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Tag: Bop Stop

Moises Borges And Ava Preston Renew A Charming Musical Friendship

On paper, Moises Borges and Ava Preston are an odd match. He’s a guitarist from Bahia, the cradle of Afro-Brazilian culture, who has been a welcome fixture on northeast Ohio’s musical scene for decades. She’s a vocalist just a couple of years out of Solon High School whose international career is just beginning.

On the bandstand, though, they’re a perfect pair, and that’s where you will find them Friday at BLU Jazz+ and Saturday at BOP STOP for what is a reunion tour of sorts.

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

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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Flowers Around Cleveland (and Akron too)

Back in the 1980s I became obsessed with the saxophonist David Murray and set out to collect his entire recorded oeuvre. This was a problem because the man recorded almost indiscriminately, sometimes releasing five or six records a year. I was a racing greyhound chasing the mechanical rabbit of his ever expanding discography, and I gave up at 54 items. But not before scoring a French rarity called Flowers Around Cleveland (Bleu Regard, 1995).

Looking out at Signora’s newly colorful rosebushes, that title came to mind when I checked Jim Szabo’s jazz calendar of events, which is my go-to guide in making the lets call this editorial calendar. All over northeast Ohio, the flowers are starting to pop, and on the area’s stages, so is the music scene.

So this week I bring you a spring bouquet of concerts by local and touring artists that includes a Napoleonic invasion, a throw-down at Lock 3 and a rare appearance by a notable big band. It’s a beautiful thing.


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For Bassel Almadani, Planting Roots In NEO Is (Super)natural

photocrediit: Graham Images

At times during my conversation with Bassel Almadani that I conducted on his front porch in a leafy Lakewood neighborhood, his adorable daughter crawled into his lap to share a confidence, or just to get a hug. That conversational, one-to-one style of communication is in his music, too and will be offered Saturday when Bassel and the Supernaturals return to BOP STOP.

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