Ellen Rowe 2011
“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” With all due respect to George Bernard Shaw, that’s a sound-bite maxim–sounds good, until you think about it. Then, it’s easy to come up with many more...
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U-M Baseball
I feel sorry for the U-M baseball team. By the time winter’s really, finally over, the Wolverines’ season is finished. A decade or so ago, I went to Ray Fisher Stadium on Mother’s Day to see the final home game...
Read MoreThe Paul Keller Orchestra
It is customary to write about a successful large jazz ensemble by asking the rhetorical question “Who says the big bands are dead?” But the sad truth is that the steadily touring big bands are indeed gone forever....
Read MorePassport reviewed
Running a restaurant is hard work. The product is perishable, the work force often uneven, the customers unpredictable. The owners can only hope that their chosen concept, menu, and decor fit the public’s current mood and...
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Lewis Black
I first saw Lewis Black at the Michigan Theater several years ago (he’s back there on February 19). He gave what seemed to be a rambling monologue that began with jokes about the Old Testament and the plight of Jews,...
Read MoreRagtime Revue
The prime root of American roots music is ragtime. The love child of Sousa’s marches and African Americans’ syncopations, ragtime preceded jazz and was there at the birth of the blues. And though jazz and blues...
Read MoreMahanthappa and Iyer
At the very essence of jazz there is a seismograph that responds to the changing social fabric of America. This was perhaps best encapsulated in the title of Sidney Finkelstein’s book Jazz, A People’s Music,...
Read MoreThe Kruger Brothers
The Kruger Brothers, Jens and Uwe, first heard American roots music when their father brought folk records home to Switzerland from his business trips. They struck out on their own as street musicians, Jens on banjo and Uwe on...
Read MoreEve’s blooming riot
As a fan of Eve Aronoff’s elegant eponymous restaurant in Kerrytown, I kept an eager eye on her casual new place, Frita Batidos, during months of construction delays. Peering through gaps in the brown-papered windows on...
Read MoreLastingness
Nicholas Delbanco has been in Ann Arbor for almost thirty years now, first brought in as director during the early days of the U-M MFA program in creative writing, now universally recognized as one of the top three such programs...
Read MoreBurns Park Players
Twenty-some years ago, a group of Burns Park Elementary parents decided to put on a show to raise some money. Did no one tell them art is not what you do to raise money? Hello! Who put the non in nonprofit? The arts,...
Read MoreCozy without coffee
TeaHaus, the purveyor of bulk teas on Fourth Avenue, recently pushed through a wall to add a distinctive eatery. TeaHaus’s new parlor is pleasantly decorated with IKEA-esque furniture and antique accessories, but the big...
Read MoreCampbell McGrath
American artists of all kinds have attempted from time to time to take on the whole sprawl of the continent and our national history upon it. It is surprising that more have not tried to work with the Lewis and Clark Expedition,...
Read MoreBeyond Apples
In the last couple of years, the offerings have increased enormously at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. While some farmers have always carried a few prepared items—jams, baked goods, cider—to augment their plant, vegetable, fruit,...
Read MorePhil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings
Jim Dapogny is well known to music lovers all over the globe for his deep knowledge of early jazz, for his piano playing, and for his arranging skills. In addition to his many other projects, he has been co-leading Phil...
Read MoreMarion Hayden’s Detroit Legacy
Detroit’s rich musical heritage is often celebrated in print, in performance, and in film. The pleasures of Motown, the earlier jazz histories, as well as the rhythm and blues scene of the Motor City have been justly...
Read MoreSimon Dybbroe Møller
Like a lot of other people, I often find contemporary installation art to be groan inducing. What is meant to be a profound comment on some aspect of global society or a critique of traditional aesthetics all too often fails to...
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