by | Aug 27, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (0)
Short chords from electric piano and synthesizer set the mood, contemplative but with a pulse. “Estoy aquí / ya estuve allá / ya fui feliz / y acaba mal,” Ene de Nadie croons — “I’m here / I was already there / I was already happy / it ends badly” — as the beat drops. The lyrics are full of longing and regret, while the music pulses on, the kind of song you can dance and cry to.
by | Aug 26, 2024 9:15 am | Comments (1)
Leo Slattery Photos
Thirty vendors in a crescent surrounded a central green area. From the stage, a rotating selection of spoken word, music, and dancing was interspersed with an ongoing set from DJ Tunes. Off to the side of the stage, activities and crafts were available, including free tie-dyeing and a community banner. People of all ages darted around, chatting with vendors or people they recognized.
by | Aug 15, 2024 1:43 pm | Comments (0)
For the first time, WNHH’s Tuesdays @ the Mediterranea Cafe concert series featured a saxophone, a harmonica, and a golden trumpet — though the last wasn’t making any sound.
That didn’t keep Snake Hill Blues lead singer Vaughn Collins from taking the miniature instrument from around his neck, pressing his fingers to the keys, and letting the imaginary horn blare among the real, rightly-sized instruments surrounding him.
by | Aug 12, 2024 9:44 am | Comments (2)
Karen Ponzio Photo
One of the many Puerto Rican flags at Saturday's fest.
Saturday was a scorcher throughout the city, but nowhere was it hotter than the New Haven Green, where the 2024 Puerto Rican Festival brought thousands to celebrate the culture with food, fun, and music.
Continue reading ‘"Everybody Today Is Boricua In New Haven"’
by | Aug 9, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photo
The Chomins at Weird Music Night.
“Hellooo!” called out John O’Donnell, in an exaggerated, almost Cookie-Monster-like voice.
“Hellooo!” called back the crowd, matching his energy and tone. It was weird, wacky, and wildly entertaining, setting the tone for Weird Music Night, a monthly event at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Trumbull Street. Attending the event felt like walking through a cabinet of curiosities, as the audience shifted from room to room and experienced a series of acts that were as odd as they were incredible.
by | Aug 8, 2024 9:32 am | Comments (3)
The city’s premier outdoor concert venue won’t be quiet all summer long after all — now that four August shows have been moved from a Middlefield ski resort to the Westville Music Bowl.
by | Aug 7, 2024 9:08 am | Comments (0)
The rhythms at Space Ballroom swung from rock to funk to dub to soul as two modern jazz bands — the Messthetics, comprised partly of former members of the now-legendary punk band Fugazi, and the New Haven-based Skylab — showed just how expansive, and how freeing, jazz today can be.
by | Aug 6, 2024 8:22 am | Comments (1)
Carlos y su Movimiento Musical.
A dozen varieties of fruit flavors and a dozen Latin rhythms came together on Monday evening as the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance closed out HI Fi Pie, its series of outdoor concerts and pie-making contests held in Beecher Park, in front of the Mitchell Branch Library, in Westville.
Continue reading ‘A Blistering Merengue, & A Berry Good Time’
by | Aug 5, 2024 8:20 am | Comments (0)
Sarah Gross.
“I’ve been crying, I’ve been trying / Reinvent myself each day to keep from dying,” sang Sarah Gross, the first of two musical acts to perform at Never Ending Books on Friday. The lyrics came from her original song “Liar,” the first of many originals she played that night. Gross’s full, sweet voice and introspective lyrics recalled a young Taylor Swift, right on the cusp of transitioning out of country music.
Continue reading ‘Musicians Cool Down At Never Ending Books’
by | Aug 2, 2024 8:44 am | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Dean Falcone and Shellye Valauskas at WNHH FM.
The background singers were back in Memphis. So were the bass and drums.
Shellye Valauskas and Dean Falcone brought just their acoustic guitars to the WNHH FM studio, and poured unplugged energy into a preview of what’s coming.
by | Jul 22, 2024 9:37 am | Comments (0)
“Calm and Full of Chaos,” the first song from Neon Black — the latest release from the New Haven-based hip hop unit Sotolish — starts off with a sound like a siren from the future blaring over a dank, driving beat, provided by producer Delish Music.
“Calm before the chaos / stepping off the ghost / arriving to the seance / OK boss, more money, more layoffs / can’t collect the checks, all this water’s for the brainwash,” Sotorios raps, sounding like a man broadcasting from the sewers, keeping his head just above water, his audio equipment just dry enough to function. It all sounds like the duo is plugged into something urgent and real. Are we ready to hear the message?
by | Jul 15, 2024 11:30 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Pat Stone performing with a full band at cafe nine.
“Thanks for coming out on this scorching Sunday,” said Billy Scovill of The Ambulance Chasers as they opened a three-band bill at Cafe Nine Sunday afternoon. It was indeed a scorcher outside, but the corner of State and Crown was the perfect place to cool off with icy drinks and a trio of CT-based bands playing the kind of rock that fires everyone up and almost makes you forget you have to go back to work the next day.
by | Jul 15, 2024 8:40 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Mildly Allergic.
Before getting off stage, Tony Mascolo of Wasteworld gave the crowd an earnest stare. “Does anyone need to use my amp?” he said. Someone from one of the other bands getting ready to play answered strongly in the affirmative. Mascolo nodded and left his amp where it was, helping someone in the next set out. The sharing of equipment — and in time, personnel — was a hallmark of the strong sense of camaraderie among the members of four bands that rocked Three Sheets on Friday, two of which had just a couple years ago started off playing house shows around the area and now were hitting stages.
by | Jul 12, 2024 1:16 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Brian Ember in the WNHH FM studio.
