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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.

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When There Is No Sun: An Eclipse Playlist

Published 8 April, 2024 By John Chacona

You might have heard about a certain celestial phenomenon occurring today. Cleveland, where I live, is in the path of full totality and hundreds of thousands of astronomical tourists are expected to arrive for the show. But what’s a show without music, right? So herewith a playlist of eclipse-themed music to entertain you while you’re searching for your polarized glasses.

P.S. If you were expecting a Sp*tify playlist, know that there might not be an artist here who will qualify for mini-micro-nanopayments under the company’s new compensation structure. Sp*tify can go where the sun don’t shine.

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Sign O’ The Times: Mary Lou Williams’ ‘Zodiac Suite’ Rises In Akron

Published 9 January, 2024 By John Chacona

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to call pianist, composer and bandleader Mary Lou Williams the Zelig of jazz. At every crucial turn of the music’s early history, she was on the scene writing, playing and teaching many of the most pivotal figures in mid-century jazz Yet the spotlight always evaded her.

No more. The recent efforts of the jazz establishment to recognize the achievements of women yield new and long-overdue revelations of her multi-valent genius, not just in the jazz capitals of the world, but in Northeast Ohio, too. Pianist Theron Brown and the Akron Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Wilkins add to the momentum Saturday with a concert presentation of five movements from Williams’ “Zodiac Suite.”

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Countdown: Your Guide To Jazz in NEO, Sept. 20-26

Published 20 September, 2023 By John Chacona

Attention Swifties: ya girl is coming to Cleveland tonight. No, it’s not a previously unannounced stop on the Eras Tour, but you wouldn’t expect to find that kind of scoop in this column, would you? The Swift in question is Veronica, who kicks off a late-September clambake of jazz and adjacent musical revelry this week, one that could launch a million crossover dreams.

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Bounceback: Akron’s Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival Is Back In A Big Way

Published 5 September, 2023 By John Chacona

It could just be a case of wishful thinking, but the terrific things I’m hearing about this past weekend’s inaugural Hingetown Jazz Festival show what can happen when top-flight musicians, welcoming venues and tireless, community-minded organizers come together to meet audiences where they are. Who wouldn’t be stoked for the future?

And you won’t have to wait to get a glimpse of what that future might look like, because this weekend brings Akron’s annual Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival Sept. 7-9.

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Tag: Duke Ellington

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

When There Is No Sun: An Eclipse Playlist

Sign O’ The Times: Mary Lou Williams’ ‘Zodiac Suite’ Rises In Akron

Countdown: Your Guide To Jazz in NEO, Sept. 20-26

Bounceback: Akron’s Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival Is Back In A Big Way