Now that Halloween is over and it’s safe to go out again, a cornucopia of jazz and jazz-adjacent events awaits NEO music fans. Grab what’s left of those fun-sized chocolate treats and whatever money remains after Bandcamp Friday (yup, it’s that time again, maybe for the last time), and head out to hear a bountiful fall harvest of sound. Where do you start? Start below.
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When this writer worked in the hospitality industry, we had a name for Halloween: Amateur Night. Normally this would serve as a warning to pursue domestic entertainments until it’s safe to go out again. But what if “going out” is more treat than trick? This week’s candy necklace of events will test that notion with a variety of fun-size gigs and not a kernel of candy corn among them (though the late Carla Bley’s “King Korn” would be great addition to a spooky setlist).
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With the outdoor concert and festival season coming to a close, jazz and creative music returns to the small rooms where the music was born. This week’s most compelling shows all feature Northeast Ohio musicians, proving that football and clambakes aren’t the only autumn traditions to honor around here.
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In his 30-odd years on the scene, Grammy-winning singer Kurt Elling has topped the Down Beat Critics Poll 13 times and has received the Jazz Journalists Association Male Singer of the Year award eight times. He’s done this while singing texts written by Theodore Roethke and Walt Whitman, a Monkees hit, one of Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes. Whitney Balliett might have had Elling’s musical choices in mind when he wrote his famous characterization of jazz as being “the sound of surprise.”
Yet none of Elling’s neck-snapping musical eccentricities was as shocking as SuperBlue, which will come to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art Wednesday.
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With its high blue skies, comfortable temperatures, clambakes and promises of a Super Bowl season for the Browns, it’s hard to imagine how September in Northeast Ohio could possibly be better—though a free outdoor jazz festival might be a nice start.
Wish granted. Make way for the inaugural Hingetown Jazz Festival Saturday, Sept. 2.
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