Amanda Powell - John Chacona writes

Anthony Taddeo’s Jazz all’Italiana Band Alla Boara Sets Sail With A New Record And Tour

Published 18 January, 2024 By John Chacona

One of the highlights of a performance by Alla Boara, percussionist Anthony Taddeo’s jazz-meets-Italian-folk-music project, is “Mamma Mia Dammi Cento Lire.” It’s a musical setting of conversation between a young woman, wheedling 100 lire from her mother so that she can go to America to start a new life, and her mother who warns that if she leaves her village the feckless girl will drown when her ship sinks. All this is set to an earworm of a dancing melody. The words, brought to vivid life by Amanda Powell, a superb singing actress, have the sly worldliness and teasing insinuation of opera buffa.

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Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO, Dec. 14-21

Published 13 December, 2023 By John Chacona

This is the time of year when the live music scene cools a bit, but gentle readers of let’s call this, let nothing you dismay. A sleighful of holiday shows by some of Northeast Ohio brightest vocalists more than picks up the slack. Even if you feel a little Scrooge-y about seasonal favorites, our quartet of singers are here to offer you a cookie tray of holiday treats both salty and sweet. So dig in, dig?

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Moto Perpetuo Drummer Anthony Taddeo’s Next Project: Recording Alla Boara Live

Published 5 July, 2023 By John Chacona

Alla Boara

If drummer Anthony Taddeo were a piece of music, he’d be marked Allegro vivace con brio é giocoso. Here’s a bit more Italian to represent the bilingual Taddeo: preso dalla testa ai piedi, an idiom for being in constant motion from head to toe.

This weekend finds the in-demand sideman, dependable session musician and busy bandleader in the familiar setting of Hingetown’s Bop Stop with his Alla Boara project for a two-night engagement that will be recorded for audio and video release.

For CUSP’s ‘Torch Songs,’ Where There’s Fire, There’s No Smoke

Published 10 May, 2023 By John Chacona

In the popular imagination, an evening of torch songs inevitably takes place in a smoky basement club where a singer in a velvet gown purrs songbook standards while perched on a stool as her cigarette smolders in a nearby ashtray. A half-filled rocks glass is not far away.

It’s an appealingly nostalgic image, but don’t expect anything like that Friday at Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project‘s (CUSP) Torch Songs program.

Dan Weiss’ Trio Made One Of The Year’s Best Recordings. Hear Them At Bop Stop Sunday

Published 2 December, 2022 By John Chacona

*(from left) Thomas Morgan, Jacob Sacks, Dan Weiss*

Dan Weiss talks a lot like he plays the drums. When I spoke with him about his Sunday concert at Bop Stop, his answers to my interview questions were short. To the point. Nothing wasted. Next question?

Yet forward momentum, essential for any drummer, is just one part of his game. Color, an original voice as a composer and a keen ear for texture are in there. They’re all present on Dedication (Cygnus Records), the stunning new release by Weiss’ longstanding trio with pianist Jacob Sacks and bassist Thomas Morgan.

Given his many musical associations with artists as diverse as the saxophonists Jon Irabagon and Lee Konitz, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu, it’s kind of amazing that he’s only appeared in Cleveland twice. The trio played Bop Stop in November 2019, and 19 months earlier he was at the Hingetown club with saxophonist Chris Potter band.

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Tag: Amanda Powell

Anthony Taddeo’s Jazz all’Italiana Band Alla Boara Sets Sail With A New Record And Tour

Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO, Dec. 14-21

Moto Perpetuo Drummer Anthony Taddeo’s Next Project: Recording Alla Boara Live

For CUSP’s ‘Torch Songs,’ Where There’s Fire, There’s No Smoke

Dan Weiss’ Trio Made One Of The Year’s Best Recordings. Hear Them At Bop Stop Sunday