Chris Coles - - Page 2

Sam Blakeslee Returns To Akron With Charts & ‘Flowers’

Published 17 October, 2023 By John Chacona

photocredit: Desmond White

In the midst of a recording session with his New York big band, Columbus-born, Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer and arranger Sam Blakeslee noticed an interesting dynamic among the players.

“On the first take everyone in the band was like, ‘Who are these people? Why are they playing like this, because it just sounds so different? Why haven’t I heard stuff like this before?’” Blakeslee’s answer: “Because it’s Cleveland.”

“These people,” saxophonists Chris Coles and Nathan-Paul Davis, and the cream of Northeast Ohio’s jazz community, will join Blakeslee on the stage of BLU Jazz+ this weekend for a homecoming so packed with music that it will take two nights to play it all.

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Countdown: Gigs, Concerts and Shows To Check Out August 10-16

Published 9 August, 2023 By John Chacona

Spyro Gyra
Friday, August 11, 7:30 p.m.
Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St., Kent (tickets)

Are they jazz? After 49 years, it’s kind of a moot point. OG saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and his bubbly, rhythm-happy crew have making heads nod and feet pat for a lot of folks–probably more than a few hardcore jazz stans among them. This summertime music should fill the house at Kent Stage.

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Always At Home With Music, Lucas Kadish Returns To NEO With A New Band and Recording

Published 2 August, 2023 By John Chacona

Lucas Kadish

“To me, music is home,” said guitarist Lucas Kadish in response to a question I posed by email last week.

It’s a pretty sentiment metaphorically, but Saturday, it becomes a statement of fact when the Hudson native brings his trio to BOP STOP to celebrate the release of his new recording Tundra.

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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.

Play Like Where Your From: The University of Akron’s JazzFest Is Back

Published 5 April, 2023 By John Chacona

For a long time, jazz education was an oral tradition. Students learned at the feet of their master or in the adjacent chair in a section of a big band, a lineage that you could witness as well as hear. These days, that formerly oral tradition has largely moved to the university or conservatory classroom but the professionalism of jazz education hasn’t totally done away with the notion of lineage.

This week offers vivid proof in the form of the University of Akron Jazz Week an event that brings together three UA alumni, two of whom, Theron Brown and Chris Coles, are now teaching at their alma mater, with internationally prominent trumpet player and Warren Ohio native Sean Jones.

Tag: Chris Coles

Sam Blakeslee Returns To Akron With Charts & ‘Flowers’

Countdown: Gigs, Concerts and Shows To Check Out August 10-16

Always At Home With Music, Lucas Kadish Returns To NEO With A New Band and Recording

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

Play Like Where Your From: The University of Akron’s JazzFest Is Back