Skip to content

Tag: Matt Laferty

Cleveland: This Is The Week Of Jazz You’ve Been Waiting For

No burying the lede here: the next eight days might offer the most extraordinary lineup of jazz concerts Cleveland has seen in years.

Starting with the pianists, you can hear Cuban piano great Omar Sosa (Sept. 10), Michael Wolff, Dan Wall (both Sept. 13), Theron Brown and Matt Mitchell (both Sept. 14) this week. Prefer saxophonists? Then how about James Brandon Lewis (Sept. 12), Anna Webber (Sept. 13) and Branford Marsalis (Sept. 16). Add the unpredictable chemistry of The Uninvited (Sept. 11) and, well, you’ve got some choices to make.

Any one of these events would merit the full 700-word feature treatment at let’s call this, but don’t worry. I’m going to keep this short and snackable, though I might publish more nutritious fuller versions later, here or elsewhere, and I’ll let you know about those if and when they happen.

For now, though, let’s shine a light on three mindblowingly exciting shows that will make your muso friends in New York wish they lived in Cleveland.

Comments closed

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.

Comments closed

Paul Giallorenzo’s Trio Serves A Fusion Menu at BOP STOP

(from left): Paul Giallorenzo, Mikel Patrick Avery, Jason Roebke

In the band photo on the tray card of Force Majeure, (Delmark Records, 2014) a CD by Paul Giallorenzo‘s GitGo band, the leader stands front and center wearing a t-shirt bearing the image of the Great Lakes. After 30 years in Chicago, does the Long Island native consider himself a Midwest musician?

Comments closed

Pull UP! Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO March 27 – Apr. 2

Friendly experiencers,

Let’s just get this out of the way: jazz fans, the coming week is absolutely stacked. It’s so full of notable shows that it took two let’s call this posts to begin to cover it–and a third might not get to the bottom of the good stuff.

If the music calendar for the week were a dart board, you could close your eyes and hit a bullseye every time.

So as March goes out like a lion here’s your bulldog edition of Pull UP! Now have fun filling up that calendar.

Leave a Comment

Chris Pitsiokos and Weasel Walter Open the 2025 New Ghosts Season

Visit the website of Chris Pitsiokos (click on this name and you’ll get there) and you’ll see an image of a blue sky striped with contrails. The saxophonist is no conspiracy theorist, but he is a roaddog, logging 92 shows in 2024. He’s off to a strong start in 2025, too, with a tour that will bring him to the Little Rose Tavern for a duo gig with eruptive drummer Weasel Walter presented by New Ghosts.

Comments closed