by
Karen Ponzio |
Oct 29, 2021 9:10 am
|
Comments
(0)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Addy Edward and Sarah Golley Thursday night at Cafe 9..
Killer clowns, candy, and catchy tunes that make you want to dance are not typically associated with one another, but Thursday night at Cafe Nine a combination birthday/Halloween celebration with two local acts showcasing their original music brought them together.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 26, 2021 8:00 am
|
Comments
(0)
You know where you are from the opening flourish of Joe Flood’s “Hard Time Blues,” as a warbling harmonica cuts a line through a swinging rhythm from two guitars, a bass, and janky percussion. “It’s been hard times,” Flood sings. “They cut me open, sewed me up / I’m still not quite the same / People dying / Friends and loved ones up and gone / And only life to blame.” The lyrics talk about hardship, but Flood sings with the easy confidence of a seasoned pro. It’s all a setup, as it turns out, for a chorus that opens out into lush territory, and the lyrics suddenly become hopeful.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Oct 22, 2021 8:29 am
|
Comments
(0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
daniprobably
Three bands entertained and engaged the crowd — and one another — at Cafe Nine Thursday night, where local acts Mightymoonchew and daniprobably came together with the Philadelphia-based Lizdelise to raise the energy level and get the weekend started a day early.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 22, 2021 8:22 am
|
Comments
(0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Kath Bloom.
“It’s a perfect night for this,” said Best Video executive director Hank Hoffman, in introducing Thursday evening’s double bill of music from New Haven folk legend Kath Bloom, with Steve Hartlett opening. The weather on the patio in front of the film and cultural center on Whitney Avenue in Hamden was warm and crisp, the setting sun dappled with clouds, a bucolic setting for music that was all about acceptance.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 18, 2021 8:36 am
|
Comments
(1)
Douglas.
The band members stood at a 90-degree angle from the audience at Firehouse 12, facing stage right. Bassist Dezron Douglas held a clave, and played a simple, piercing rhythm that was a call to attention to the audience. Everyone fell silent. Douglas continued with the rhythm. Nazir Ebo picked it up on drums. Douglas then moved to his bass. George Burton sat at the piano. Lummie Spann took up his alto saxophone, and they began.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Oct 15, 2021 10:07 am
|
Comments
(0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Jake Blount Thursday evening at Cafe 9.
Fiddle music filled the “musician’s living room” Thursday night as two acts took to the Cafe Nine stage to offer an evening full of love, joy, and veneration.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 14, 2021 7:42 am
|
Comments
(0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Host Chefren Gray, a.k.a. Chef the Chef, gave the growing audience at Cafe Nine a wide smile Wednesday night as he introduced New Haven Grand Prix Round 4 — not the bike race, sadly cancelled again this year, but Gray’s gladly ongoing showcase of New Haven’s hip hop and R&B talent, now taking place monthly.
“If this is your first time, welcome,” he said, as he promised the crowd the “most exuberant, incredible, persistent artists in the area.” With act after act of rappers and singers, he delivered on that promise.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 12, 2021 8:33 am
|
Comments
(0)
“Never Forget,” the first song from Ashon’s Every Knight Is Reign, starts with a recording of a storm, a nod to the play on words in the album’s title. A laid-back piano enters the picture, chiming chords from an electric piano, a bubbling bass, easy-swinging drums. “Soon as I started this, I knew I was a part of this,” raps Ashon T. Alston. He proceeds to tell a story of how he got into rap, the mixing of his ambitions and his strategy amid a childhood of friends, discovering music, trouble, police raids. “Tell me how can I forget?”
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 11, 2021 1:10 pm
|
Comments
(2)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Pastor Jeremiah Jermaine Paul at his new pulpit.
After winning the second season of NBC’s The Voice and touring for a decade with Alicia Keys, Jeremiah Jermaine Paul realized his true life — singing about “building your church from the ground up” from his own pulpit at Sunday worship services.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 11, 2021 8:24 am
|
Comments
(0)
A piece of artwork hanging in Bregamos Community Theater summed up the theme of the Festival de la Resistencia, which took place at the Blatchley Avenue arts and community space Saturday afternoon. It made a serious point: A fist smoked down from the sky to smite the people on a city street. The people were not crushed; they pushed back. And someone was there to document their struggle, and let the world see, even as the city burned around them. But the seriousness of the subject was delivered in a colorful, vivacious tone, full of life and action. It drew you in and made you want to be a part of it — and it was the work of multiple artists’ hands.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Oct 11, 2021 8:14 am
|
Comments
(0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Concussion
Improvisational music comes off to many people as a few musicians getting together and simply playing their instruments, perhaps in a haphazard way — except it’s not that at all, and it’s not so simple. In fact, it involves a whole lot of experience, enthusiasm, commitment, and most of all, love. All of those aspects were on display Saturday night at Volume Two: A Never Ending Books Collective for a three-act bill that showcased some of the finest local improvisational musicians getting back to what they do best.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 7, 2021 8:24 am
|
Comments
(0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Jeremy Cooney of Brother Beauty gave the audience a sly smile from the stage. “Feeling good, feeling loose, and that’s a good way to feel,” he said at the beginning of his set. It set the tone for a two-band bill at Cafe Nine Wednesday night that matched a new New Haven band with a well-traveled touring act from Kentucky, with pleasing, relaxed, and spaced-out results.
