Adam O’Farrill’s ELEPHANT at BOP STOP All About Jazz, 26 September, 2026
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It’s the question on the mind of everyone who has heard Nicole Zuraitis’ new double album The Devil I Knew: Who is this titular man who did her wrong? You might get the answer Thursday when Zuraitis comes to Edwin’s, and if you do, you might be in for a surprise.
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One way to look at the music world is as a gigantic Indra’s Net, a web of connections where any one musician can be linked to any other with just a few degrees of separation. It’s not only a cool topic for the post-gig hang. It can be the catalyst that brings players together and catalyze the magic that happens on the bandstand.
That’s the story behind a concert Saturday presented by Arts Renaissance Tremont that features five New York-based players, none of whom seem to have played with any of the others. The concert, appropriately dubbed UnchARTed Territory, is Saturday at Pilgrim Congregational Church.
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The 2026 Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival, which begins Thursday, is big: three days, five venues and 18 events. It has a big-name headliner, too in contemporary jazz master Gerald Albright who will top a double bill with Althea René at Lock 3 on Saturday, Sept. 12. But the biggest noise of the festival presented by Open Tone Music might be the one that a pair of big—or biggish—bands will make in the normally hushed confines of Akron’s Main Library.
The bands are under the leadership of trombonist and composer Sam Blakeslee, who will present music from his Large Group’s recording, New Blood, which will be released Sept. 25 on BJU Records, and Chris Coles, who has convened an 11-piece orchestra to play “The Way of The Sly Man,” a multi-part work composed by the late bassist and educator Dave Morgan.
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Adam O’Farrill is sweating out a deadline for a commissioned piece. “It’s hard, but you have to make it work,” he said about sitting down to write. “You have to do it in the hotel. You have to do it on the road. You don’t always have a piano, which is hard, but you know, you make it work.”
The commission isn’t due until February, but O’Farrill is a busy guy. I spoke with him Wednesday, hours after returning from Japan, and two days before embarking on a tour that will bring him and his band ELEPHANT to BOP STOP on Wednesday, Sept. 9 in what is to these ears one of the most anticipated concerts of the year.
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Like thousands of northeast Ohio students this week, the Hingetown Jazz Festival is headed back to school adding student ensembles from four area colleges and universities to the lineup of Saturday’s all-day, all-local free festival.
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