Marie Howe
Marie Howe's second collection of poems, What the Living Do, has a unique place in contemporary letters. It is a widely read book that appeals to many different kinds of readers, often those who don't read much...
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Ann Arbor’s big band
A long time ago, jazz big bands traveled throughout the land; many of their sidemen were as notorious as movie stars, and the leaders were treated as nobility. The days of peripatetic musical Dukes and Counts are over, and...
Read MoreWhere’s Takács?
If they're the Takács Quartet, where's Takács? It's like this. When violinists Gabor Takács-Nagy and Károly Schranz, violist Gabor Ormai, and cellist András Fejér were...
Read MoreThe Yellow Room Gang
First of all, my wife did not want to go. We were new in town, still unpacking, wondering what life in a "small town" was going to be like after we'd spent eleven years in Chicago. "I've never heard of any...
Read MoreWhit Hill at the Ark
When I told Whit Hill I was writing an event review about her band, she started yelling into the phone, “Charmie, you can’t do that! You’re one of my closest friends. That is not appropriate.” She calmed...
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Being There
"I like to watch." This is the prophetic mantra uttered by a man named Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Sellers). When Gardiner is befriended by socialite Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine) after a minor traffic accident, he becomes...
Read MoreKitty Donohoe
Kitty Donohoe has been making songs in Michigan for decades now, and the state's a better place for it. She's a folk-style road warrior princess, crisscrossing both peninsulas, playing for big fat festivals and for tiny...
Read MoreMary Gaitskill
In the 1980s Mary Gaitskill exploded into the reading world with Bad Behavior, a collection of short stories that shocked and challenged what was left of complacent baby-boomer assumptions about our generation's social...
Read MorePhotographer Michael Kenna
Big things are happening in the little, lightly trafficked UMMA refuge at South U and Forest. After the mesmerizing Barsamian exhibit of whirling modern zoetrope contraptions and the enchanting and mournful Plains of Sweet...
Read MoreSmall Potatoes
There's a certain mode of between-song folk-music patter that Small Potatoes, the Illinois duo of Jacquie Manning and Rich Prezioso, exemplifies to the hilt. Call it midwestern, or Keilloresque — if you go out to hear...
Read MoreSt. Andrew’s Lessons & Carols
What’s the real meaning of Christmas? It’s Luke 2:10-14: “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born...
Read MoreTye Tribbett and G.A.
Tye Tribbett and G.A., an African American gospel choir from Camden, New Jersey, with a young and extremely energetic leader, is coming to Hill Auditorium on Saturday, December 9. Gospel music tends to fly under the media radar,...
Read MoreThe Irresistable Marcia Ball
You gotta love Marcia Ball. I defy anyone to resist this willowy Gulf Coast piano pounder and her blend of roots rock and soulful R&B. Her Royal Tallness presides upright, sidesaddle on the bench, crossed-leg bouncing time,...
Read MoreBrahms violin and horn sonatas
The leaves have turned. The skies are cloudy. The wind is from the north. The first frost is on the ground, and winter is in the air. It's what the old-timers called Brahms weather. Some composers know no season —...
Read MoreBroken Social Scene
Some songs by Broken Social Scene are mood music, edgy yet soothing, atmospheric postrock. Then the Canadian indie-rock collective hits you with cacophonies that are so packed with dueling sounds, so boisterous and brash,...
Read MoreThe Chenilles and the Symphony
What has 100-plus arms and 100-plus legs and sings in three-part harmony? Stumped? Need another clue? What bows and blows and bangs seventy-two instruments simultaneously and also sings silly, and not so silly, songs? Give up?...
Read MoreEscanaba in Love
Some admire Jeff Daniels for his rich and protean work as an actor. Others praise the vision and hard work he's lavished on the Purple Rose Theater, creating an arts network of national stature almost literally in the middle...
Read MoreJane Bunnett
Adversity has its rewards, and the unexpected is the essence of art. Jane Bunnett was studying classical piano in Toronto when tendinitis put an end to her concert hall dreams. Rather than abandon music, she took up the flute at...
Read MoreLaurie Lewis
If you haven't been to one of the bluegrass concerts mounted periodically at Saline High School, the show on Saturday, November 4, featuring singer, fiddler, and songwriter Laurie Lewis, offers the perfect chance. The...
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