by | Aug 6, 2021 12:05 pm | Comments (18)
Actor/ producer Michael Jai White pitches plan recently in New Haven (at right); East Haven label (left) eyeing Fair Haven move.
Two visions to revive long-abandoned industrial stretches of Fair Haven clashed, as a potential new brewer and a potential new movie production company sought support of neighbors.
Continue reading ‘Beer & Movies Duke It Out On River Street’
by | Aug 5, 2021 3:28 pm | Comments (0)
by | Aug 5, 2021 9:13 am | Comments (1)
Natalie Kainz Photo
Capt. Von Narcisse, children’s book author.
One stormy night on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, the power in Yale Police Capt. Von Narcisse’s house went out. Winds billowed around the house. His two children D’Artagnan and A’ramus — named after characters from The Three Musketeers — anxiously waited for comfort from their father.
So Narcisse began telling them a story.
by | Aug 4, 2021 9:29 am | Comments (0)
“Brightest and Best,” the lead single from Joshua Banbury’s and Kevin Sherwin’s Forgotten Folklore, starts with the crackle of a record, a wash of strings that evokes wide open spaces, before settling into a sparse, urgent guitar pattern, a voice hovering somewhere between a warble and a chant.
“Hail the blest morn, when the great Mediator / Down from the regions of glory descends,” the singer intones. “Shepherds, go worship the babe in the manger / Lo, for His guard, the bright angels attends,” the singer intones. It’s a prayer of hope, but the music suggests something more complex, elements of fear and awe.
Continue reading ‘New Album Ensures The Folklore Isn’t Forgotten’
by | Aug 3, 2021 9:10 am | Comments (0)
Olive Tiger.
“The Boys,” from Olive Tiger’s latest release, Softest Eyes: Side A, starts off with a growling drone, a pulse, and then pounding drums, the kind of beat that can make people put down their drinks in a club, get up, and swing their hips to. The vocal wastes no time to come in, with a message to deliver: “Why don’t the boys paint their faces? / My mother laughed and called it ‘war paint’ / Pink pepper spray on a keychain / My father gave me mace for Christmas / Because he loves me.” On that last line, the guitar lets it rip, noise rattles in the distance. The voice has more to say, as a organ joins the sound, filling it out. “Why are the boys taught survival? / All I got was that friendship bracelet / Homework to draw a pretty tiger / I quit the Girl Scouts from that assignment / Because I love me.”
by | Aug 2, 2021 9:34 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Two New Haven-based bands — Love ‘N Co. and Thabisa — brought groove and growth to Cafe Nine on Friday night, as both made music that nourished heads, hearts, and feet.
Continue reading ‘Love ‘N Co And Thabisa Make The People Move’
by | Jul 30, 2021 9:17 am | Comments (0)
Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery
Yashima Gakutei, Three Crabs at Water’s Edge.
An arts editor returns to the Yale University Art Gallery for the first time since the museum reopened after its long pandemic shutdown.
by | Jul 30, 2021 8:54 am | Comments (2)
A musical genius gone too soon, a living legend of the No Wave scene, pipe organs, and guineas pigs: the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs, is bringing this eclectic mix of subjects together as this year’s film festival takes on the profound, the personal, and the universal — and pre-games it all with, of course, pizza.
Continue reading ‘NHDocs Returns, Whets Appetite with “Pizza”’
by | Jul 29, 2021 9:37 am | Comments (0)
REINALDO GOEYENECHEA/LA VOZ HISPANA
by | Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Ferrer.
Fernandito Ferrer began the last song of his set Wednesday night with a shaker that he fanned in the air in front of the microphone. His pedal captured the sound. He added whistles uncannily like bird calls, a falling chain that sounded like rain. Then he began playing the guitar and lifting his voice. By the end he had built the song into cascading waves of sound that entranced the full house that had come to Cafe Nine to hear music — and he, humbly, was the opening act.
by | Jul 28, 2021 9:53 am | Comments (0)
The song “Go Down Moses” may be familiar, but the New Haven-based Afro-Semitic Experience’s take on it isn’t. It starts with the rhythms, stretching through the Caribbean and back to West Africa, the sense of the interlocking drums propelling everything. And above the impassioned vocals, there’s a trumpet drenched in effects, creating its own small universe of sound. It feels new but drenched in history — which is fitting for Freedom Seder, the Afro-Semitic Experience’s latest album and one that has a history of its own.
by | Jul 27, 2021 9:34 am | Comments (0)
Natalie Kainz
The Nields in Westville on Monday.
Sending folk harmonies and bluegrass tunes out onto the grassy slope behind Mitchell Branch Library, folk-rock band The Nields became a part of the Westville community on Monday afternoon.
by | Jul 27, 2021 8:43 am | Comments (2)
Brian Slattery Photos
Jamon and July Rouse, Johnathan Mitchell, and Shannon Harrell, Jr.
