Music

Listening During Covid, Part 12: Adventures in Ethnic and National Diversity

June 5, 2022
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I am honestly puzzled by the casualness or, at times, ferocity with which some people nowadays reject classical music as inherently narrow or elitist.

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Festival Review: Solid Sound 2022 — Fun For All

June 2, 2022
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Solid Sound is like a family picnic for stylistically open-minded musicians and fans alike within the brick-mill infrastructure of MASS MoCA.

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Album Review: Drummer Bill Bruford’s “Making a Song and Dance” — Adventures Galore

May 31, 2022
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Legendary percussionist Bill Bruford’s recorded output reveals him to be a restless innovator who went from one band to another so he could learn more about his instrument and about himself as a musician.

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Rock Album Review: The Tedeschi Trucks Band’s “I Am The Moon” — Nothing If Not Ambitious

May 30, 2022
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Crescent gives us the first five songs of the I Am The Moon suite and runs about 35 minutes. Let me rephrase that: it runs about 35 perfect minutes of music.

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Concert Review: The 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — The Blessed Return of Musical Serendipity

May 29, 2022
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We’d returned to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. We’d ridden a paddle-wheeler on the Mississippi River. It was good to be back, and why we’ll go back every chance we get: to life.

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Album Review: William Bolcom’s Complete Rags — Fantastically Inventive and Rigorous

May 28, 2022
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This is the definitive recording of William Bolcom’s rags, complete or excerpted: a triumph for the pianist and the composer – as well as a grandly spirited, accessible, inventive journey for any who care to join them on it.

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Album Review: Keb’ Mo’s “Good to Be…” — Too Contented

May 27, 2022
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At his best — and there are indeed moments of that here — Keb’ Mo’ is a genre-bender who brings new listeners to blues, folk, and smooth soul music.

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Listening During Covid, Part 11: Making Classical Music New in All Kinds of Ways

May 26, 2022
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Two exquisite sopranos bring us refreshing songs, arias, and cantatas; and a noted Broadway composer and a remarkable Black librettist offer a searing opera about police brutality.

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Pop Album Review: Florence + The Machine’s “Dance Fever” – Inside the Artist’s Mind

May 26, 2022
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Dance Fever is one of the few pandemic-themed artworks that doesn’t feel contrived — it is specific about the value of music to the individual and by extension to the community.

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Classical Album Review: Orion Weiss’s “Arc 1” — Crafting a Strong Sense of Impending Doom

May 22, 2022
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The album serves up exceptional stuff, even if the program’s a touch macabre and pianist Orion Weiss’s well-written liner notes make uncomfortable connections between the world of pre-World War 1 Europe and our own pandemic-riddled age.

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