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Brian Slattery |
Mar 1, 2024 10:22 am
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Eight Feet Tall performing at my house.
Before performing, dancer Jackie O’Riley of Eight Feet Tall explained that the Irish dance the audience was about to witness had been thought extinct. Then “it was discovered there was one guy still teaching this dance” to neighbors and students in West Clare. “He was outside of the realm of competitive step dance, which meant that he had held onto his old repertoire,” O’Riley said. Modern folk dancers who visited him discovered he had a “vast repertoire” of dances “that hadn’t been seen in decades.” The audience, at a house concert I hosted in Hamden, was going to have to a chance to see.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 29, 2024 9:03 am
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“Suite 21” starts with a pulsing, menacing bass line, joined by crackling, skittering drums. Then organ and guitar create atmosphere, a hazy smoke. The stage is set. And Keila Myles is ready.
“Told you not to fuck with me you see,” she croons. “Now your ass is stuck with me you see / But I’m a peacemaker luckily you see / Piece maker more like cutlery you see.”
That gutting tone is altogether fitting for the latest video release from Keila Myles and the Moose Knuckles, who made it in time for NRP’s latest Tiny Desk Concert contest. The song is reworked, the take on it is new, but it’s about a crime perpetrated against Myles over a decade ago, the long hurt it caused — and how Myles learned how to survive and gather strength from it.
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 26, 2024 11:46 am
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Watch Friday’s fashion show above.
Long polka dot skirts from the ’50s, black leather jackets from the ’60s, and bell bottoms from the ’70s all made a return to Hill Regional Career High School as it celebrated Black fashion throughout the years.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 26, 2024 9:15 am
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James Paul Nadien sat behind the drums with an impish grin as violinist Sabrina Salamone tightened the hair on her bow. “F.I.M. 50!” he yelled. The crowd, a packed room at Never Ending Books on a Saturday, cheered. It was an appropriately direct introduction for the 50th installment of the F.I.M. concert series, which was started in April 2022 by guitarist Luke Rovinsky and bassist Caleb Duval and has quickly become a linchpin of the Elm City improvised music scene, joining the New Haven Improvisers Collective and the Instantiation series to solidify the next generation of players.
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 26, 2024 8:58 am
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Alvin Carter, Sr. speaks during Part One: The Drummer's Path portion of Diaspora Stories: Hartford at Best Video.
The Hartford-based Afro-funk fusion ensemble The Lost Tribe returned to Best Video on Saturday to screen the completed three-part series Diaspora Stories: Hartford a year and a half after sharing a preview of the project at the venue during a performance in 2022. This time, in addition to showing the completed version, the band would also be adding to the soundtrack during the film, as well as performing before, after, and in between.
The band described Diaspora Stories: Hartford as “highlighting the history and intergenerational nature of Hartford’s African and African Diasporic arts community.” It consists of three parts. Part One, The Drummer’s Path, features “Abu” Alvin Carter, Sr., Alvin Carter, Jr., Inara Ramin, Assad Jackson, and Jocelyn Pleasant. The second part, Is It Hip Hop?, features Jolet Creary and Studio 860. Part Three, La Source, features Damian Curtis with The Lost Tribe.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Feb 22, 2024 3:09 pm
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Nora Grace-Flood
91 Shelton Ave. to stay deteriorated on the outside ...
... and musically inspired on the inside.
City Plan commissioners killed a request to turn a dilapidated former factory serving as local artist studios into storage units — after deciding the development sounded like “dead space.”
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 13, 2024 8:58 am
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Qween Kong share the love.
While many were getting ready for the last big football game of the season this past Sunday, a local music series was getting restarted over on Elm Street, as Three Sheets welcomed back the first of its popular Unplugged shows in a long while. Presented by Booger Z. Jones in conjunction with series creator Sara Scranton, two bands — on this day, the New Haven-based Hell Fairy and Qween Kong — would present a selection of their songs in a more stripped-down fashion than usual, acoustic and accompanied by stories of how they were made and what inspired them.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 9, 2024 9:07 am
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Suzu Sakai on the Shubert set she designed.
A member of the stage crew was doing some last-minute cleanup of the set at the Shubert, in preparation for a rehearsal of Yale Opera’s The Rake’s Progress, the opera by Igor Stravinsky set to run at the venerable College Street theatre Feb. 17 and 18. At first glance, it may have looked like he was vacuuming a vast Persian rug. A second glance, however, might show the design on the floor for what it really is: the back of an enormous playing card. More than just an arresting visual pattern, the scintillating floor is part of a set design decision that, for the opera’s director, was the key to opening up Stravinsky’s work to better connect with audiences.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 8, 2024 9:16 am
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Dallas Ugly Wednesday night at Cafe Nine.
Cafe Nine on Wednesday night was the scene for delicate ballads, bright harmonies, and gritty rhythms as three bands — Pyramid Rose, Dallas Ugly, and the Split Coils — played sets with passion and commitment to the cause of country, rock ‘n’ roll, and keeping live music rolling in the Elm City.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 7, 2024 9:07 am
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Rodgers.
Performers and audience members arrived at Cantean on Whitney Avenue in Hamden en masse Tuesday evening before the posted start time of 6 p.m., quickly filling the space and the open mic’s sign-up sheet. Each performer had enough time for two songs. Host Steve Rodgers announced that he had “two and a half rules.” First, the songs all had to be originals. Second, audience members had to keep quiet for the performances. And third (Rodgers was joking about the “half”), everyone should remember to support Cantean by buying food and beverages.
“Any more rules?” someone in the audience said.
“Play good music!” someone else said, to laughter.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 1, 2024 9:00 am
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The Afro-Semitic Experience.
