Skip to content

Tag: Esther Fitz

Just Another Band From Cleveland

Published 28 October, 2026 By John Chacona

“Black and orange? I’ve always liked those colors, you know. And when everything turns black and orange, I feel very comfortable. I like the pumpkin as a vegetable. I think that it’s a wonderful invention. And I’m into it, you know,”

That’s Frank Zappa’s response to a question about Halloween in a cringeworthy CBS interview conducted on Oct. 31, 1983. It’s hard to know whether he was being sincere or trolling the clueless interviewer because . . . well, he’s Frank Zappa. But taking him at his word, let’s assume that the Father of the Mothers of Invention would be secretly tickled about Saturday’s Schlenk Zappa tribute concert at BOP STOP.

But you never know.

Read moreJust Another Band From Cleveland
Leave a Comment

At Rubber City Jazz & Blues Fest, A Big Night Of Big Bands

Published 8 September, 2026 By John Chacona
The Sam Blakeslee Large Group at BLU Jazz+
The Sam Blakeslee Large Group at BLU Jazz+

The 2026 Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival, which begins Thursday, is big: three days, five venues and 18 events. It has a big-name headliner, too in contemporary jazz master Gerald Albright who will top a double bill with Althea René at Lock 3 on Saturday, Sept. 12. But the biggest noise of the festival presented by Open Tone Music might be the one that a pair of big—or biggish—bands will make in the normally hushed confines of Akron’s Main Library.

The bands are under the leadership of trombonist and composer Sam Blakeslee, who will present music from his Large Group’s recording, New Blood, which will be released Sept. 25 on BJU Records, and Chris Coles, who has convened an 11-piece orchestra to play “The Way of The Sly Man,” a multi-part work composed by the late bassist and educator Dave Morgan.

Read moreAt Rubber City Jazz & Blues Fest, A Big Night Of Big Bands
Leave a Comment