Steve Elman

Music Review/Commentary: Gunther Schuller’s Gift of Giving – Boston Conservatory’s New Music Festival III

December 5, 2011
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Boston Conservatory’s New Music Festival is inspiring a series of commentaries from Fuse Jazz Critic Steve Elman. Here is his third installment, which focuses on Gunther Schuller, who has inspired at least four generations of artists and revitalized a venerable institution of higher musical learning.

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Music Review/Commentary: The Fringe in Context — Boston Conservatory’s New Music Festival II

December 4, 2011
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Boston Conservatory’s New Music Festival is inspiring a series of critical and speculative commentaries from Fuse Jazz Critic Steve Elman. Here is the second, which focuses on The Fringe and some of the qualities that make the trio special in the world of jazz.

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Music Review / Commentary: A Dispatch from the Border

December 4, 2011
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Boston Conservatory’s New Music Festival is inspiring a series of critical and speculative commentaries from Fuse Jazz Critic Steve Elman. Here is the first.

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Jazz Concert Review: Two Paths Converge Again — Sheila Jordan and Steve Kuhn

November 21, 2011
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The Steve Kuhn – Sheila Jordan partnership has been one of the luckiest things ever to happen to either of them, or for us as listeners.

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Music Feature: Playing For the Planet

November 14, 2011
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In effect, “Playing for the Planet” is an open-ended floating world music festival featuring performers from New England.

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Judicial Review # 6: “Divine Sparks” (Boston Jewish Music Festival Concert at Berklee): How Hot a Flame?

April 6, 2011
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What is a Judicial Review? It is a fresh approach to creating a conversational, critical space about the arts and culture. This is our sixth session, this time a discussion about the concert “Divine Sparks,” a provocative attempt to explore how Jewish cantorial music and other kinds of religious song can spark musical improvisation and…

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Book Review: Time, Beautiful and Cruel — The Story of Composer George Russell

March 23, 2011
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In the best of all possible worlds, Duncan Heining’s biography will be the cornerstone of the edifice that time will erect to the memory of George Russell and his gift to music. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen. In some ways, because of the vagaries of the book business, it’s up…

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Jazz Review: Two Marvelous for Words — Fred Hersch and Jason Moran

March 11, 2011
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I cite the repertoire only to give you a sense of the breadth of the material Jason Moran and Fred Hersch built on. The glory of the evening was the complete integration of the two pianists’ musical thought.

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Jazz Concert Review: BANN’s Likely Stories

February 4, 2011
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There’s something special going on among the four musicians in BANN that is very promising—something that makes me want to see the band live. I hope one of our local bookers picks up on them soon, so I don’t have to go to New York City to do so. As You Like by BANN [Seamus…

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Book Review: Why Jazz? How Now?

January 31, 2011
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People who love jazz should read jazz history books periodically, and Kevin Whitehead, jazz critic on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, has done a great service in giving us a What, Who, Where, and When book with insight and ingenuity.

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