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Karen Ponzio |
Nov 15, 2021 9:22 am
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New Haven-based rockers Chaser Eight premiered a new music video that tackled a serious subject at The State House on Friday night while also giving live music fans a serious dose of hard hitting rock ‘n’ roll as they headlined a three-band bill that also included the fast and furious trio The Problem With Kids Today and the dreamy pop rock group The Sparkle and Fade.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 15, 2021 9:20 am
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Rachel Sumner flashed a broad smile from the Cafe Nine stage. “I’m so excited that we get to have the show that wasn’t,” she said to the full house that had come to hear her, a Boston-based musician, perform, with New Haven-based acts Mercy Choir and Lys Guillorn supporting. The show had been originally scheduled at Cafe Nine for April 2020. On Saturday night, it happened at last.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 11, 2021 9:11 am
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Before he sat behind the drums, Gil Hawkins, Jr. addressed the crowd at the Owl Shop from the microphone set up in the middle of the stage. “Wednesday night is jazz night at the Owl Shop. It’s been that way for years.” For the Hawkins Jazz Collective — this Wednesday made up of Hawkins on drums, Mike Godette on guitar, and Lou Bocciarelli on bass — “years” meant well over a decade, Covid-19 shutdown notwithstanding. As the group slid into its first tune, it created a sense less of normalcy (whatever that means anymore) than of timelessness.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 10, 2021 8:42 am
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From seemingly all around the classroom at District Arts and Education on Tuesday evening came a series of meandering tones, a series of chirps and clicks. The sounds were coming from an open-source live-coding program called Estuary, and they were the result of musician Carl Testa feeding it a couple simple commands. He was about to demonstrate how people could use the program to make music together by coding in real time.
The demonstration opened up possibilities for gaining confidence in learning how to code. It also suggested compelling questions about what music composition is when the software makes some of the decisions.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 8, 2021 9:04 am
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The ceremony for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s 41st annual arts awards returned to being an in-person event on Friday, as people gathered at the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut State University to honor several of New Haven’s artist educators: Miguel Gaspar Benitez, James and Tia Russell Brockington, Allen “Dooley‑O” Jackson, Linda Lindroth, Patrick Smith, and Bill Brown and Sally Hill.
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Karen Ponzio |
Nov 8, 2021 8:44 am
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Peasant.
On a day that included a bomb threat at Yale and the first big burst of cold weather, Cafe Nine found a way to make everyone feel safe, warm, and blissed out with not only a three-act late night rock ‘n’ roll bill, but also a rooftop happy hour performance preceding it.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 5, 2021 8:47 am
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“Let all the fruits fall down,” a chorus intones. Then a firm piano chord, and a strong voice sings: “Moving through the orchard / you strode through the grove / arms grabbed apples of the sun / trunks were strong, you thought ‘love.’” Something in the voice suggests an emotional complexity, signaled by a single bell. “Came back next spring,” the singer continues. “stripped the branches clean / Earth there for you to devour or protect / you come off gentle, wind up mean.” The song picks up momentum until it hits the chorus, lush with strings, pounding drums, hands clapping. It’s the arrival of a new collaboration of talents that already encompasses New Haven, New York, and Australia, and promises more.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 4, 2021 8:12 am
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Blvck Hippie.
Josh Shaw of Blvck Hippie was on tour from Memphis, but had nothing but praise for the two New Haven acts — Glambat and Mightymoonchew — who had preceded him on the stage at Cafe Nine on Wednesday night. He declared himself maybe a little intimidated. “Why did both bands have to sing so good?” the headliner said. “I’m a little self-conscious now.” He was paying the same respects to his openers as they’d paid to him, in a night filled with music that was both personal and partylike.
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Karen Ponzio |
Nov 1, 2021 10:17 am
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Light Upon Blight
Best Video brought back one of its most anticipated annual events on Saturday night: the Light Upon Blight live scoring of a horror film, and this year’s choice — the 1932 classic Vampyr — provided ample spooky and surreal images to inspire four musicians to create a matching soundtrack that suited the mood.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 29, 2021 9:10 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 26, 2021 8:00 am
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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.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 22, 2021 8:29 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 22, 2021 8:22 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 18, 2021 8:36 am
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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.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 15, 2021 10:07 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 14, 2021 7:42 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 12, 2021 8:33 am
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“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?”
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 11, 2021 1:10 pm
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 11, 2021 8:24 am
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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.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 11, 2021 8:14 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 7, 2021 8:24 am
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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.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 6, 2021 8:19 am
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“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.
