Cleveland Museum of Art - John Chacona writes

Tigran Hamasyan’s Manifeste Destiny

Published 3 March, 2026 By John Chacona

Tigran Hamasyan is a man with a foot in each of two worlds, both geographically and temporally.

“Basically, I love telling stories,” Hamasyan told me to begin our interview. “And throughout my discography, there’s this aspect that each song tells a story through music.” It’s the kind of thing you might expect to hear from any musician, but the fact that Hamasyan said this from his home in Yerevan, Armenia, one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world, gives his comment the weight of an ancient culture steeped In stories.

It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter . . .

Published 17 February, 2026 By John Chacona

Summer’s sudden arrival in northeast Ohio has everybody emerging from their deep-winter isolation and hitting the streets. Cabin fever is breaking for national and touring jazz artists, too, and they are hitting area stages en masse this week.

With so many worthwhile shows in the next seven days, I’ll offer a kind of consumer’s guide to where to go and who to hear. There’s a wide range of music on offer this week; you really can’t go wrong with any of these shows.

Countdown . . .

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Civil Disobedience Keeps The Flame Of 1960s Resistance Alive

Published 10 February, 2026 By John Chacona

Civil Disobedience band — Civil Disobedience (from left): Bruce Barth, David Ambrosio, Donny McCaslin, Jason Palmer, Victor Lewis (obscured)

Like many older fans, I’ve been waiting for a movement among jazz musicians to respond to the civil unrest and uprisings that have roiled the country for the last six years or so. The time seemed right for a new generation to follow the example of artists such as Archie Shepp, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln and make strong, forthright statements decrying injustice and state-sanctioned violence.

On Friday night at BOP STOP, Civil Disobedience, a quintet assembled by bassist David Ambrosio, will keep the flame of the ’60s alive, not just rhetorically, but musically as well.

At CMA, Guitarist Dan Bruce Makes A Mixtape While You Listen

Published 18 November, 2025 By John Chacona

*(clockwise from top left) Jinari Kemet, Liz Bullock, Ray Flanagan, Gretchen Pleuss*

Though hip-hop artists have made it a genre unto itself, the mixtape, a homemade cassette of songs, was the Spotify playlist of the 1980s and ‘90s. Mixtapes were playable, tradable declarations of musical allegiances and taste, a medium of exchange and sometimes winsome mash notes to crushes, delivering their message at 1 7/8 ips.

True, it’s hard to imagine jazz nerds assembling cassettes of favorite Maynard Ferguson cuts to give to romantic objects (harder still to imagine they had such objects). Still guitarist Dan Bruce liked the concept so much that he’s making a mixtape live and on stage by arranging songs performed by Liz Bullock, Ray Flanagan, Jinari Kemet and Gretchen Pleuss with an a-list jazz ensemble.

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Cleveland: This Is The Week Of Jazz You’ve Been Waiting For

Published 9 September, 2025 By John Chacona

No burying the lede here: the next eight days might offer the most extraordinary lineup of jazz concerts Cleveland has seen in years.

Starting with the pianists, you can hear Cuban piano great Omar Sosa (Sept. 10), Michael Wolff, Dan Wall (both Sept. 13), Theron Brown and Matt Mitchell (both Sept. 14) this week. Prefer saxophonists? Then how about James Brandon Lewis (Sept. 12), Anna Webber (Sept. 13) and Branford Marsalis (Sept. 16). Add the unpredictable chemistry of The Uninvited (Sept. 11) and, well, you’ve got some choices to make.

Any one of these events would merit the full 700-word feature treatment at let’s call this, but don’t worry. I’m going to keep this short and snackable, though I might publish more nutritious fuller versions later, here or elsewhere, and I’ll let you know about those if and when they happen.

For now, though, let’s shine a light on three mindblowingly exciting shows that will make your muso friends in New York wish they lived in Cleveland.

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Tag: Cleveland Museum of Art

Tigran Hamasyan’s Manifeste Destiny

It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter . . .

Civil Disobedience Keeps The Flame Of 1960s Resistance Alive

At CMA, Guitarist Dan Bruce Makes A Mixtape While You Listen

Cleveland: This Is The Week Of Jazz You’ve Been Waiting For