Brian Ember started singing a verse he wrote 22 years ago, to a song he’s just now figuring out how to complete.
Continue reading ‘Decades Later, Brian Ember Finishes The Song’
by | Jul 11, 2024 9:17 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Madou Sidiki Diabaté and Salif Bamakora, with their koras at Cafe 9.
The chitchat at Cafe Nine on Wednesday might have been getting a little intense, but a flourish of notes from the 21-string kora of Madou Sidiki Diabaté was enough to silence them.
One by one the voices died down as Diabaté floated phrase after mesmerizing phrase into the air — modern yet informed by a West African culture thousands of years old.
by | Jul 9, 2024 9:09 am | Comments (1)
Patti Smith's Horses.
The powerful voice of Patti Smith emanated from the speakers in the side room of Never Ending Books Monday night, as the latest installment of Album Club met to pore over her debut 1975 punk-rock album, Horses.
In her music, Smith is a wild horse herself, powerful and untamed. Horses is the kind of album that needs to be analyzed as seriously as any novel, and the group were prepared to do just that.
by | Jul 8, 2024 9:24 am | Comments (2)
Love n'Co at Seeing Sounds.
Eleanor Polak photo
T!lt's Mike Scialla: “This is our last song, so we usually go crazy."
“You can do anything. That’s my main motto,” Lovelind of the local rock-pop-soul band Love n’Co told the crowd at Edgewood Park’s Seeing Sounds Festival. “It won’t be easy, but you can do anything.”
That proved a fitting tribute to the artistic accomplishment that was Saturday’s fest — which saw a swath of the park turn into a vibrant venue for beautiful clothing, delicious food, foot-tapping rhythms, and a feeling of camaraderie that lasted longer than the last notes of a song.
by | Jul 8, 2024 9:08 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Mother Juniper.
Sunday nights find most people in the throes of anticipation of the week ahead, often lamenting the freedom of the weekend that they are leaving behind. Last night at Best Video, the crowd of people who came to see Mother Juniper, Number One Babe, and the Tines got not only a lovely lyrical ending to their weekend, but a beauty of a beginning to the week ahead.
by | Jul 5, 2024 12:25 pm | Comments (25)
John Kritzman Photo
Bleachers at the Bowl. No more of this until Sept. 21.
The city’s premier outdoor concert venue doesn’t have any shows booked for July and August — with its last concert having taken place at the end of June, and its next concert scheduled for late September.
Why no live music these peak summer months? Because of “voracious competition” from Live Nation, which pays “exorbitant” prices to keep acts from coming to the Westville Music Bowl.
by | Jul 2, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photos
Audio crew member Bryan Butler: Dobet Gnahoré "had an absolutely killer band, and her stage presence was amazing."
Workers disassembling the main stage on the Green.
Stormy weather was a challenge.
Working with Afropop sensation Dobet Gnahoré was a delight.
Arts & Ideas techies offered those takeaways on Monday as they worked hard to dismantle the festival’s main stage on the Green — and reflected on their work coordinating events, arranging sound production, and providing lighting that illuminates the artists for the people of New Haven to see.
by | Jul 1, 2024 9:27 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
A still from Oxide.
A woman on the run shares a cigarette with a chicken. A family portrait elicits a daughter’s memories of familial tensions. Three friends navigate the challenges of working to pay the rent when they would rather party. All of these stories and more were told in various animated styles, including stop motion, painting, and Procreate at the 2024 Womanimation event, presented this past Saturday by MergingArts Productions at Best Video in Hamden.
by | Jul 1, 2024 9:12 am | Comments (0)
At the very beginning of the evening on the New Haven Green on Friday night, percussionist Nino Ciampa asked a fundamental question: what is salsa? “Salsa is flavor and spice,” he said. “Salsa is Latin soul. The essence of salsa is ritmo — rhythm — and it started in Africa and the Caribbean with the conga, skin on wood.”
The conga in the Hartt Salsa All-Stars began, laying down a steady percolating groove that, it turned out, did not let up for nearly three hours. For one of the final nights of this year’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas, the All-Stars and Grammy-winning artist Dobet Gnahoré, from Côte d’Ivoire, luxuriated in the power of African and Afro-Caribbean rhythms to create joy and connection.
by | Jun 28, 2024 9:12 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photo
Grecco Buratto and Caro Pierotto on the Green.
The evening was warm but not too warm, the New Haven Green was packed full of people, and the sweet sounds of Brazilian bossa nova perfumed the air.
Caro Pierotto, a Grammy nominee and musical mastermind who effortlessly combines traditional rhythms with modern twists, performed with her Brazilian band for the city in one of the last concerts of this year’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
Continue reading ‘Bossa Nova Energizes, As A&I Nears Finish’
by | Jun 27, 2024 10:19 am | Comments (1)
Meredith Truax Photo
Samara Joy.
Samara Joy wowed the crowd at College Street Music Hall Wednesday night with her powerhouse vocal stylings as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. A rising star in the jazz world who has already won three Grammys, including 2023’s Best New Artist, she offered 90 minutes of musical magic, calling to mind the classic jazz vocalists who came before her but wholly commanding the stage with her own range and flair for making the personal universal through songs and stories.
Continue reading ‘Joy Resounds Through College Street Music Hall’
by | Jun 21, 2024 11:47 am | Comments (0)
At the onset of the summer’s first heat wave, the beat and the vocals were heating up inside as a new project took the de facto stage in a backroom hookah lounge.