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Tag: Makaya McCraven

It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter . . .

Published 17 February, 2026 By John Chacona

Summer’s sudden arrival in northeast Ohio has everybody emerging from their deep-winter isolation and hitting the streets. Cabin fever is breaking for national and touring jazz artists, too, and they are hitting area stages en masse this week.

With so many worthwhile shows in the next seven days, I’ll offer a kind of consumer’s guide to where to go and who to hear. There’s a wide range of music on offer this week; you really can’t go wrong with any of these shows.

Countdown . . .

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Civil Disobedience Keeps The Flame Of 1960s Resistance Alive

Published 10 February, 2026 By John Chacona
Civil Disobedience band
Civil Disobedience (from left): Bruce Barth, David Ambrosio, Donny McCaslin, Jason Palmer, Victor Lewis (obscured)

Like many older fans, I’ve been waiting for a movement among jazz musicians to respond to the civil unrest and uprisings that have roiled the country for the last six years or so. The time seemed right for a new generation to follow the example of artists such as Archie Shepp, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln and make strong, forthright statements decrying injustice and state-sanctioned violence.

On Friday night at BOP STOP, Civil Disobedience, a quintet assembled by bassist David Ambrosio, will keep the flame of the ’60s alive, not just rhetorically, but musically as well.

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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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A Great Week in Cleveland, Part 1: Ben Wendel and Joel Ross

Published 20 March, 2023 By John Chacona

Ben Wendel Credit Anouk van Kalmthout
photocredit Anouk van Kalmthout

When I moved to Cleveland in late 2019, I was eager to plunge full-time into a jazz scene that looked like New York’s to me. That notion might be laughable to longtime citizens of The Land, but from the jazz desert of Erie, Pennsylvania, that’s how Cleveland looked to me. Consider this ten-day period in Sept. 2019 when Bop Stop presented a cavalcade of stars that would make even the most hardened New York booker bow in respect and awe.

Even with stars in my eyes I knew that such intervals are few and far between. But every rule needs an exception as proof, and one has arrived this week where in the course of three nights, Cleveland will host concerts by the brilliant tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel, vibes wizard Joel Ross and the mesmerizing poet, community activist and truth-teller Moor Mother.

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