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Tag: Mary Lou Williams

Sign O’ The Times: Mary Lou Williams’ ‘Zodiac Suite’ Rises In Akron

Published 9 January, 2024 By John Chacona
Mary Lou Williams, Theron Brown

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to call pianist, composer and bandleader Mary Lou Williams the Zelig of jazz. At every crucial turn of the music’s early history, she was on the scene writing, playing and teaching many of the most pivotal figures in mid-century jazz Yet the spotlight always evaded her.

No more. The recent efforts of the jazz establishment to recognize the achievements of women yield new and long-overdue revelations of her multi-valent genius, not just in the jazz capitals of the world, but in Northeast Ohio, too. Pianist Theron Brown and the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Wilkins add to the momentum Saturday with a concert presentation of five movements from Williams’ “Zodiac Suite.”

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Countdown: What To Do, Where To Go & What To Hear, Oct. 12-18

Published 12 October, 2023 By John Chacona
Birth Josh Smith, Jeremy Bleich Joe Tomino

It’s a week for celebrations with a birthday, an anniversary and a chicken or pasta dinner on the musical menu for your mid-October listening and dining pleasure. Add a penetrating talk by one of musicology’s preeminent thinkers and public intellectuals and watch your calendar fill up. It all starts here.

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Joe Lovano’s Hometown Band Offers A Hero’s Welcome

Published 3 May, 2023 By John Chacona

Joe Lovano

If there were a Mount Rushmore of Cleveland jazz, maybe on the bluff overlooking the West Flats, who would be on it? Albert Ayler and Tadd Dameron for sure, and maybe Eddie Baccus, too. Joe Lovano is still very much with us, but it’s not too soon to reserve a place for him up there, too.

Lovano’s career accomplishments, including his tenure with Bill Frisell in Paul Motian’s enormously influential trio, loom so large that it’s easy to forget that the saxophonist’s first big gig was with the Woody Herman Orchestra.

Trombonist Scott Garlock, the executive director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra with whom Lovano will play two concerts this weekend, remembers.

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Roll Call: February 19, 2021

Published 19 February, 2021 By John Chacona
Roll Call: February 19, 2021Roll Call

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 460 new releases in 2020. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So, every week, more or less, I’ll offer hot takes on the releases of the preceding seven days.

If you’ve been wondering how the L.A. studio cats who have been replaced by digital one-man-bands and library music are passing their time, the not-so-short answer might be found in “Out On The Coast” (Basset Hound Music), a three-CD set by The David Angel Jazz Ensemble.

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