Steve Elman

Concert Review: Hudson at the Berklee Performance Center

October 12, 2017
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It’s clear these four musicians love playing together. As long as the magic lasts, it’s well worth your hearing.

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CD Reviews: Ghost Train Orchestra’s Book of Rhapsodies, Vol. II” and Jane Ira Bloom’s “Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson” – Second Thoughts

October 5, 2017
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In two new releases, Jane Ira Bloom and Brian Carpenter complete their work on self-defined projects that are tonics for a time of trouble.

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Jazz CD Reviews: Freedom Now — Tetraptych’s “Tetraptych” and The Alchemists’ “Journey to the East”

August 30, 2017
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If you want to know how exquisitely intuition and structure can be balanced, you could hardly do better than to hear these two new discs.

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Jazz CD Reviews: Laszlo Gardony: “Serious Play”; Tim Ray: “Windows”; Yoko Miwa: “Pathways”

July 23, 2017
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These three area pianists offer up a mini-festival of satisfying keyboard music.

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Jazz Review: Thelonious Monk’s: “Les liaisons dangereuses 1960” – Times Retrieved

July 11, 2017
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But, good as the support is, it’s all about Thelonious Monk, who is in superlative form throughout.

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Commentary and Preview: The Shrinking Scene v. Jazz Week and the Thelonious Monkfish Jazz Festival

April 22, 2017
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I try to be optimistic, but it’s hard not to observe that the jazz club scene in eastern Massachusetts is worse than it’s been in decades.

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Jazz Review: Vijay Iyer Sextet at Sanders Theater — Speak, Memory

March 13, 2017
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This is music that says things that cannot be said any other way, music that cannot wear its heart on its sleeve.

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Book Review and Commentary: Albert Murray’s Non-fiction – A Balm in Columbia

February 21, 2017
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At his best, Albert Murray is a thinker passionately in love with thinking, a virtuoso of verbal music, an American to his core.

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A Compendium of Consolations: The Words of Albert Murray

February 21, 2017
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“Art . . . is . . . fundamental equipment for existence on human terms.” — Albert Murray

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Jazz Gift Recommendations: The Test of Time, 2016

December 18, 2016
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I think any one of these releases would be received gratefully by a person who listens with both ears.

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