Liz Bullock - John Chacona writes

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 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.

At CMA, Guitarist Dan Bruce Makes A Mixtape While You Listen

Published 18 November, 2025 By John Chacona

*(clockwise from top left) Jinari Kemet, Liz Bullock, Ray Flanagan, Gretchen Pleuss*

Though hip-hop artists have made it a genre unto itself, the mixtape, a homemade cassette of songs, was the Spotify playlist of the 1980s and ‘90s. Mixtapes were playable, tradable declarations of musical allegiances and taste, a medium of exchange and sometimes winsome mash notes to crushes, delivering their message at 1 7/8 ips.

True, it’s hard to imagine jazz nerds assembling cassettes of favorite Maynard Ferguson cuts to give to romantic objects (harder still to imagine they had such objects). Still guitarist Dan Bruce liked the concept so much that he’s making a mixtape live and on stage by arranging songs performed by Liz Bullock, Ray Flanagan, Jinari Kemet and Gretchen Pleuss with an a-list jazz ensemble.

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For CUSP’s ‘Torch Songs,’ Where There’s Fire, There’s No Smoke

Published 10 May, 2023 By John Chacona

In the popular imagination, an evening of torch songs inevitably takes place in a smoky basement club where a singer in a velvet gown purrs songbook standards while perched on a stool as her cigarette smolders in a nearby ashtray. A half-filled rocks glass is not far away.

It’s an appealingly nostalgic image, but don’t expect anything like that Friday at Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project‘s (CUSP) Torch Songs program.

Tag: Liz Bullock

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

At CMA, Guitarist Dan Bruce Makes A Mixtape While You Listen

For CUSP’s ‘Torch Songs,’ Where There’s Fire, There’s No Smoke