Summer Music Moves Goes Outside, Baltimore Jazz Conference Goes Virtual, The Calendar Stays Online, and The Beat Goes On
It goes without saying that 2020 has been a very tough year, for artists struggling to make a living, for venues struggling to stay in business, and for individuals struggling to stay healthy and to stay connected in a time of social distance and stay-at-home orders. | Read more>>
This album, inspired by the old synagogue that was once home to Mishkan Israel congregation and is now occupied by a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation, reflects on “the inevitability of change, evolution, transformation,” as Mirkin puts it. The seven tunes on the album traverse cultures with various grooves and styles that often switch within a tune. | Read more>>
In this odd season of pandemic-induced social distancing and assorted virtual encounters– “Zoom” world– there’s a palpable longing for the familiarity of group encounters, at a restaurant, a stadium, a church or, perhaps, a favorite jazz venue. Fortunately for those with an ear for jazz, recorded music provides a stopgap, recreating the sound if not the camaraderie of a jazz concert. | Read more>>
One of the great pleasures I take in being a participant in Baltimore’s jazz community is bearing witness to the endless stream of original and innovative projects produced by Baltimore’s exceptionally talented local musicians. Baltimore, and the Maryland-DC-Virginia area, in general, continue to be a remarkably consistent fertile ground for new musical ideas, easily equal to cities like New York, Philadelphia and Chicago . | Read more>>
The dark Sunday. We all know it. That first one back in standard time.
It’s a very rainy day-after-Halloween, and the Ravens lost a tough one to the Steelers to top it off. The gloom descends. To bury one’s head in a pile of blues as we stare down the barrel of another cold dark winter? | Read more>>