by
Brian Slattery |
Oct 6, 2021 8:19 am
|
Comments
(0)
“Old Habits,” the title track from the new album by Kat Wallace and David Sasso, starts with warm chords from an electric tenor guitar that then slides into a waltz, buoyed by drums and bass.
“Here we are now, back at square one,” Wallace sings. “All the rules we made becoming undone.” As tenor guitar, bass, and drums hold down the pulse, Sasso joins in on a piano that dips in and out, a boat on the waves. Wallace is singing about a romantic relationship on the rocks. But it’s also, in a very positive light, a statement about the direction the New Haven-based duo has taken on Old Habits.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Oct 4, 2021 8:23 am
|
Comments
(1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Space Camp.
Friday marked the start of live shows at The State House after a year and a half of Covid closures and restrictions. The venue, which had been allowing a few closed-to-the-public events, such as livestreams and video shoots, reconvened with a three-band bill that reenergized the space as well as the music community, who gathered with masks on and space between them, but still as one with an intention to celebrate.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Sep 30, 2021 7:58 am
|
Comments
(1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Pond View.
Holberton School was the place to warm up on a chilly Wednesday night as local rockers Pond View took to the stage for the latest District Arts and Education livestream show.
by
Brian Slattery |
Sep 29, 2021 7:53 am
|
Comments
(0)
Brian Slattery photos
The New Haven Chorale at rehearsal Monday — in person!
As the sun set Monday evening, dozens of people began to congregate in the parking lot of the Unitarian Society on Hartford Turnpike in Hamden. They brought lawn chairs, sheet music, folders, and clip-on lights. On the stairs at the entrance to the building, New Haven Chorale Music Director Edward Bolkovac stood behind a small podium, a score in front of him, a microphone in his hand. Accompanist Blake Hansen sat behind a keyboard near him. In front of him, a camera was ready to Zoom everything. The New Haven Chorale was ready for outdoor rehearsal.
by
Brian Slattery |
Sep 28, 2021 7:33 am
|
Comments
(0)
In the past few weeks, three New Haven-based musical projects have unleashed three new albums that answer the mentality of the pandemic’s lockdown with a keen sense of freedom.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Sep 20, 2021 8:08 am
|
Comments
(0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Still from “Skin.”
Black Haven Film Festival returned on Saturday for its second year, with five new filmmakers ready to share their vision via spoken word, song, dance, and animation — both in person and online.
by
Brian Slattery |
Sep 20, 2021 8:05 am
|
Comments
(0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Seated on the Best Video deck Sunday evening, Mamady Kouyate reached behind him to trigger a tight, intricate loop of drums and synthesized backup. The loops offered harmonic and rhythmic structure, but no sway. That was the humans’ job. Ousmane Kouyate on rhythm guitar and Jocelyn Pleasant on djembe breathed velocity and relaxation into the music, falling in with the programmed elements and bringing them all to life. Now Mamady stood up, and in the light of the setting sun, brought cascades of keening notes, intricate rhythmic figures, idea after idea, speaking of aching joy.
by
Brian Slattery |
Sep 17, 2021 9:01 am
|
Comments
(0)
Bob Gorry starts “Javelina.” from GoBruCcio — the latest release from the New Haven Improvisers Collective — with a statement from his guitar that’s somewhere between the blues, punk, and free jazz. Pete Riccio on drums finds his way in fast, suggesting a hip-swinging groove that Pete Brunelli on bass catches at once. Within a minute the trio are off and building momentum, making their improvisation into a lurching dance that, a minute later, they’re already taking apart, moving into another set of rhythmic and harmonic ideas.
Kica Matos and Moviemiento Cultural lead a bomba drum circle …
… as neighbors “reclaim” the parking lot in front of Grand Cafe.
Cafe owner Jose Rivera watches protest with patron Julian Welch.
With wooden drums, lawn chairs, free pizza and board games, 30 Fair Haven neighbors “reclaimed” the parking lot outside of Grand Cafe — in a grassroots effort to calm a violent hotspot.
by
Karen Ponzio |
Sep 15, 2021 8:20 am
|
Comments
(0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Shamarr Allen
Can you start celebrating the weekend on a Tuesday? You could if you were at Cafe Nine last night. Two acts got the crowd energized enough to make it seem as if it were much later in the week than it actually was, with music that made you move.
