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Newcomer Emma Hedrick Is Making A Career On Her Own Terms

Published 5 August, 2025 By John Chacona
Emma Hedrick

If jazz is dead, as so many fans like to think, somebody forgot to tell the singers, so many of who have lately emerged on the scene. For years, their playbook was simple: record an album of songbook standards with a trio, preferably with some name players, and wait for the phone to ring.

Not Emma Hedrick who will make her BOP STOP debut Thursday. All 10 songs on Newcomer, her debut recording released last Friday, are original compositions. Aside from producer Peter Eldridge who appears on two selections, the biggest name among the 16 musicians credited might belong to Connor Rohrer, 25, whom cognoscenti might recognize as Samara Joy’s pianist at Cain Park last August.

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Collective Action: A New Player Brings Benny Benack III Back to NEO

Published 18 March, 2025 By John Chacona
Benny Benack III

How many times have you heard this—or said it yourself—when leaving a great concert by a touring musician: Why can’t we get more shows like this here?

Kyle Knoke, a graphic designer and concert promoter found himself asking that question and decided to answer it by creating the Midwest Jazz Collective, a consortium of 13 clubs and presenting organizations that will bring  Emmy-nominated trumpeter and vocalist Benny Benack III  to BOP STOP March 25 and BLU Jazz+ the following night.

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From Cheerleader to Bandleader: Jennifer Wharton Plays With Grit and Grace

Published 7 November, 2023 By John Chacona
Jennifer Wharton
photocredit: John Abbott

The first thing you need to know about bass trombonist Jennifer Wharton, who will bring a septet to Akron and Cleveland this week, is that she has a delightfully playful sense of humor. The second thing you should know is that she’s nobody’s fool. So when she chose Bonegasm as the name of her four-trombone band, she knew she would hear about it.

“Being a lady brass player, my suit of armor, my protection for most of my career was my humor. If I could hang with the guys and tell jokes, whatever,” Wharton said in a humor-filled video call from her home in the New York area. “But I have been in a couple situations where I can give as good as I get, and people have been offended because it’s a woman saying it.”

Her response to them? “Well, bite me,” she said laughing.

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Countdown: Your Guide To Jazz in NEO, Sept. 27-Oct. 4

Published 28 September, 2023 By John Chacona

Collective action is on the calendar for the next week beginning with the monthly concert by the NEO composers mob Third Law Collective, a fusion-y three-way courtesy of guitarist Oz Noy with bassist Jimmy Haslip and force-of-nature drummer Dennis Chambers and concluding next Tuesday with a New Ghosts-sponsored performance (and that’s precisely what it will be), by DIOR STAPLER, a group that bears an uncanny resemblance to Eurojazz agents provocateurs Die Hochstapler. New Wednesday’s Cleveland Museum of Art concert by Love In Exile (Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily) will get a full preview on Monday. Are you ready?

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