The best improvised music in the Black American Tradition offers something for the head, heart and feet. A pair of concerts this weekend at BOP STOP offer a potent distillation of how much music can move us.
Comments closedTag: Dan Bruce
Stephen Philip Harvey is a composer, arranger, instrumentalist, label executive, educator and beginning several months ago, a radio host—a kind of superhero of music. He’s also a fan of superhero comics. So when I spoke with him recently, I asked him which superhero he most identifies with.
“There was this villain that was played by Neil Patrick Harris on ‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold,’” Harvey said from his office at the radio station. “His name was the Music Meister.” That character used the power of music to achieve world domination.
While Harvey acknowledged that, “that would be a cool power. I’d love that,” his superpower is bringing people together through music, which is what he will do Friday night at BOP STOP and Saturday at BLU Jazz+ when his Stephen Philip Harvey Jazz Orchestra celebrates the release of its latest album Multiversal: Live at BOP STOP.
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Have you noticed? After a cold and rainy June, all of a sudden, the garden has exploded with activity. The herbs have shot up. New roses bloom daily, a Jackson Pollock action painting of color.
The rain and the sun and the heat (sooooo much heat!) have done the same for the NEO jazz scene as the next seven days are a greenhouse of compelling shows, any one of which would be worth 600 words.. But I’ll spare you that and instead offer the first harvest (the second drops tomorrow) of a guide to the week’s bouquet of music.
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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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Friendly experiencers,
An experiment this week: I’m issuing Countdown as a video-only post. Let’s see how it works. What do you think?
I couldn’t live without Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar , NEO’s most complete list of jazz and jazz-adjacent events. If you haven’t visited it lately, what are you waiting for?
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Red beans and ricely yours,
jc
