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Tag: Tommy Lehman

Flowers Around Cleveland (and Akron too)

Back in the 1980s I became obsessed with the saxophonist David Murray and set out to collect his entire recorded oeuvre. This was a problem because the man recorded almost indiscriminately, sometimes releasing five or six records a year. I was a racing greyhound chasing the mechanical rabbit of his ever expanding discography, and I gave up at 54 items. But not before scoring a French rarity called Flowers Around Cleveland (Bleu Regard, 1995).

Looking out at Signora’s newly colorful rosebushes, that title came to mind when I checked Jim Szabo’s jazz calendar of events, which is my go-to guide in making the lets call this editorial calendar. All over northeast Ohio, the flowers are starting to pop, and on the area’s stages, so is the music scene.

So this week I bring you a spring bouquet of concerts by local and touring artists that includes a Napoleonic invasion, a throw-down at Lock 3 and a rare appearance by a notable big band. It’s a beautiful thing.


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For Bassel Almadani, Planting Roots In NEO Is (Super)natural

photocrediit: Graham Images

At times during my conversation with Bassel Almadani that I conducted on his front porch in a leafy Lakewood neighborhood, his adorable daughter crawled into his lap to share a confidence, or just to get a hug. That conversational, one-to-one style of communication is in his music, too and will be offered Saturday when Bassel and the Supernaturals return to BOP STOP.

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Civil Disobedience Keeps The Flame Of 1960s Resistance Alive

Civil Disobedience band
Civil Disobedience (from left): Bruce Barth, David Ambrosio, Donny McCaslin, Jason Palmer, Victor Lewis (obscured)

Like many older fans, I’ve been waiting for a movement among jazz musicians to respond to the civil unrest and uprisings that have roiled the country for the last six years or so. The time seemed right for a new generation to follow the example of artists such as Archie Shepp, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln and make strong, forthright statements decrying injustice and state-sanctioned violence.

On Friday night at BOP STOP, Civil Disobedience, a quintet assembled by bassist David Ambrosio, will keep the flame of the ’60s alive, not just rhetorically, but musically as well.

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At CMA, Guitarist Dan Bruce Makes A Mixtape While You Listen

(clockwise from top left) Jinari Kemet, Liz Bullock, Ray Flanagan, Gretchen Pleuss

Though hip-hop artists have made it a genre unto itself, the mixtape, a homemade cassette of songs, was the Spotify playlist of the 1980s and ‘90s. Mixtapes were playable, tradable declarations of musical allegiances and taste, a medium of exchange and sometimes winsome mash notes to crushes, delivering their message at 1 7/8 ips.

True, it’s hard to imagine jazz nerds assembling cassettes of favorite Maynard Ferguson cuts to give to romantic objects (harder still to imagine they had such objects). Still guitarist Dan Bruce liked the concept so much that he’s making a mixtape live and on stage by arranging songs performed by Liz Bullock, Ray Flanagan, Jinari Kemet and Gretchen Pleuss with an a-list jazz ensemble.

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