Brewery Birthday Bash
by | Jan 20, 2025 1:16 pm | Comments (0)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Johnny Kraszewski, king for the day.
Ruling over the taps and the raffle tickets: King John “Johnny” Kraszewski.
Arts & Culture
Synchronicity Set
by | Jan 20, 2025 9:31 am | Comments (1)
Etai Smotrich-Barr Photo
Eneji Alunbe and Dyland Rowland performing at Three Sheets.
The Clutchtet
Three Sheets
Jan. 17, 2025
Elm Street was awash Friday night in the warm sounds of “The Clutchtet,” a jazz piano trio that is a semi-regular feature of the bandstand at Three Sheets.
From The Banks Of God's River
by | Jan 20, 2025 7:15 am | Comments (0)
God's Kiss, 2021
In the Dark Night, 2021
Spirited Franciscan Inspired Quotes
Clare Gallery
St. Patrick – St. Anthony Church
Hartford
January 17, 2025
I once locked myself in a dark closet and said I was going to pray there until I finally heard the voice of God. Instead, my mother found me asleep, sweating underneath a blanket a few hours later. I’ve still never heard the voice of God, although I feel like I’ve seen the banks of God’s river every now and again.
I thought of my experience with faith when I views “In The Dark Night,” one of the pieces on display at my favorite gallery, the Clare Gallery at St. Patrick – St. Anthony Church in Hartford.
Despite the title, the image is quite bright and colorful. I thought that the streaks of light blue, white and aquamarine represented a flame at first, burning eternally as a representation of faith. But when I read the text, the image of a river became clear.
Blues Warmed Up
by | Jan 17, 2025 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Jamil Ragland Photo
Brandt Taylor performs at the Old State House Food Court as part of the Winter Blues concert series
Brandt Taylor
Connecticut Old State House Food Court
Hartford
Jan. 16, 2025
The blues is a fascinating art form, because its conventions point to suffering and pain; it is called the “blues,” after all. But the individual styles of the artists who perform it draw out different emotions for the audience. While listening to Brandt Taylor, a regular on the state blues circuit, performing at the The Winter Blues series at the Connecticut Old State House Food Court, I felt a sense of longing in his music that gave the requisite bluesy emotional anchor, but with joyful and bright singing.
"Eden" Comes To Yale Rep
by | Jan 16, 2025 4:38 pm | Comments (0)
For a few weeks, New Haveners will be able to go downtown and travel to New York City’s 1927 San Juan Hill, where a pair of star-crossed lovers suffer the consequences of heightened tensions between Black Americans and Caribbean immigrants.
Everything Is Just Enough
by | Jan 15, 2025 12:07 pm | Comments (0)
Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All at Once
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Cinestudio
Trinity College
Hartford
Jan. 14, 2025
I never got the chance to see Everything Everywhere All at Once, the 2022 winner of the Oscar for Best Picture. It also won awards for several of the actors, so its reputation has only grown since then.
How To Find Events in New Haven: A Primer
by | Jan 15, 2025 9:28 am | Comments (2)
Karen Ponzio Photos
The New Haven outernet: Old-school flyers for events around town, past and present.
In the eight years that I have been reporting on arts and culture for the Independent, I have heard one question more than any other: “How do you find out about all of these events in New Haven?”
Aside from sources that are unique to news outlets, such as press releases, there are a plethora of ways to seek out what is happening in the way of music, theater, visual art, literature, and all the other ways the city has to entertain you. If this is something you have an interest in, please read on.
Continue reading ‘How To Find Events in New Haven: A Primer’
Artists Have The Magic Touch
by | Jan 14, 2025 9:30 am | Comments (0)
The tower is made of small wooden pieces. But as assembled on the floor of Kehler Liddell Gallery, it echoes natural forms, created by ants or bees. Not far away, an abstract piece reveals itself to involve not just pigment, but mirrors, so that the piece changes from every angle you look at it. Not far away, a small sculpture of a figurine in a sled is made, partly, from the shape of a gas mask.
Original Jazz Compositions Shine at Jazzy's
by | Jan 13, 2025 12:46 pm | Comments (0)
Arthur Delot-Velain Photo
Wes Lewis, composer of "Dimensionality Reduction," performing Saturday night at Jazzy's.
High up the neck, by the body of the bass, there was nowhere left to go. The notes rose with the tension until they couldn’t go any higher, until a growling sax came to take it away.
Continue reading ‘Original Jazz Compositions Shine at Jazzy's’
"Soul" Dusted Off, Unplugged
by | Jan 13, 2025 10:09 am | Comments (0)
Leigh Busby Photo
Soto performing Sunday at Three Sheets.
Dan Soto returned to where he started with a song called “You Own My Soul” — just him and his acoustic guitar.
Nutmeg Slim Gives Permission
by | Jan 13, 2025 7:50 am | Comments (0)
Nutmeg Slim (center) and the Black Eyed Sally's House Band.
Nutmeg Slim
Black Eyed Sally’s Southern Kitchen and Bar
Hartford
Jan. 9, 2025
If there’s one instrument I associate with the blues, it’s the harmonica, and Nutmeg Slim let it wail at Black Eyed Sally’s.
At Winter Showcase, I Found What I Was Looking For
by | Jan 10, 2025 7:58 am | Comments (0)
Jamil Ragland Photo
Ashley Hamel performs at Winter Blues in the Old State House Food Court.
