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Tag: Makaya McCraven

Get Ready, Northeast Ohio Jazz Fans. It’s Szn Preview Szn!

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.

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

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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