Steve Coleman -

Javier Red’s Imagery Converter Illustrates Life Under The Umbrella

Published 12 June, 2023 By John Chacona

Pianist Javier Red was in his mid-40s and had been a working musician for years, both in his native Mexico and in the United States, when he arrived at a musical crossroads.

It happened at a workshop in 2015 with saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman at the University of Chicago. “I told Steve that I’ve got two options. I can deny everything that I saw there and keep my music flowing in a comfortable way, or I can accept that what Steve was saying is a completely new and different conception of music,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Man, what I’m losing? Nothing!’ And I decided to go that way.”

He’s still going that way on a musical and life journey that will bring Red and his Chicago quartet Imagery Converter to BOP STOP Thursday for a New Ghosts concert that will have meaning well beyond music.

Andy Milne & Unison Offer a Perfect Way To End Cleveland’s Perfect Jazz Weekend

Published 23 June, 2022 By John Chacona

Andy Milne and Unison

Everywhere you look, there are signs that the local jazz scene might again look like the one that went on leave in March, 2020. Reading the tea leaves, the return of the Tri-C Jazz Fest to Playhouse Square is huge tell. That tentpole event needs no introduction from me, just a hope that you’ll go and enjoy the great music on offer.

But there’s one more jazz event you should make room for this weekend. It’s the return to Cleveland’s Bop Stop of pianist Andy Milne and his Unison trio for a welcome if long-overdue tour to support his latest recording The reMission (you can read my review of that record here).

Saxophonist Diego Rivera Makes Up for Lost Time Saturday at Bop Stop

Published 5 April, 2022 By John Chacona

Saxophonist Diego Rivera‘s 2020 gig at Cleveland’s Bop Stop is one that he’ll never forget, but not for the usual reasons. The Michigan saxophonist’s engagement at the Hingetown club was the first event to have been canceled as the darkness of the COVID pandemic descended on a terrified world.

“We actually canceled the morning of the gig,” Rivera said in a Zoom interview. “This was going to be my first performance under my name at the Bop Stop, and we talked for quite a while trying to make this happen. I was really looking forward to it, but Gabe [Pollack, the club’s director] was incredibly professional, very gracious, and really supportive. He was like, ‘You know, it’s the right thing to do. Don’t worry about it. We’ll do this again.'”

Pollack was as good as his word and so this Saturday Rivera will bring a hard-charging quintet to Cleveland for a concert that’s been 25 months in the making.

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Trefoil, An All-Star Team of Ambrose Akinmusire, Gerald Cleaver & Kris Davis, Come To Bop Stop

Published 16 March, 2022 By John Chacona

When the final buzzer sounded at the NBA All-Star Game on February 20, it was the end of All-Star weekend in Cleveland but it was the opening bell for an all-star month of jazz. First came the March 3 appearance at Tri-C of the Jazz Gallery All-Stars (previewed here), a band that in every way lived up to its name. Starting Sunday, the action shifts to Bop Stop at the Music Settlement where Ambrose Akinmusire and Dr. Eddie Henderson, two of the leading voices of the jazz trumpet will appear in a three-day span. And that’s not all.

Akinmusire will be in Cleveland as part of a new trio, Trefoil, of pianist Kris Davis and drummer Gerald Cleaver, all-stars in their own right. The term supergroup is overused, but there’s no other way to describe this collaboration.

Tag: Steve Coleman

Javier Red’s Imagery Converter Illustrates Life Under The Umbrella

Andy Milne & Unison Offer a Perfect Way To End Cleveland’s Perfect Jazz Weekend

Saxophonist Diego Rivera Makes Up for Lost Time Saturday at Bop Stop

Trefoil, An All-Star Team of Ambrose Akinmusire, Gerald Cleaver & Kris Davis, Come To Bop Stop