Dashed from Kenny Garrett at the Festival Tent to 1313 Hollis Street to catch what I could of Spontaneous Combustion: guitars. Wonderfully, as I slipped in admidst performance, another full-house. Fleshing out the wrapt audience, a lot of “guitar geeks” in the “house”, as Jeff Torbert later informed me. You couldn’t help noticing them. Young. […]
Graham Pilsworth
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Kenny Garrett wows opening night Jazz Fest crowd
OK. Fooled me. Who’d have thunk it? An all-ages full-house (from my unofficial estimate), at the conclusion of last night’s Jazz Festival opener, jumping up and down. Pogo dancing. Bouncing their bonces. Hand-clapping. Hand-jiving. Pushing voices raw, bellowing in sing-along fashion an insidiously catchy Calypso-esque melody. All merrily exorted on by no other than the […]
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Burning questions for Granelli about Spontaneous Combustion
Last October, a reed-thin, restlessly imaginative, master percussionist approached the Atlantic Jazz Festival’s new artistic director Lulu Healy with a concept for a scintillating festival event. He proposed matching up musicians—all renowned for their musical jouissance (over-the-top enjoyment and pleasure), whiz-bang inventiveness and a no-self-doubt command of their instruments—to create music without preordained strictures. In […]
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Cockroach
CockroachRawi Hage (Anansi)Following up his IMPAC Dublin Literary Award-winning debut novel, De Niro’s Game, Lebanon-born, Montreal-based Canadian novelist Rawi Hage storms back with Cockroach, another probing, intriguing and powerfully thrilling immersion into the mindset and mores of mainstream Middle Eastern agnostics. This time, however, Hage pitches his compelling story not in sectarian violence-ravaged Beirut, but […]
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Sure Thing: Goo!
Sure it does. Like “poo,” the word “goo” provokes giggles. Affixed to a jazz band, “goo” may just as easily provoke giddy excitement for music fans. Really. Goo! is Canadian jazz bassist Graig Earle’s baby. Earle, who’s gigged with former Shuffle Demon Richard Underhill, jazz vocalist Denzal Sinclaire, trumpeter Kevin Turcotte and others, moved to […]
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The Late Hector Kipling
The Late Hector KiplingDavid ThewlisPenguinHey! Poking about for a kicking novel with hyper-charged entertainment values? Current as tomorrow? Torrent-paced? With a carnage of truly whacked-out characters, which include a crazed dandy stalker and an American punk-poet love goddess who spells orgasm “S&M?” Similar in tenor to Ricky Gervais’s, iconoclastic British actor/writer David Thewlis serves up […]
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Summing up The Atlantic Jazz Festival: a few notes
Again, as in years past, the Atlantic Jazz Festival treated Haligonians and out-of-town visitors to some exceptional musical experiences, exposure to areas of fascinating and expansive world musical forms, and opened up ears and minds to adventurous and daring sonic inventiveness. And of course, gave an opportunity for the myriad local musical ensembles to entertain […]
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Sheila Jordan and Cameron Brown: Dynamic Duo Rom-coms the Cathedral
She’s shading eighty. He’s crowding sixty-three. She’s a legendary jazz singer who made her bones way back in the bebop 1950s. He’s a self-effacing virtuostic marvel on the acoustic bass packing an impressive professional background. Together last night, this voice and bass duo (actually a trio: Brown and the bass acted as separate foil characters) […]
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Pyeng Threadgill: A Note to Follow D’ohhh
Pyeng Threadgill radiates the girl-du-jour cool good looks that effortlessly commandeer attention. And the parental (jazz giant Henry Threadgill: stepmother Cassandra Wilson)) and lofty music school pedigree to, on paper, back up her craft as a musician. Singing for her ought to be second nature. After last night’s gig in the Commons Room, filled to […]
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The Sicilian Jazz Project Sizzles and L’Orkestre Des Pas Perdus Romp, Romp, Romps the Tent
So you’re sitting around wonderin’ – ice tea or a cold beer near at hand. Not about how in Zog’s name you’re ever gonna pack iPhone heat and still afford to eat regularly. Naw. More outside stuff. Like, suppose Gil Evans, the late great musical genius arranger/composer who sired the Birth of the Cool for […]