PU$H is a clothing line run by three friends who grew up together around New Haven — Shannon Harrell, Jr., Johnathan Mitchell, and Jamon Rouse — with a passion for sports, fashion, and improving the situation for themselves and their community. But it’s really the product of a family, the “family we chose,” Mitchell said.
Continue reading ‘New Haven Gives Friends A PU$H Into Fashion’
by | Jul 27, 2021 8:25 am | Comments (6)
Natalie Kainz Photo
Rawan Oudeh, Ayman Saloumi, and Mazen Saloumi at Westville Emesa Pizza.
Nearly a decade after losing his family’s former pizza restaurant to a bombing in Syria, refugee and culinary entrepreneur Mazen Saloumi has opened a new Middle Eastern pizza restaurant in Westville.
by | Jul 26, 2021 9:02 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Jazz on the patio at The Orchid Cafe
Brunch is one of the most celebrated meals in this city, and the brunches that include jazz are particularly revered. This reporter decided it was time to revisit three of them: one that had recently restarted, one that was a limited-run event, and one that had been ongoing for the past year.
by | Jul 23, 2021 5:16 pm | Comments (9)
Jami LaRue Photo
DeLauro with constituent at YMCA event.
New Haven’s federal delegation came home Friday with big smiles — and big pots of money for local families and businesses.
by | Jul 23, 2021 9:18 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Singer/songwriter Dylan Hartigan began the final song of his set alone on acoustic guitar. Alex Haddad joined him on electric. Halfway through the song, Hartigan said if the audience would sing along in the chorus, he might have a surprise for them. The audience obliged, and an entire backup band — Them Vibes — joined Hartigan and Haddad on stage to turn Hartigan’s quiet song into an all-out rocker. The shift set the tone for the rest of the evening, as a three-band evening of headliner Maggie Rose, supported by Them Vibes and Hartigan, brought the sound of ‘70s rock and funk to CT Folk’s Folk at the Edge concert series and showed how expansive the concept of folk music can be.
by | Jul 22, 2021 4:56 pm | Comments (1)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
A police lineup: For the Cha Cha Slide.
The young people set the rhythm for the Cha-Cha-Slide, and the cops joined in — with the hope of making one “right foot stomp” fit into a broader effort to connect police with developmentally disabled youth.
Continue reading ‘Cops “Cha Cha” With Developmentally Disabled Youth’
by | Jul 22, 2021 4:14 pm | Comments (0)
Reinaldo Goeyenechea/La Voz Hispana
“I am going to fall …”
by | Jul 22, 2021 12:41 pm | Comments (2)
Amodio on the set.
The nation Wednesday evening watched New Haven’s Matthew Amodio win $40,000 on a taped episode of Jeopardy!. Amodio, who in his day job studies neural networks as a Yale computer science PhD student, watched it, too, with family and friends. He won the competition, and returns to the air Thursday night. Meanwhile, he kept a diary of what his moment of fame felt like Wednesday; his notes follow:
by | Jul 22, 2021 9:36 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
(from left to right) Lawrence, James, Serenita, and Andersen
Four singer/songwriters shared their words, music and admiration for each other side by side last night under the ever-changing spotlights on The Cellar at Treadwell’s stage while a full moon glowed in the night sky.
Continue reading ‘Storytellers in The Cellar Share the Love’
by | Jul 22, 2021 9:34 am | Comments (0)
Animation by Eva Lee, Sound by Michael Joel Bosco
Eye Spy.
Eye Spy morphs from image to image fast enough that you have to pay attention to see the narrative. Seals and other ocean life change into plastic bottles on the beach, the manmade objects that found their way into a bird’s stomach. Then back rushing ocean waves, lush coral of vibrant colors, sea turtles and teeming schools of fish. The music is serene with powerful, tidal undercurrents. The loop between the vivacity of the ocean and the damage we have done to it is causal in both directions. It gives us a sense of what’s at stake in the effort to adapt to climate change, and what could be if we manage to do enough.
by | Jul 21, 2021 12:07 pm | Comments (9)
Brian Slattery Photo
Tuesday night’s Salsa session on Central Avenue’s one-block “patio.”
Jason Ramos of Baila Con Gusto moved fluidly between English and Spanish as he stood before a group of about 20 students Tuesday evening on the newly closed-to-traffic Central Avenue Patio between Whalley Avenue and Fountain Street.
“This class is para todos,” he said.
by | Jul 20, 2021 9:52 am | Comments (2)
Contributed photo
Marshall cleaning up a scene on A&E’s “Dirty Rotten Cleaners.”
Sophie Sonnenfeld Photo
Marshall gets ready for action.
Sadie Marshall’s team packed up her gear to answer a call to clean up two decomposing bodies, after answering a separate call from the A&E Network to broadcast her “Dirty Rotten” work to the nation.
by | Jul 20, 2021 9:45 am | Comments (1)
Natalie Kainz Photo
Some came for the tunes, some came for the pies, and others just came for the vibes.
Continue reading ‘As R&B Fills The Air, Mexican Sweet Corn Pie Takes The Prize’