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Opera Album Review: A Terrific Recording of a Handel Pathbreaker — Powered by a Rock-Star Mezzo-Soprano

September 28, 2020
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Agrippina (1709), an enormous hit at the Met this past season, proves, by turns, gripping, sardonic, and exquisite.

Film Review: “Cuties” — Girls Just Wanna Have Smartphones

September 26, 2020
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The real problem is the obsessive engagement with social media platforms that encourages attention-seeking behavior, and rewards it.

Jazz Remembrance: Ira Sullivan

September 26, 2020
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In no way was the recognition that Ira Sullivan received commensurate with his skill.

Folk Album Review: Tyler Childers’s “Long Violent History” – An Appalachian Murder Ballad for Breonna Taylor

September 26, 2020
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The Kentuckian’s message is one of both heritage and empathy — and the necessity of both.

Theater Commentary: Boston Stages — Running from Reality?

September 25, 2020
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Are our theaters indifferent, craven, or complicit? Take your pick.

Jazz Album Review: “Monk: Palo Alto” — An Unlikely but Welcome Discovery

September 25, 2020
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This 1969 concert by the Thelonious Monk Quartet was produced by a high school student and recorded by his school’s janitor. It presents this particular group at its optimistic best.

Arts Commentary: “The Death of the Artist” — Culture Workers Unite!

September 24, 2020
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The shared baseline of these conversations is that there are no good old days to go back to. If the cultural sector in the United States returns to the ways things were organized in February, 2020, with all the inequity and unsustainability that implies, we will have failed.

Jazz Album Reviews: Mesmerized By Vinyl — Newvelle, Louis Armstrong, and Stan Getz

September 24, 2020
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Playing vinyl involves holding something in your hand, putting a needle down and, at least on my high end system, listening to sound quality that can mesmerize.

Jazz Remembrance: The Lasting, Complex Legacy of John Coltrane

September 23, 2020
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Of all the musicians who were harbingers of change, none has had the long-term influence on young musicians that John Coltrane has had.

Jazz Album Review: “Artemis” — Inter-generational Jazz That Expands the Tradition

September 23, 2020
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This is state-of-the art modern jazz, alternately hard swinging, contemplative, commercial, and abstract.

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