Concert Reviews

Pianist Aaron Hill threw himself a great birthday party concert at Terra Café on April 28th. 2025. A sizeable crowd of boisterously appreciative listeners enjoyed Terra’s Jamaican-style soul food, while Hill played a double keyboard, with Anthony “Blue” Jenkins on a deep-throated electric bass and a very spirited Devron “Ace” Dennis on drums. | Read more>> Read More

Guitarist Charlie Ballentine’s group at the Hemingway Room on April 18, 2025 tugged at the audience’s heartstrings in a way that few artists with a jazz background achieve. The band’s sound was hard-driving, layered, and virtuosic, combining jazz improv and melody with a direct and song-based sensibility. | Read more>> Read More

[Photo: Left to Right: Lafayette Gilchrist (piano); Brandon Woody (Trumpet): Leo Maxey (trumpet): Christian Hizon (trombone); Gregory Thompkins (tenor sax); Shaquim Muldrow (tenor sax).] On Sunday, May 18, as part of its year-long 50th Anniversary celebration, Reservoir Hill’s Beth Am Synagogue gifted Baltimore City with a blazing concert by Lafayette Gilchrist and the New Volcanoes, along with guest Eze Jackson, a rapper, journalist, and educator. | Read more>> Read More

[Photo by Liz Fixsen. Left to right: Rocky Shapiro, Rayah Thomas, Keller Remington, Tim Green, Jake Askarinam] Since fall of 2024, An die MusiK, one of Baltimore’s premiere jazz venues, has been collaborating with the jazz studies program at Peabody Institute with a series called “Hittin’ with the Youngins,” a spin-off of the Jazz Composers Forum initiated by Peabody’s director of jazz studies Sean Jones. | Read more>> Read More

Guitarist Charlie Ballentine’s group at the Hemingway Room on April 18 tugged at the audience’s heartstrings in a way that few artists with a jazz background achieve. The band’s sound was hard-driving, layered, and virtuosic, combining jazz improv and melody with a direct and song-based sensibility. | Read more>> Read More