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Obsolescence Quartet at The Treelawn Social Club
by John Chacona
Obsolescence QuartetThe Treelawn Social Club Cleveland, OH January 11, 2026 An evening of completely improvised music by top-level players is not an everyday thing in Cleveland. So the Sunday evening set by the cheekily named Obsolescence Quartet (an oblique reference to the effects on human creators of artificial intelligence) was ...
Dave McMurray Hears Himself In All Of Detroit's Music
by John Chacona
Saxophonist and composer Dave McMurray has much of the celebrated history of Detroit music in his memory and under his fingers. Now 70, and with four acclaimed releases on the storied Blue Note label, he is arguably at the pinnacle of a long and remarkably varied career. All the strands of that career are ...
Craig Taborn: When Kabuya Dances
by John Chacona
With every passing year, the genius of the late Geri Allen increasingly comes into focus. “When Kabuya Dances" has all the hallmarks of her style: memorable melodies, a sophisticated approach to rhythm and formal audacity. Allen had left Detroit for Howard University shortly before Craig Taborn arrived at the University of Michigan, but he might have ...
Aretha Tillotson: Sad Junie (to Highway Jake)
by John Chacona
If the average fan living south of the 49th Parallel knows anything about jazz in Canada, it might begin and end with Oscar Peterson and Diana Krall. Yes, Toronto is emerging as a great jazz city and there are all those players from Nanaimo, but in between, nothing, right? Bassist Aretha Tillotson is here to explode that ...
Carmen Staaf: Monk's Mood
by John Chacona
There is an iconic image in Charlotte Zwerin's 1988 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser that shows Monk, cigarette in hand, silently contemplating a misty Manhattan skyline. As heard on her recording Sounding Line (Sunnyside Records, 2025), Carmen Staaf's arrangement of “Monk's Mood" that begins with Dylan Vado's spectral bowed vibes perfectly captures ...
The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis at the Beachland Tavern
by John Chacona
The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis Beachland Tavern Cleveland, OH September 12, 2025 Cleveland, Ohio can lay a strong claim as one of the three mother cities, along with London and New York City of punk rock and culture (note: it took an act of will not to use the word ...
Paul Cornish Trio at BOP STOP
by John Chacona
Paul Cornish Trio BOP STOP at the Music Settlement Cleveland, OHSeptember 5, 2025 Paul Cornish began his concert with a recording of a 1966 John Coltrane interview in Japan. Musicians invoke him all the time these days, but the great saxophonist/saint who ecstatically called the spirits makes an odd match ...
Hingetown Jazz Festival 2025
by John Chacona
Hingetown Jazz Festival Various venues Cleveland, OH August 30, 2025 It would surprise no one if this review of the third Hingetown Jazz Festival in Cleveland began, as such pieces often do, by noting how the festival has grown. But that would not exactly be accurate. By the most ...
Dominick Farinacci & Friends / Taylor Eigisti & Christian Tamburr Celebrate Chick Corea and Gary Burton at Tri-C JazzFest 2025
by John Chacona
Dominick Farinacci and Friends Taylor Eigsti and Christian Tamburr Celebrate Chick Corea and Gary BurtonMimi Ohio Theatre Tri-C JazzFest Cleveland, OH June 28, 2025 Afternoon presentations at multi-day jazz festivals tend to be low key--and often low-pressure--events. So it was on the final afternoon of the two-day Tri-C JazzFest. ...
Danny Grissett: Whisper Not
by John Chacona
One of the enduring mysteries of jazz is also one of its most salient criteria: the hookup between bass and drums. Like Justice Stewart's quote about pornography, it is hard to define but impossible to miss when you hear it. By now, Vicente Archer and Bill Stewart have something very special going on, and Danny Grissett ...
