This Place
Returning to my wife Ellie’s family farmstead always feels like a pilgrimage. It’s beautiful, to any eye; but singularly precious in how our family sees it. The 1797 house sits in a hollow among rolling ridges, home to dairy farms, wild turkeys, prosperous weekending city folk and commuters to busier places, and to folks working … Continue reading This Place →
Jazz on Jay No. 14: Joshua Nelson Quartet, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021
The music warmed up more than the weather Thursday as young alto saxophonist Joshua Nelson delivered a confident, crowd-pleasing straight-head show; not that there was anything wrong with the sunny afternoon, either. The former Schenectady resident brought downstate band-mates, but happily greeted family, friends and mentors from the tented bandstand. In his first number, from … Continue reading Jazz on Jay No. 14: Joshua Nelson Quartet, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021 →
Jazz on Jay No. 11- Claire Daly Quartet
“Funk in the Deep Freeze” was a wishful thinking song title Thursday as baritone saxophonist Clalre Daly led three local heroes at Jazz on Jay, an over-heated endurance contest the band only narrowly won. Playing baritone sax with any fluency at all takes as much lung power as it does arm strength to tote one. … Continue reading Jazz on Jay No. 11- Claire Daly Quartet →
Mister Charlie
The Immaculate Percussion Until recently, I greeted news of every death with the hope that it wasn’t COVID. This was a strange superstition about how our dreaded plague somehow drowned out the possibility of anything else deadly happening around here. Not so, obviously. Am I more pissed off that John Prine died of COVID than … Continue reading Mister Charlie →
Music Haven Reopens in Shortened Season of Free Concerts
Bluesman Albert Cummings Rocks the (happy) House, Wyld Blu Opens Each concert venue reopening in this second plague year brings its own particular joy – a general feeling of relief and reunion, but spiced with its own particular atmosphere and energy. At Music Haven in Schenectady’s Central Park Sunday night, it was diversity, dancing and … Continue reading Music Haven Reopens in Shortened Season of Free Concerts →
Kabul (We’ve seen this movie…)
Choppers full of fear Families of graves Leaders lying Pockets of pirates Filling with blood and gold I wish rumsfeld were alive to eat this shame
Jazz on Jay No. 9 – The Dadtet Thursday, August 12
They’re all dads: trombonist/leader Ben O’Shea, pianist David Gleason, saxophonists Brian Patneaude (tenor) and Dave Fisk (tenor and alto), bassist Mike Lawrence; and drummer Andy Hearn. Their Dadtet band name signifies parenthood more than any oblique reference to Louis “Pops” Armstrong. It serves instead as a convenient, collective marquee label for these established area jazz … Continue reading Jazz on Jay No. 9 – The Dadtet Thursday, August 12 →
Jazz on Jay No. 6 – Dylan Perrillo Quintet July 22
“Schenectady is a-a-a-a-ll right,” said Dylan Perrillo late in his quintet’s Jazz on Jay show Thursday. The sunny noontime concert was also very a-a-a-a-ll right. Perrillo said this without irony; the bassist-bandleader wields a wry wit and was often pretty funny at the announcer mic. But he clearly meant this, and he and his guys … Continue reading Jazz on Jay No. 6 – Dylan Perrillo Quintet July 22 →
It all felt just so…normal.
At 151, the restaurant-bar on Lafayette Street, we met and hugged friends, we heard live music, we enjoyed food and drinks. 151 sits two blocks north of long-gone St. Joseph’s, middle school for my brother Jim and me, and next door to Great Flats Brewery; these two new-ish businesses sharing what once was a tire … Continue reading It all felt just so…normal. →
Jazz on Jay No. 5 – Center Square featuring guest Dylan Canterbury July 15
“I’m not used to being the old guy in the band,” said Dylan Canterbury, the (still dark-) bearded “old guy,” late in Center Square’s set at Jazz on Jay Thursday. “But it’s fun playing with these young guys, kicking my butt.” The trumpeter and flugelhorn player was actually first among equals, though bassist Nicholas Dwarika … Continue reading Jazz on Jay No. 5 – Center Square featuring guest Dylan Canterbury July 15 →
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