 3 concert by the Jazz Gallery All-Stars at Cleveland’s Tri-C Auditorium. Yet when Tri-C JazzFest director Terri Pontremoli canceled that show, it wasn’t a double bar, but only a fermata.

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Mostly Other People Do the Killing Finds the Laughter in “Disasters” At Bop Stop

Published 23 February, 2022 By John Chacona

 

Mostly Other People Do the Killing
from left: Moppa Elliot, Ron Stabinsky and Kevin Shea of Mostly Other People Do the Killing

If you can’t figure out why the song titles at tomorrow night’s Bop Stop concert by Mostly Other People Do the Killing might provoke laughter among some audience members, don’t worry. They’re just Pennsylvanians who are in on the joke.

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