Music

Jazz Album Reviews: Two Remarkable Duets — Charlie Haden/Jim Hall, Kenny Barron/Dave Holland

November 3, 2014
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Jim Hall sounds at his best on these newly issued duets. So does Charlie Haden, whose plangent sound has rarely, if ever, been captured so well.

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Book Review: “Stealing All Transmissions” — How The Clash Conquered America

November 3, 2014
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Stealing All Transmissions is slim, but nearly every page is filled with insight and originality.

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Jazz Remembrance: You Don’t Know Jack—From Glasgow to New York

November 2, 2014
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“With Cream I and Ginger could play free jazz as a rhythm section, while Eric played the Ornette Coleman role. However, we didn’t tell Eric that!”

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Concert Review: New England Philharmonic’s “Shall We Dance?”

October 27, 2014
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Quibbles about some characteristics of the new pieces aside, hats off to Richard Pittman and the New England Philharmonic for daring to present a program like this..

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Fuse Music Interview: Cold Specks — The Queen of Doom Soul

October 27, 2014
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Neuroplasticity is a bit more fleshed-out than its predecessor, but the album retains ample amounts of the slow to mid-tempo spookiness that Al Spx calls “doom soul.”

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Album Review: “Soused” — Scott Walker and Sunn O))) Take a Bold Excursion into the Impossible

October 26, 2014
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Soused is such an impressive album because of its attempt to reconcile opposing aesthetic ends.

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Opera Review: Isango Ensemble’s “The Magic Flute” — Not Your Usual Take on Mozart

October 24, 2014
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Isango’s Magic Flute/ Impempe Yomlingo is lit by flashes of brilliance. Most can be traced directly to Mandisi Dyantyis’ reorchestration of Mozart’s orchestral score for an ensemble of marimbas.

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Rock CD Review: Canadian Pop Rockers Sloan Share the “Commonwealth”

October 24, 2014
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So how do four young guys successfully build upon two masterworks while simultaneously facing possible enervation due to record label woes and botched stateside promotion?

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Music Commentary: “I’ve neither seen nor heard it, but I don’t like it. (And neither should you.)”: “The Death of Klinghoffer” Meets the Know-Nothing Protest

October 23, 2014
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What we seem to have here is one of the glories of our democracy in action: the blind leading the oblivious; aping distortions and downright falsehoods about the opera.

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Classical Concert Review: Thierry Fischer Conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra

October 22, 2014
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As they often do in repertoire that doesn’t turn up too frequently, the orchestra responded to the music with heightened sensitivity and attention to detail.

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