Sep 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
The modern jazz piano tradition has a number of strands. Most common is the lineage of Bud Powell, who so spectacularly adopted the fleet language of bebop to the keyboard. Others, such as Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols,...
Read MoreSep 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
There's a picture of a wolf on the back panel of Steppin' in It's second CD, Last Winter in the Copper Country, a wolf walking silently through a winter landscape. And it's an apt image. Since stepping into...
Read MoreSep 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Stone Reader is a compelling documentary of filmmaker Mark Moskowitz's passionate search for Dow Mossman, an author who effectively disappeared for thirty years after publishing his only novel, The Stones of Summer, in 1972....
Read MoreAug 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Singer-songwriter Annie Capps is heir to the long history of folk music as a medium for social commentary. At the same time, she is clearly a folksinger for the twenty-first century, using her art to explore the psychology of...
Read MoreAug 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit is about as frothy as theater gets. It's 1930s baronial Scotland. People dress for dinner and drape themselves languidly over the furniture drawling things like "Anyone can write books,...
Read MoreAug 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Michael Cooney is well into his fifth decade playing music professionally, and he has appeared at the Ark — where he returns on Friday, August 1 — in every one of those decades. Along the way, he's also played at...
Read MoreAug 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
"He drove around all day looking for a rubber ducky," art grad student Todd Cashbaugh tells me in the airy Robbins Gallery in North Campus's Art and Architecture Building. "It was so frustrating," agrees...
Read MoreAug 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Before I picked up on his amazingly haunting new CD, Truth Is Not Fiction, my only contact with blues artist Otis Taylor was a brief chorus or two I managed to catch on various WEMU blues shows. His voice reminded me in a way of...
Read MoreJul 15, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Marcia Ball has been known for blues songs based on her sharp, precise piano playing — party music for those who enjoy watching the piano player as much as dancing. But her latest release, So Many Rivers, is something else...
Read MoreJul 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
I must admit that I changed out of my jammies and drove to Leopold Bros. at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday because I was broke. Not because I knew anything about the cult groove band Deep Space Six. Not because I wanted to have a beer...
Read MoreJul 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Codirected by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, the 2002 documentary Horns and Halos focuses on the struggle of biographer Jim Hatfield and publisher Sander Hicks to republish and market the first unauthorized biography of...
Read MoreJul 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Solo jazz piano is a quirky art. The instrument is obviously self sufficient, and pianists playing alone have been at the heart of jazz, from Storyville cathouses and Harlem rent parties to Art Tatum and Cecil Taylor. Ray Bryant...
Read MoreJul 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
A steady stream of vintage cars converged onto Main Street at William, the entrance to Rolling Sculpture. When you get a bunch of old cars idling in traffic, one thing almost always happens: engines overheat. One car burped out...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
It's the morning of the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run, and I wonder how I will do. Did I train enough? Will I run better than last year? How will I place in my new age group, women 60-64? At Dexter Middle School, hundreds of runners...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Both pickers and lovers of good harmony singing will be satisfied when the Gibson Brothers open for Phillips, Grier, & Flinner at the Ark on Saturday, June 7. Brother duets have a long tradition in country music, and these...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
I sometimes worry that the professionalization of creative writing is going to kill the writing of books, making them all safe and expected and easy to categorize as something called "good writing." Luckily, the...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Maybe you know that seemingly middle-of-the-road Saline has been a fertile place for fiddle music lately. Maybe you've noticed that there are Celtic musicians in the bars downtown several nights a week, and that a lot of...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
Like any respectable baseball dilettante, I can recite my favorite ballparks, classic and neoclassic (Dodger Stadium and Camden Yards, respectively); name the best World Series team (the 1984 Tigers, of course); and advance my...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
It was an executive producer of Nonesuch records who suggested that violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Sergio and Odair Assad form a trio. And if his idea of joining the fiery violinist who wails on her instrument with...
Read MoreJun 1, 2003 | Event Reviews, Uncategorized |
There's only one thing you need to know about G. W. Pabst's 1928 film Pandora's Box: Louise Brooks. Brooks, who snatched the title role of Lulu from Marlene Dietrich, is astounding. Her androgynous appearance,...
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