Here are some recommendations of concerts with hybrid works coming to the Boston area in the months ahead.
Music Commentary: The Place Between “Classical” and “Jazz” Becomes a Destination
2022 was a year in which hybrid musical forms reached more Boston audiences than ever before. 2023 promises to open even more doors. The Place Between is no longer dangerous territory, a detour, or a side road. It has become a destination in itself.
Classical Album Review: Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1 – 12, played by the RedKoral Quartet and Guests
Over the past year, I’ve delved into the most significant body of work for string quartet ever written by a composer whose primary identity with the public is as a jazz musician. Here’s how to begin your own encounter with important facets of the work of an artist whose name you ought to know.
Jazz Preview: The Scene Lives! — Local Jazz in the Months to Come
Get out there and hear some live music. It’s the best gift you can give to your ears.
Jazz Preview: Aardvark at 50 Sparks a Jazz Scene Sputtering Back to Life in Eastern Massachusetts
The pandemic clouds over the Boston / Cambridge jazz scene are breaking up – not completely by any means – but at last you have a broad menu of live music here to pull you away from your TV bingeing.
Jazz Album Review: Tony Williams’s “Play or Die” Gets Full Release, 40 Years On
The shadow of Weather Report looms over this groove session of consonant harmonies, the only documentation of a short-lived band that should have had the chance to burn more brightly.
Jazz Review and Conversation: Jane Ira Bloom’s Pandemic Duets
Jane Ira Bloom responded to her pandemic isolation with a CD of duets with bassist Mark Helias and a CD of duets with drummer Allison Miller. These two sessions are unique projects in her discography and beautiful testaments to her ingenuity.
Jazz Performance Review: Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner at Home
To hear this performance properly. you must do a bit more work than you might do ordinarily . . . but great art deserves such work.
Jazz Album Review: Miguel Zenón’s Law Years Band & Christian McBride’s New Jawn Band
Two pianoless quartets + two restless leaders = some of the best music of the last few years.
Music Profile: Violinist, Teacher, Composer, and Arranger Mimi Rabson — Making a Life in Art
The life of a working musician is not a second-class life, and Mimi Rabson’s is Exhibit A: “I try to get past the limits of the definitions and get to the joy.”