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Tag: jazz concerts in Akron

No Exaggerating! A September To Remember Starts This Week

Published 3 September, 2025 By John Chacona

Anyone who has ventured outside in the last couple of days can confirm it: September is the most glorious month in northeast Ohio. This week, dedicated indoors enthusiasts will join the amen chorus, because great jazz is everywhere you will look and listen.

There’s so much happening that I could write three or four full posts this week, but that wouldn’t leave enough time for the music. So rather than the full, big band version, I’ll give you the scaled-down trio arrangement–three can’t miss events that will have you circling the date and smashing the BUY NOW button on the ticketing page. And wait until you see next week.

Countdown . . .

Read moreNo Exaggerating! A September To Remember Starts This Week
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Get Ready, Northeast Ohio Jazz Fans. It’s Szn Preview Szn!

Published 19 August, 2025 By John Chacona

Back when I wrote for a daily newspaper (kids, ask your parents what those were), the page-turn from August to September always called for a big roundup of the coming seasons of the performing arts organizations I covered. In those days that meant classical music presenters. Dependent on a subscription model, they typically planned a season well in advance and publicized it relentlessly. That model doesn’t work for the way we live anymore and for jazz, my beat, never worked at all. Still, a few jazz orgs plan a full season. You’ll find three of them below, each in their different way giving us a wish to dream on. Open your calendar app and let’s go.

Read moreGet Ready, Northeast Ohio Jazz Fans. It’s Szn Preview Szn!
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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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A Big Week In NEO For Little Big Bands (And A Big Big Band)

Published 29 July, 2025 By John Chacona
Bobby Selvaggio and Stephen Philip Harvey

Why are these men smiling?

At the poker table a pair of eights is nothing to get excited about, but on the jazz calendar it’s a winning hand. And NEO is holding it this week thanks to a pair of concerts–both tied to upcoming recordings–featuring dynamic octets led by Stephen Philip Harvey and Bobby Selvaggio.

Read moreA Big Week In NEO For Little Big Bands (And A Big Big Band)
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Two Bands + Two New Releases = Three Shows in NEO

Published 22 July, 2025 By John Chacona

In the circular economy of jazz, new recordings are supported by album release tours or shows and those performances in turn create a market for the recordings. Just how this works is on display this week as concerts by pianist Ben Tweedt and saxophonist Matthew Alec, two artists with ties to northeast Ohio, celebrate the releases of their latest recordings.

Read moreTwo Bands + Two New Releases = Three Shows in NEO
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