Bop Stop - John Chacona writes

Road To Nowhere: Nashville Duo Concurrence Tell A Somber History In Music

Published 24 October, 2024 By John Chacona

*Paul Horton and Greg Bryant. photocredit: John Rogers*

In 1968, Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes took the unprecedented action of asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development to stop the construction of the so-called Clark Freeway. It was estimated that construction of the highway to connect I-271 with I-490 would sever existing neighborhoods and displace 20,000 Clevelanders, many of them Black residents of the East Side.

Stokes succeeded and the Clark Freeway was never built, but other cities were not so lucky. One of them was Nashville, where the construction of I-40 and the devastation it caused in the city’s Black neighborhoods became the inspiration for, Indivisible, a stirring musical presentation by the duo project Concurrence that will play at BOP STOP Sunday joined by Cleveland drummer Aaron Smith.

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Marta Sanchez’s Music Is A Partner Dance Of Head And Heart

Published 22 October, 2024 By John Chacona

“My music is kind of intricate,” Marta Sanchez admitted. Then she quickly added, “It’s not that I’m not attracted towards intellectual music, but I’m attracted to beauty–in music and in art–but both at the same time.”

Listen to Sanchez’s bracing, elegant pianism as you can do Saturday at BOP STOP, and you’ll learn that intellectual rigor wrapped in beauty are magnetically attracted to her, too.

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Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop! The Indispensable BOP STOP Celebrates Ten Years

Published 16 October, 2024 By John Chacona

*Alla Boara records at BOP STOP in 2023*, *photocredit*: *Jackson* *Clark*

When you think of all the challenges that have faced independent music venues for the past ten years, industry consolidation, soaring rents and the rise of streaming entertainment—then add the COVID-19 shutdown–it’s a miracle that there are any places left to hear live music. The jazz scene, which has lived on the economic knife’s edge for decades, was hit hard. Yet a few places survived, and that’s something to celebrate.

Welcome to BOP STOP, the little engine that could and the beating heart of Cleveland’s scene. This week the club marks its tenth anniversary in its third incarnation as part of the Music Settlement in Hingetown. There it cultivates a training ground for young musicians, brings the world’s most notable artists to northeast Ohio’s and connects our most notable artists to the world. Hell yeah that’s worth celebrating.

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Pull Up! Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO Sept. 12-18

Published 12 September, 2024 By John Chacona

Friendly experiencers,

Pull up! I see this all over my social feeds, an exhortation from my musician friends to get out and experience the music the way it’s meant to be heard: live.

This weekend brings a pair of shows on the west side–both on Friday (are you superstitious?). Good luck deciding which one you’ll want to pull up to. While you make up your mind, enjoy tomorrow’s theme song in the composer’s authoritative version with all-timer Walter Theodore Rollins, who turned 94 last Saturday the 7th.

At 40, Musical Polymath Bryan Kennard Celebrates Kennections

Published 10 September, 2024 By John Chacona

Turning 40 doesn’t have the big-deal, inflection-point significance of milestone birthdays like 21 or 65, but don’t try that argument on Bryan Kennard. The composer, flutist and organizer has plenty of highlights to mark as he heads into his fifth decade this week with a new big band and a celebratory concert at BOP STOP Sunday.

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Tag: Bop Stop

Road To Nowhere: Nashville Duo Concurrence Tell A Somber History In Music

Marta Sanchez’s Music Is A Partner Dance Of Head And Heart

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop! The Indispensable BOP STOP Celebrates Ten Years

Pull Up! Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO Sept. 12-18

At 40, Musical Polymath Bryan Kennard Celebrates Kennections