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Tag: jazz concerts in Akron

Newcomer Emma Hedrick Is Making A Career On Her Own Terms

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)

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.

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Two Bands + Two New Releases = Three Shows in NEO

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.

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Unclassifiable Affections Drive Drummer Dan Weiss’ Quartet

Dan Weiss Quartet

Dan Weiss is a no-compromises guy. He doesn’t jog occasionally for his health; he trains hard and races. He turned an interest in South Asian music into a decades-long immersion with tabla master Samir Chatterjee. When I suggested to the drummer last week that he struck me as slightly obsessive, his response was unequivocal: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Totally!”

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Friendly Fire: Two Saxophones Lift A Battle Cry Of Respect

Nathan-Paul Davis and Johnny Cochran, Jr.

The billing of Sax Battle Cry, the pair of concerts that Nathan-Paul Davis and Johnny Cochran, Jr. will present this week, evokes the classic two-saxophone tussles of the past: Dexter Gordon and Wardell Grey, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Johnny Griffin, the various cage matches that were a trademark of the Jazz At The Philharmonic road show. But don’t believe the hype. The meeting of Davis and Cochran is more friendly competition than mano á mano combat.

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