Shortly after gaining independence from Russia in 1991, Estonia ditched socialism and embraced capitalism. The result was a balanced budget, no public debt, and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Perhaps not...
Read MoreAccounts of Eugene Chadbourne’s music usually state in one way or another that it’s impossible to predict what will happen during his shows. While this is indeed noteworthy in a calculating world, it’s not...
Read MoreWhether Yiddish is a dead language or reviving has been an ongoing source of debate ever since Hitler murdered most of its European practitioners, and its American speakers, of whom there were many even into the 1940s and 1950s,...
Read MorePieces of women peek out from behind shadows, prison bars, and maximum-security doors in the current collection of Jane Atwood’s photographs at the Slusser Gallery. Taken throughout the 1990s in prisons from Arizona to the...
Read MoreFor many the tenor saxophone is the totemic instrument of mainstream jazz, and Joe Lovano is one of its prime high priests. Born in Cleveland into a family that worshipped music, he was largely self taught, although mentored by...
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I think I want to play the bassoon. Really, really well. I know, everyone says it’s one of the hardest instruments to play, but I figure if I make a plan and stick to it—you know, maybe start with some DVDs, take some...
Read MoreThe narrator of Nicholas Delbanco’s big new historical novel, The Count of Concord, tells us near the end of it “that Franklin Roosevelt said the three most interesting men, the three most impressive minds in our...
Read MoreTwo years ago, German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter told Musical America she planned to stop performing “when I reach my forty-fifth birthday,” that is, in June 2008. Shortly afterward, however, she told the...
Read MoreThere are currently two disparate trends in the practice of jazz and improvised music in our country. One is firmly committed to maintaining a strictly defined tradition and therefore requires long apprenticeship, now mainly...
Read MoreThe Bellamy Brothers first came on the scene in 1975 with a pleasant if absolutely white-bread country-pop hit called “Let Your Love Flow.” The kind of music they made was soon redefined as country, and for most of...
Read MoreBack in the 1980s, Amy Hempel became famous for one extraordinary short story, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried.” In it the narrator visits a friend who is in the last stages of cancer, and the two women...
Read MoreThere are singers, and there are people with beautiful voices. The two are by no means mutually exclusive, but neither do they always coexist. Of course, there are also plenty of successful so-called singers—who aren’t—and...
Read MoreRodney Crowell got his start in the 1970s as a member of Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band, a key point of departure for the artistically ambitious side of contemporary country music. In Nashville he was best known for a while as...
Read MoreI’m confused about Counter Cosby. Are they musical geniuses or are they impaired in some way? It’s hard to tell.When I saw them perform last winter at TC’s Speakeasy, they actually were impaired. They played...
Read MoreVisitors to the Ypsilanti Historical Museum on North Huron Street enter a lovely furnished 1860s Italianate home with gracious high-ceilinged rooms. I never go there without wishing I could move in (or at least throw a party...
Read MoreWhen Malcolm Tulip is billed as actor, director, and playwright, you can bet that you're in for a night of experimental and absurdist stagecraft. In his latest show at the Performance Network, The Day Everything Went Wrong,...
Read MoreRepetition and nostalgia are among the dominating principles of commercial culture. Hard-of-hearing rockers gather together after many years to tour, reprising their early hits, and many jazz musicians who find some modicum of...
Read MoreA Hard Lessons live show is a fierce and amazing thing to behold. This trio of Detroit twenty-somethings merges power pop, blues chords, soulful harmonizing, and straight-up rock 'n' roll, and delivers it with a...
Read More"Cool!" I said as I approached an interactive installation piece in the dark back room at Gallery Project. I cranked a wheel, and a short humanoid sculpture — with simple metal-frame legs, white baby shoes, and a...
Read MoreLet's start by acknowledging the elephant in the coffeehouse. When you think of Canadian folk musician Garnet Rogers, who will be at the Ark on Sunday, September 14, you can't help thinking also of his brother, Stan. The...
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