Paul Motian

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

Published 3 May, 2023

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.

Roll Call, August 19: Kyle Kidd, Russ Lossing, Pablo Moser and Nicolás Ojeda

Published 19 August, 2022

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 430 (!) new releases in 2022. Almost all of them are notable for something, and I’d like to give them their due. So, when I’m not previewing events in northeast Ohio or profiling regional musicians, I’ll offer hot takes on recent releases.

When I moved to Cleveland in late 2019, one of the bands I most wanted to hear was the Afrofuturist collective Mourning [A] BLKstar. You can probably guess why that remains on my to-do list nearly three years and several COVID subvariants later, but it’s taken on new urgency with the release of Soothsayer (American Dreams Records), the spellbinding solo debut of M[A]B vocalist Kyle Kidd (all pronouns).

Mostly Other People Do the Killing Finds the Laughter in “Disasters” At Bop Stop

Published 23 February, 2022

If you can’t figure out why the song titles at tomorrow night’s Bop Stop concert by Mostly Other People Do the Killing might provoke laughter among some audience members, don’t worry. They’re just Pennsylvanians who are in on the joke.

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Roll Call: 20 August, 2021

Published 21 August, 2021

I get a lot of music for my consideration, more than 350 new releases in 2021. 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.

Pittsburgh-born bassist Leon Lee Dorsey has had a busy 2021. In January he released “Thank You Mr. Mabern,” a trio date that may well be the late pianist Harold Mabern’s final session. Now comes “Freedom Jazz Dance” on Dorsey’s own Jazz Avenue 1 imprint.

Roll Call: February 12, 2021

Published 16 February, 2021

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.

International surveys have identified Danes as among the world’s happiest people, but you’d never know it from Jakob Bro‘s spectral, haunted “Una Elmo” (ECM Records). Credit producer Manfred Eicher’s trademark acoustical framing, which is especially spacious,