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Joe Lovano’s Hometown Band Offers A Hero’s Welcome

Published 3 May, 2023 By John Chacona

Joe Lovano

If there were a Mount Rushmore of Cleveland jazz, maybe on the bluff overlooking the West Flats, who would be on it? Albert Ayler and Tadd Dameron for sure, and maybe Eddie Baccus, too. Joe Lovano is still very much with us, but it’s not too soon to reserve a place for him up there, too.

Lovano’s career accomplishments, including his tenure with Bill Frisell in Paul Motian’s enormously influential trio, loom so large that it’s easy to forget that the saxophonist’s first big gig was with the Woody Herman Orchestra.

Trombonist Scott Garlock, the executive director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra with whom Lovano will play two concerts this weekend, remembers.

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A Master Improvisor Launches A New Tour With A New Band At BOP STOP

Published 13 April, 2023 By John Chacona
Lily Glick Finnegan, Ken Vandermark, Beth McDonald
Lily Glick Finnegan, Ken Vandermark, Beth McDonald

In all manner of settings, from solo concerts to large group situations, multi-instrumentalist Ken Vandermark has proven his mettle as a fearless and resourceful improvisor. So when two-fifths of his new Edition 55 band were not available to tour, he added a new piece to the remaining players and rechristened the band Edition Redux.

But the story doesn’t end there. The new player, keyboardist Erez Dessel, couldn’t make the tour’s first gig, Vandermark did the math and made 3=2+1. Call it new math or even New Addition, but any way you look at it, Saturday’s New Ghosts concert at BOP STOP—one set by drummer Lily Glick Finnegan with tubist Beth McDonald and a solo set by Vandermark—adds up to an intriguing look at the ever-dynamic Chicago scene.

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The Music Of John Coltrane Once Saved His Life. Now It’s Our Turn

Published 11 April, 2023 By John Chacona
Keith LaMar and Albert Marqués
Keith LaMar and Albert Marquès

Keith LaMar has said that listening to John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” helped save his life. Yet for all its power and magnificence, Coltrane’s music cannot literally save LaMar’s life, which is scheduled to end Nov. 16 when he is to be executed for murders he says he did not commit.

Even if music can’t bring justice for LaMar, it can help keep his case in the public eye and perhaps forestall his execution. That is the purpose behind two concerts this week by a project called Freedom First that has attracted some of New York’s finest musicians.

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Magic In The Air: Marco Benevento Road-Dogs It Back To The Beachland

Published 7 March, 2023 By John Chacona
Marco Benevento
photo credit: Seth Olenick

Marco Benevento is a workaholic. The playful, keyboardist who gleefully straddles the worlds of jam-band euphoria, jazzy, improvisatory exploration and nerdy gadget geekery might not fit the image of the jittery, Type-A striver but just listen to the man himself.

“I’m a very productive person,” he said by phone last month from his home in Woodstock, New York and one listen to his latest release, Marco Benevento (Royal Potato Factory, 2022), proves his point. Benevento composed all the music and played all the instruments except for some occasional added percussion and the vocals, aside from cameos by his wife and children are all Benevento’s.

But as much as studio wonkery appeals to the 45-year-old New Jersey native (and more about that later), he’s a road dog at heart who will return to a favorite venue, the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern March 14 on a double bill with labelmates Mike Dillon and Punkadelic.

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Bop Stop Rings In 2023 With Tim Mirth’s Night Terrors Band

Published 6 January, 2023 By John Chacona

Tim Mirth has been experimenting with guitars for a long time. “As a 10-year-old, I found my dad’s guitar, this Gretsch Corvette,” he remembered. “I would sneak it out after school, play with it, try to figure it out. One day my dad comes by, and I thought, I’m not going to get to play with this anymore, but he totally knew me. He showed me a couple of things and ever since I haven’t been able to put it down.”

Thirty years later, he still has the Gretsch. one of the 20 or so guitars in his arsenal. Mirth will select a couple of them to the concert by his Night Terrors band that will open Bop Stop’s 2023 schedule, Wednesday, Jan. 11.

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