Tiempo Libre
It’s Friday night and you need to cut loose, so you head for Main St., climb the stairs to the Ark, and settle in for an evening with the Miami-based Afro-Cuban dance band Tiempo Libre. Twenty minutes into the set you...
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The Skateboard Park, Seen from Afar
Marty Walker’s May cover of the Ann Arbor Skatepark received many warm responses, including a video showing the same skaters in action (see our Facebook page for a link). It also inspired poet, Observer reviewer, and park...
Read MoreMichael Franti
Lanky, muscular, tattooed, barefoot, and dreadlocked, the poet crossing to center stage with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder stands six-foot-six and appears even taller. Extending both arms as if to embrace his...
Read MoreBebel Gilberto
Daughter of bossa nova pioneer Joao Gilberto and Brazilian vocalist Miucha, stepdaughter of “The Girl from Ipanema” vocalist Astrud Gilberto, and niece of the socially progressive poet and songwriter Chico Buarque,...
Read MoreRebecca Makkai
I started seeing Rebecca Makkai’s short stories a few years ago. They’d pop up in some of the finer literary journals (including our own Michigan Quarterly Review) and then get reprinted with amazing regularity in...
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A Night with the Polyonymous Watusies
It was a snowy January night back in 1984 when I first encountered the Watusies. Singer Dan Mulholland, fresh from a long stint with the popular Urbations, had recruited keyboardist Fred Klein and guitarist Chris Casello (and...
Read MoreElizabeth Schwartz
I don’t “presearch” art exhibits. No site checking. No bios. I want fresh eyes, a mind uncluttered by prejudice, and an openness to the art even if it’s not on my list of favorite styles.That objective...
Read MoreRedbud’s Luna Gale
Luna Gale opens with several brisk scenes featuring a social worker, a grandmother, and a couple of parents whose youth and inexperience is signaled by the fact that they’ve named their wee one Luna Gale. “Weird...
Read MoreSkeeter Shelton
Detroit has long been a bebop jazz town. During the 1950s, the high schools, street academies, and jazz clubs nurtured musicians such as pianists Barry Harris and Tommy Flanagan, trombonist Curtis Fuller, bassists Doug Watkins...
Read MoreThe Corn Potato String Band
I heard a duo formation of the Corn Potato String Band, “the ears and eyes of America,” one Friday in February over happy hour at PJ’s Lager House in Detroit. I had been waiting for years, decades even, for...
Read MoreXu Weixin: Momumental Portraits
Stark and soft. Huge yet intimate. Victim, villain. Dry facts, bloody horror. These contrasts make seeing Xu Weixin: Monumental Portraits at the University of Michigan Museum of Art a skin-crawling, soul-deepening experience. It...
Read MoreJennifer Goltz
The human voice is arguably the most versatile of all musical instruments. It is perhaps the only one capable, whether coupled with words or not, of both expressing and eliciting all emotions–ones for which we have names...
Read MoreChris McCormick
A few decades ago I spent a couple of hours in the Antelope Valley, up in the northern part of Los Angeles County. Those California counties seem as big as medium-sized European countries, and once you’re in the Antelope...
Read MoreShe-Bop and the Riff Raff
You could accuse She-Bop and the Riff Raff of being just another cover band, or a mere Sixties-style girl group throwback, but the group is considerably savvier and more stylistically adept than that. With vocalists Robin...
Read MoreJennifer Burd & Laszlo Slomovits
One of the joys of living in Ann Arbor for a few decades has been watching local artists try new things and play around in cool ways. I first heard of Jennifer Burd when she published a moving portrayal of the homeless...
Read MoreLocal Voices
Ann Arbor is well represented in season 10 of The Voice, NBC’s popular singing contest, with competitors Laith Al-Saadi, Daniel Passino, and Jonathan Bach all currently calling the city home.”It’s pretty...
Read MoreGrazyna Auguscik & Jaroslaw Bester
Jazz has had a long history in Poland. Banned in the 1950s by the Communist government, it acquired a special patina of rebellion against authority, but was ironically somewhat shackled by its rigid imitation of American models....
Read MoreAlbert Kahn: Under Construction
The photography exhibit Albert Kahn: Under Construction, on display at the U-M Museum of Art, raises some unusual issues of authorship and artistry. Kahn, the Detroit-based architect of iconic structures like Detroit’s...
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