“Unity in the Community” begins with a classic hymn-like statement from Warren Byrd’s piano, carried aloft by a chorus of voices, bubbling bass and percussion, and horns passing a joyous melody from one bell to the next. “Why don’t we come together?” Byrd sings. “Why do we got to fight? / Let’s be like sis and brother / who finally got it right.”
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 30, 2024 9:09 am
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New Haven Improvisers Collective.
It was 7:30 p.m. on Monday at Never Ending Books, and Bob Gorry of the New Haven Improvisers Collective had a few instructions for the musicians gathered in the room.
The collective always started with the same exercise, of playing long tones together, “whatever that means on your instrument,” Gorry said. “It’s very important for listening and for figuring out the room. It’s really important that you hear everybody.”
The idea was to play a tone as long as possible, then pause and play another, while listening to everyone else. “If you can’t hear someone,” Gorry said, “play quieter.”
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 30, 2024 9:00 am
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The Haints.
Are you the type of music fan who wishes there were more shows that started before 8 p.m., but wants the feel of a late Friday or Saturday night out? Are Sunday brunches too early for you, but you also don’t want to stay out too late? Three Sheets has something perfect for you the last Sunday of every month: a matinee that promises you an onslaught of punk music that is at just the right time for the late-to-rise-on-the-weekend, early-to-bed-for-work-on-Monday crowd.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 29, 2024 8:55 am
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Mixed Company.
The band Mixed Company was doing its take on Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw It Away,” and the sound snapped into focus in the first chorus: “Throw it away / Throw it away / Give your love, live your life / Each and every day / And keep your hand wide open / Let the sun shine through / ‘Cause you can never lose a thing / If it belongs to you.”
Michael Carabello on keys, Conway Campbell, Jr. on bass, and Jonathan Barber on drums set up a strong and sultry rhythm. Taylor McCoy’s voice floated over the top.
Those in Jazzy’s Cabaret on Friday night stopped talking, paused over their meals, to listen. It was as if a signal had been sent across the room to pay attention to what was going to be a great night of songs.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 26, 2024 9:15 am
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New Cardiff Giants.
A Thursday night of churning rhythms, big guitars, barked lyrics, and dancing feet at Cafe Nine made the case that New Haven’s rock ‘n’ roll scene is alive and well, and possibly growing, as four Elm City bands kept people moving for hours.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 23, 2024 8:47 am
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Flake singing at Stetson Library with family and Monk Youth Jazz.
“Kind of surreal” is how Marcella Monk Flake described winning a Connecticut Arts Hero award this year. But in a sense, Flake’s award is the most natural thing in the world, another step in a life steeped in the arts, education, and community since before she was a child.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 22, 2024 12:55 pm
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Angel Piss.
Sounds like nature. Sounds like video games. Choirs of unearthly voices and raspy tones from a saxophone. And people listening hard to build sounds together. All of this awaited the healthy crowd that showed up at Never Ending Books on Friday evening for a triple bill of The Sawtelles, Human Flourishing, and Angel Piss.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 22, 2024 9:44 am
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Jeff Fuller and Friends.
Jazz can be found practically every night of the week in New Haven: at cigar bars, alongside pizza, and amidst videos and DVDs, among other places. For a jazz fan who wishes to partake of live music even during the day, Elm City Market has brought back its popular weekly jazz brunch on Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., which means not only do you get tunes, but you can have a meal (or a muffin or a mug of coffee or both) as well.
Don’t listen to the new single from the Afro-Semitic Experience if you wish to remain mired in despair over the state of the world or the harshness dividing groups of people.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 18, 2024 9:05 am
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A third of the way through the latest concert in the Kallos Chamber Music Series — held Wednesday evening at the New Haven Lawn Club — cellist Daniel Hamin Go had a little insider’s tip. “In order for this to be the best concert you’ve ever been to, this is what you have to do. During the intermission, which will begin in about 16 minutes, there is lots of wine!” The audience laughed. “And some good food. I highly recommend you either get drunk or you stuff yourself, because then we will sound amazing.” The audience laughed again. It was a fitting encapsulation of the tone of the evening, in which the music was serious but the mood informal and festive, making for a night of serious fun.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 17, 2024 9:00 am
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The Sacred Harp participants for the evening.
Do you like to sing? I do, but I haven’t done much formally or had any instruction in it. For 2024 one of my goals was to truly find my own voice without shame or judgment. Lucky for me, Volume Two at Never Ending Books has a gathering of the New Haven Sacred Harp every third Monday of the month, where new and inexperienced singers are always welcome.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 17, 2024 9:00 am
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Allen Lowe performing at Best Video.
Allen Lowe, a man of multiple talents — musician, songwriter, author, historian — likes to argue. Luckily for jazz fans, those arguments fuel his creative output.
His life is being captured in a documentary as he works on an array of new projects as well as a monthly jazz series at Best Video that is seeing its audience grow with every show. Lowe is no stranger to crowded rooms, as he has been playing to them locally and elsewhere for years. He currently seems to be in a sort of renaissance era — though if you ask him, he may argue that point as well.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 15, 2024 8:54 am
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The Almighty Yellow Star.
Guitar strings plucked with grace and care, voices keening in the air, and one of the most attentive audiences seen anywhere in months made for an intense and intimate evening of music Saturday at Best Video Film and Cultural Center in Hamden.
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Brian Slattery |
Jan 8, 2024 9:12 am
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Zero Dollar.
Nicholas Serrambana on bass came on with a prowling, acrobatic line. Jeff Dragan on electronics countered with purrs and hisses, as though from a virtual snake. Nick Di Maria played his trumpet into a microphone to apply effects to the horn’s sound, from echoing reverb to electronically generated harmonies.
