SunFest is a little younger than Saturday Night Live, but bears similarities to the iconic TV series that recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Starting out small and grass-roots in 1983, the sprawling West Palm Beach event, set for April 29-May 3, now calls itself “Florida’s largest waterfront music and art festival.” And as is the case with SNL, some people prefer the … [Read more...]
Bria Skonberg: Trumpeter, singer, composer brings triple threat to Arts Garage
Female singers have become more frequent in jazz since the three arguably greatest jazz vocalists of all-time, female or male — Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday — dominated the genre through the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Female trumpeters? That's a much shorter story. And the ones who've excelled at both? Cue the crickets. That's because artists who have blended … [Read more...]
Drummer Olsson ready to return to road with Elton John
Even if you know drummer Nigel Olsson’s name, you may not know he’s worked with the Spencer Davis Group, Uriah Heep, Jimmy Webb, Neil Sedaka, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart, Rick Springfield, Leon Russell, Helen Reddy, Bob Weir, Barry Manilow, Kenny Rogers, Toto, and B.B. King. But you’d likely know the singular Olsson association that overshadows those. The 66-year-old has been … [Read more...]
Violinist Johnson brings the blues — successfully — into his parlor
Violinist Gareth Johnson creatively started his downstairs “Parlor Series” concerts last summer after moving into a two-story condo just west of the downtown area of Lake Worth. With a master’s degree from the Lynn Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, the 29-year-old is often paired with fellow classical musicians in the intimate, 40-seat room — his Jan. 18 presentation … [Read more...]
Songwriter MacDonald evokes folk scene in credible first novel
Delray Beach-based author Rod MacDonald’s primary audience for his debut novel, The Open Mike, is likely to include many of the folks who have followed his primary career as a singer/songwriter. Considering that he got his musical start singing and playing guitar in Greenwich Village in the 1970s, where the book’s lead character (the similarly-named Reo MacGregor) does the … [Read more...]
Third Sunshine Music & Blues fest strong and satisfying
Husband-and-wife guitarists Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, co-leaders of the Tedeschi Trucks Band and founders of the Sunshine Music & Blues Festival, put together an impressive and varied lineup to precede their closing set during a Sunday stop at Mizner Park Ampitheatre in Boca Raton, and got relatively cool, clear weather to go with it. A capacity crowd, which slowly … [Read more...]
Master of the bass in spotlight at upcoming Pompano jazz fest
Bassist and New York City resident Tom Kennedy may not be one of the headliners at the upcoming star-studded Sea of JazzFest, but the 54-year-old will be one of the most versatile musicians in a sea of them at Pompano Beach Ampitheatre. The event includes saxophonist Phil Woods, trumpeters Randy Brecker and Terell Stafford, vocalist Tierney Sutton, flutist Hubert Laws, … [Read more...]
Tedeschi and Trucks’ Sunshine music festival set for Boca on Jan. 18
The lead vocalist in the Tedeschi Trucks Band is powerhouse namesake singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi — yet its primary mouthpiece for press interviews is the group's other namesake guitarist, her husband Derek Trucks. Both will be front-and-center when their 11-piece act headlines the third annual installment of their own creation, the Sunshine Music & Blues Festival, on Jan. … [Read more...]
Ramsey Lewis: Ahead of his time, and with it, too
The term “crossover artist” wasn’t used much in jazz until after the fusion era (the jazz/rock explosion from the late ’60s to mid-’70s), and was coined when some jazz singers and musicians added pop and R&B elements to keep or increase their popularity. But 79-year-old pianist Ramsey Lewis has always proven ahead of his time. He even pre-dated fusion with his trio's … [Read more...]
Hersch’s ‘My Coma Dreams’ vividly explores world between jazz life and death
An old, valid cliché says that art imitates life, but New York City-based jazz pianist Fred Hersch’s new DVD My Coma Dreams (Palmetto) artistically goes more than one step beyond that. The 90-minute video, filmed at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University in New York City, includes a conductor leading an 11-piece musical ensemble with Hersch, an actor playing dual roles of … [Read more...]