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Tag: Duke Ellington

Paul Giallorenzo’s Trio Serves A Fusion Menu at BOP STOP

(from left): Paul Giallorenzo, Mikel Patrick Avery, Jason Roebke

In the band photo on the tray card of Force Majeure, (Delmark Records, 2014) a CD by Paul Giallorenzo‘s GitGo band, the leader stands front and center wearing a t-shirt bearing the image of the Great Lakes. After 30 years in Chicago, does the Long Island native consider himself a Midwest musician?

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Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO April 18-25

Friendly experiencers,

A reaction to a COVID booster swamped my Tuesday preview (staying healthy is making me sick!) and a badly timed security certificate expiration wiped out my Wednesday. So to make up, it’s time for an expanded Thursday Countdown–not that I needed an excuse because the coming week is high-key loaded with notable jazz events. Touring artists and local luminaries alike await your appreciative ears and enthusiastic applause. So take a portion of that tax refund check (you DID get those done, right?) and head out to a club or concert hall near you and make the momentum happen.

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When There Is No Sun: An Eclipse Playlist

You might have heard about a certain celestial phenomenon occurring today. Cleveland, where I live, is in the path of full totality and hundreds of thousands of astronomical tourists are expected to arrive for the show. But what’s a show without music, right? So herewith a playlist of eclipse-themed music to entertain you while you’re searching for your polarized glasses.

P.S. If you were expecting a Sp*tify playlist, know that there might not be an artist here who will qualify for mini-micro-nanopayments under the company’s new compensation structure. Sp*tify can go where the sun don’t shine.

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Sign O’ The Times: Mary Lou Williams’ ‘Zodiac Suite’ Rises In Akron

Mary Lou Williams, Theron Brown

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to call pianist, composer and bandleader Mary Lou Williams the Zelig of jazz. At every crucial turn of the music’s early history, she was on the scene writing, playing and teaching many of the most pivotal figures in mid-century jazz Yet the spotlight always evaded her.

No more. The recent efforts of the jazz establishment to recognize the achievements of women yield new and long-overdue revelations of her multi-valent genius, not just in the jazz capitals of the world, but in Northeast Ohio, too. Pianist Theron Brown and the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Wilkins add to the momentum Saturday with a concert presentation of five movements from Williams’ “Zodiac Suite.”

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Countdown: Your Guide To Jazz in NEO, Sept. 20-26

Veronica Swift

Attention Swifties: ya girl is coming to Cleveland tonight. No, it’s not a previously unannounced stop on the Eras Tour, but you wouldn’t expect to find that kind of scoop in this column, would you? The Swift in question is Veronica, who kicks off a late-September clambake of jazz and adjacent musical revelry this week, one that could launch a million crossover dreams.

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