2008 June

Several days after hearing the OffRamps play at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti, I couldn't get the refrain of one of their songs out of my head: "You said you were sorry, but that really doesn't make it all...

I first encountered the music of Xiao Dong Wei two years ago, on a beautiful June morning. I'd ridden my bike down to the end of Maple Road to find Huron River Drive all blocked off with traffic cones. I stopped. No cars, no...

A few years ago Miles Harvey hit it big with his nonfiction book The Island of Lost Maps, which not only told a fascinating story about a thief who cut maps from rare old books housed in North America's best libraries, but...

Lizz Wright grew up singing gospel music in the church of her minister father in south Georgia's Lowndes County. She studied voice at Georgia State University in Atlanta, at the New School in New York, and in Vancouver,...

Who is Mandy Patinkin? The answer depends on whom you talk to. For those who watch television, he's Jeffrey Geiger in Chicago Hope and Jason Gideon in Criminal Minds. For those who go to the movies, he's Iñigo...

Even though no one has ever come up with a precise definition of the word jazz, many of its most dedicated lovers jealously guard its borders, often to the exclusion of any other music. Paradoxically, whatever jazz is, it is...