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Tag: Chris Coles

Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO April 18-25

Published 18 April, 2024 By John Chacona

Friendly experiencers,

A reaction to a COVID booster swamped my Tuesday preview (staying healthy is making me sick!) and a badly timed security certificate expiration wiped out my Wednesday. So to make up, it’s time for an expanded Thursday Countdown–not that I needed an excuse because the coming week is high-key loaded with notable jazz events. Touring artists and local luminaries alike await your appreciative ears and enthusiastic applause. So take a portion of that tax refund check (you DID get those done, right?) and head out to a club or concert hall near you and make the momentum happen.

Continue ReadingCountdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO April 18-25
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Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO April 11-17

Published 11 April, 2024 By John Chacona
The Jazz-Bins, (from left) Joe Dyson, Marc Ribot, Greg Lewis

Friendly experiencers,

Monday’s Great Celestial Gig In The Sky is going to be hard to top. On the other hand, NEO jazz fans don’t have to wait 200 years for next big show to arrive, April is Jazz Appreciation Month, and there’s much to appreciate in the area’s clubs, concert halls and other venues. Here are four such shows, all filled with blindingly original and exciting players. File your taxes, mow the lawn and reward yourself with the best music Northeast Ohio has to offer.

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Anthony Taddeo’s Jazz all’Italiana Band Alla Boara Sets Sail With A New Record And Tour

Published 18 January, 2024 By John Chacona
Alla Boara

One of the highlights of a performance by Alla Boara, percussionist Anthony Taddeo’s jazz-meets-Italian-folk-music project, is “Mamma Mia Dammi Cento Lire.” It’s a musical setting of conversation between a young woman, wheedling 100 lire from her mother so that she can go to America to start a new life, and her mother who warns that if she leaves her village the feckless girl will drown when her ship sinks. All this is set to an earworm of a dancing melody. The words, brought to vivid life by Amanda Powell, a superb singing actress, have the sly worldliness and teasing insinuation of opera buffa.

Continue ReadingAnthony Taddeo’s Jazz all’Italiana Band Alla Boara Sets Sail With A New Record And Tour
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Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO, Nov. 16-22

Published 16 November, 2023 By John Chacona
Kenny Washington, Bill Charlap, Peter Washington
photocredit: Keith Major

I look at let’s call this as a sort of chamber of commerce for the local scene. It’s important work, especially given the general indifference of the local media to improvised music in the Black American tradition and it’s great fun for me to do, a gateway for this NEO neophyte into the thriving local scene. But two posts a week takes a lot of time to crank out and with holiday travel, my anniversary and listening to catch up with before the yearend polls are due, the next couple of weeks will concentrate on these Countdown previews of upcoming events. Fortunately, there’s a lot to talk about, including more new releases, the first big event at a significant new venue and more. Buckle up. It’s going to be an interesting ride.

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Countdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO, Nov. 1-6

Published 2 November, 2023 By John Chacona

Now that Halloween is over and it’s safe to go out again, a cornucopia of jazz and jazz-adjacent events awaits NEO music fans. Grab what’s left of those fun-sized chocolate treats and whatever money remains after Bandcamp Friday (yup, it’s that time again, maybe for the last time), and head out to hear a bountiful fall harvest of sound. Where do you start? Start below.

Continue ReadingCountdown: Where To Go & What To Hear In NEO, Nov. 1-6
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