Jazz

Music Commentary: Looking for the Real at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

May 15, 2014
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Mostly, I’m looking for that most elusive and hard-to-define quality — authenticity.

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Jazz Week 2014: Wall-to-Wall Jazz with No Walls

April 24, 2014
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Jazz Week 2014′s theme of “No Walls: A salute to the power of jazz to bring people together” emphasizes the place of jazz on the world stage.

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Jazz Review: Jimmy Giuffre — Through the Lens of Dave Douglas and Riverside

April 21, 2014
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In moments like these, the band Riverside captures the Jimmy Giuffre ideals of sonority and counterpoint — where even the drums act as another complementary linear voice.

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Music Interview: Pianist Jason Moran Plugs into the Powerhouse, Fats Waller

April 1, 2014
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“I love Fats Waller. Fats Waller will always be here because he is simply that magnetic a person(a).”

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Jazz Review: The Vijay Iyer Trio and Poet Robert Pinsky Create POEMJAZZ

March 16, 2014
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The first part of the evening worked: Robert Pinsky was a good enough actor, his poetry was sufficiently transparent, and Vijay Iyer proved to be a brilliant accompanist.

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Concert Review: NEC Winds Play Mingus, Schuller, Babbitt (and More)

March 12, 2014
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The five compositions and one de facto suite played at the NEC Winds and Winds Ensemble performance spoke with six different voices and carried six different messages.

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Concert Review: Jack DeJohnette’s Spring Quartet — Creative Flexibility Times Four

March 8, 2014
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The point of the Spring Quartet, one assumes, is to showcase its four multi-talented members, particularly their talents as composers.

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Music Review: On Quatuor Ébène’s program — Mozart, Bartók and “Pulp Fiction.”

March 5, 2014
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Quatuor Ébène burst into song. And I think it’s safe to say singing of any kind is almost never heard at a strings-only concert.

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Music Preview: A Natural Transition for Singer Mili Bermejo

February 17, 2014
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“Music just comes, you know? You’re harvesting potatoes, and something happens and you have to put it immediately on paper.”

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Music Preview: Navigating the Headwaters of the Third Stream

February 12, 2014
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NEC is closed tonight but much of the repertoire on this program is also scheduled for a concert on March 6.

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