Something uplifting for your Friday: The fine folks behind the Playing for Change documentary – a project chronicling street musicians around the globe – released an amazing mashup of the Ben E. King classic ‘Stand By Me’ in which they recorded buskers across multiple cities and continents, and synched together their performances into a stirring [...]
Saxophonist Tom Braxton will be performing in Carrollton tomorrow night with the North Texas-based Crosswinds Jazz Band as part of a benefit concert to increase awareness about ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Nancy Bass, wife of Crosswinds bandleader Brian Bass, was diagnosed with ALS four years ago, and proceeds from the $15 admission [...]
Elizabeth Alexander’s inauguration poem, “Prose Song,” hasn’t won many accolades. But her publisher is betting that it will still sell well: Graywolf Press is rushing out a printing of 100,000 copies. Many people believe — no, make that ardently hope — that Barack Obama will be “an arts president.” But the inaugural music from composer [...]
Second in a two-part series on North Texas Blues Part 1: A New Oral History of Texas Blues Excerpt from Crossroads on R. L. Griffin’s self-released CD, Believe in Me: Excerpt from His Ol’ Lady on Big Charles Young’s CD, I Got ‘Em A! Excerpt from The Right Reverend of the Blues from Edwin Holt’s [...]
One of the all-time examples of jazz greatness, for me, is John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” An extremely difficult chord progression, coupled with Coltrane’s virtuosic solos, makes for exciting listening nearly a half-century after the eponymous album’s initial release. Years ago, someone somewhere transcribed Coltrane’s solo (no small task). Some motivated soul has taken it a [...]
Some kind soul with an undoubtedly large collection of VHS tapes recently posted to YouTube a segment from a late-1980s KERA program called “Art’s Eye”. In the clip below, host Judy Kelly profiles Dallas’ Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, just as they were reaching stardom thanks to radio hit “What I Am”. It’s great [...]
The Swell Season, a.k.a. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, a.k.a. the two stars of the indie smash Once, finally hit town Monday night, playing to a capacity crowd at the Palladium Ballroom. After wearing grooves into the film’s soundtrack from playing it so much, I can’t say I was disappointed in the live incarnation. But [...]
Frequent KERA commentator Tom Dodge has written a moving tribute to the late Dallas guitarist Ronnie Dawson for the Texas Observer. Dawson, suffering from cancer, befriended Dodge’s son, Lindon, who had been paralyzed by a spinal cord injury; they worked together on building a telescope. After Ronnie died, Lindon asked me to come over to [...]
London’s Globe Theatre is launching its own record label, Globe Editions, this fall as a way to reach new audiences. The first album, Elizabethan Street Songs, is performed by early music expert and Globe musician Jim Bisgood and his band Tarleton’s Jig, using traditional instruments such as the sackbut, archlute and hurdygurdy. Important caveat: The [...]
Photo credit: Whitney Lawson George Steel, the executive director of Columbia University’s Miller Theater, will become the new general director of the Dallas Opera, effective Oct.1 — meaning he will help usher the company into the new Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House next year. The 41-year-old Steel does not come from the typical ranks [...]
