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Tag: Aidan Plank

At Rubber City Jazz & Blues Fest, A Big Night Of Big Bands

Published 8 September, 2026 By John Chacona
The Sam Blakeslee Large Group at BLU Jazz+
The Sam Blakeslee Large Group at BLU Jazz+

The 2026 Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival, which begins Thursday, is big: three days, five venues and 18 events. It has a big-name headliner, too in contemporary jazz master Gerald Albright who will top a double bill with Althea René at Lock 3 on Saturday, Sept. 12. But the biggest noise of the festival presented by Open Tone Music might be the one that a pair of big—or biggish—bands will make in the normally hushed confines of Akron’s Main Library.

The bands are under the leadership of trombonist and composer Sam Blakeslee, who will present music from his Large Group’s recording, New Blood, which will be released Sept. 25 on BJU Records, and Chris Coles, who has convened an 11-piece orchestra to play “The Way of The Sly Man,” a multi-part work composed by the late bassist and educator Dave Morgan.

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Garrett Folger’s Week Of Music ‘In Summer’s Arms’

Published 9 June, 2026 By John Chacona
Garrett Folger at Visible Voice Books

I write about Garrett Folger a lot here, and there’s a reason for that. No matter where I go to hear music, Folger is there. As a leader, sideman, composer, organizer or supporter of the scene, the Buffalonian seems to make most every interesting gig around here. I swear there must be five of him.

Folger’s gig book must be quite a sight. Yet even by his own standards of ubiquity, this week needs a big red circle around it for the two gigs in a three-day span that say a lot about his restless curiosity.

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Garrett Folger and Aidan Plank Share DUO Lingo On A New CD

Published 23 September, 2025 By John Chacona
Garrett Folger and Aidan Plank

Today, the 99th anniversary of John Coltrane’s arrival on Earth, seems like a good time to remind ourselves that music, for all the wondrous sophistication of its scales and structures, is about the people who make it.

That point was reinforced eloquently by DUO, the new independent release by trumpeter Garrett Folger and bassist Aidan Plank, which will be celebrated by a release show Sunday at Negative Space Gallery.

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