Ashley Hamel
State House Square Food Court
Hartford
January 9, 2025
I’ve got a case of the Winter Blues. That was a good thing.
Continue reading ‘At Winter Showcase, I Found What I Was Looking For’
Lalibela Turns 25 -- & Shares Its Kosta Secret
by | Jan 9, 2025 12:35 pm | Comments (1)
Continue reading ‘Lalibela Turns 25 -- & Shares Its Kosta Secret’
Prof/Filmmaker: The Green’s Not Just About Fun
by | Jan 8, 2025 9:26 am | Comments (13)
An opening slide from 2002's Convergence.
“The Green is big enough, gracious enough, generous enough to tolerate many different people.”
And public space — well, “public space is not always fun.” That’s kind of the point.
So argues Elihu Rubin, a Yale architecture professor and documentarian of the Green, as he cautioned against too many permanent changes to the city’s great public square at a time when a redesign is on the horizon.
Continue reading ‘Prof/Filmmaker: The Green’s Not Just About Fun’
Artists Focus On Decay And Renewal
by | Jan 7, 2025 9:47 am | Comments (0)
William Frucht
Packard Plant, Series 2 #18.
On the day this reporter visited “Making and Unmaking” — a group show running now at City Gallery on Upper State Street through Jan. 26 — artist Barbara Harder’s installation intentionally drew attention to its incompleteness. Three pieces of decorated and textured paper, Harder’s chosen medium for decades, were artfully arranged into a collage of soft colors and jagged edges. But on it was also a sign, written on a piece of scrap paper: “In progress as usual!”
3 Kings Bring Presents, Preserve Culture
by | Jan 7, 2025 9:29 am | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photo
Gisleidy Rodríguez and her nieces, Nathalie and baby Aaliyah, pose for a photo with a volunteer trio of Three Kings.
According to 12-year-old Gisleidy Rodríguez, the meaning of Three Kings Day was “presents.”
But as she skipped around the room with her younger nieces and told the story of the milk she left under her bed for the Three Kings to drink, she gave a different kind of gift to the adults in the room — adults determined to pass on dearly-held traditions to the next generation.
Shoah Witness Renee Hartman Dies At 91
by | Jan 6, 2025 1:10 pm | Comments (6)
Contributed Photo
Renee Hartman got the last laugh on Adolf Hitler.
New Year Resounds With 17 New Songs Of Hope & Renewal
by | Jan 6, 2025 10:00 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
American Elm, aka Christopher Bousquet.
With a new year typically comes promises to oneself to try something they haven’t done before or to do something in a different way. A beloved local singer songwriter did just that Saturday night with a healthy dose of support from his friends.
The singer, American Elm (aka Christopher Bousquet), presented “Resounder” a live song cycle complete with 17 original songs he had written over the course of one year, only one of which exists in recorded form.
Continue reading ‘New Year Resounds With 17 New Songs Of Hope & Renewal’
Calling All New Haven T-Shirt Ideas!
by | Jan 3, 2025 2:27 pm | Comments (8)
Contributed
Competition co-hosts Thompson and Smith: "The world is a better place if more people are involved in design."
Want to wear your love for the Elm City on your sleeve?
A new T‑shirt design competition is now accepting submissions for apparel that fosters community pride in New Haven.
Jazz Underground Casts A Spell On Dwight Street
by | Jan 3, 2025 12:40 pm | Comments (0)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Nick Di Maria blasts off at The Cannon.
New Haven’s jazz scene entered the new year Thursday night in modal, spacey, vegan style, as trumpeter Nick Di Maria and his band lit up The Cannon.
Continue reading ‘Jazz Underground Casts A Spell On Dwight Street’
At A Table For One
by | Jan 3, 2025 11:21 am | Comments (0)
Contributed photo
Susan and Joel Jacobson, married for 57 years.
A year ago, as 2023 wound down to its last hours, Joel Jacobson, 83 years old at the time, set out in his Toyota sedan from his East Rock condo for a holiday dinner at Adriana’s, on Grand Avenue.
Going to this popular Italian restaurant had been a household tradition, but this visit, he knew, would be different.
Din Some
by | Jan 3, 2025 8:30 am | Comments (1)
Basement Vapes
by , , and | Jan 2, 2025 9:28 am | Comments (2)
Timothée Chalamet as Dylan recording the Highway 61 album, in A Complete Unknown.
Baby-boomer critics have spent the past week reliving halcyon memories and lauding the new Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. It turns out that critics born long after Bob Dylan exploded popular culture and released generation-defining music have their own takes on the film, which adopts an historical fiction approach to capturing the moment when the folkie plugged in and blasted “Like A Rolling Stone” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
First, Night
by | Jan 2, 2025 9:13 am | Comments (5)
Leigh Busby Photo
Maddie LaRose (at right in above photo) helped New Haven ring in 2025 with face paint, as the city revived a “First Night”-style, family-friendly gathering.
New Havener Of The Year
by | Dec 24, 2024 9:22 am | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photo
IfeMichelle Gardin shows off her James Baldwin earrings.
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
Then there are years marked by someone like IfeMichelle Gardin, who in 2024 “exposed the questions that the answers hide” — as artists do, according to James Baldwin.
Gardin is authoring a new chapter of New Haven’s literary history in the form of Kulturally Lit, an organization that blossomed over the past year during what would have been James Baldwin’s 100th year of life.