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Tag: A Love Supreme

Joe Lovano’s Hometown Band Offers A Hero’s Welcome

Published 3 May, 2023 By John Chacona

Joe Lovano

If there were a Mount Rushmore of Cleveland jazz, maybe on the bluff overlooking the West Flats, who would be on it? Albert Ayler and Tadd Dameron for sure, and maybe Eddie Baccus, too. Joe Lovano is still very much with us, but it’s not too soon to reserve a place for him up there, too.

Lovano’s career accomplishments, including his tenure with Bill Frisell in Paul Motian’s enormously influential trio, loom so large that it’s easy to forget that the saxophonist’s first big gig was with the Woody Herman Orchestra.

Trombonist Scott Garlock, the executive director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra with whom Lovano will play two concerts this weekend, remembers.

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The Music Of John Coltrane Once Saved His Life. Now It’s Our Turn

Published 11 April, 2023 By John Chacona
Keith LaMar and Albert Marqués
Keith LaMar and Albert Marquès

Keith LaMar has said that listening to John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” helped save his life. Yet for all its power and magnificence, Coltrane’s music cannot literally save LaMar’s life, which is scheduled to end Nov. 16 when he is to be executed for murders he says he did not commit.

Even if music can’t bring justice for LaMar, it can help keep his case in the public eye and perhaps forestall his execution. That is the purpose behind two concerts this week by a project called Freedom First that has attracted some of New York’s finest musicians.

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