Articles by John Chacona
Jamile and Vinicius Gomes: Endangered Species
by John Chacona
The musical exchange between Wayne Shorter and Brazil yielded some of the great man's most indelible compositions. Happily, the conversation happens in the other direction, as Jamile and guitarist Vinicius Gomes demonstrate on “Endangered Species." With its wide intervallic leaps and skylarking melodic trajectory, the song is for virtuosos only; notably, only Esperanza Spalding seems to have attempted it. On Boundless Species (La Reserve Records, 2025), Jamile also takes on Herbie Hancock's “Actual Proof" (wordlessly), and Guinga's “Mingus Samba," sailing ...
Continue ReadingObsolescence Quartet at The Treelawn Social Club
by John Chacona
Obsolescence QuartetThe Treelawn Social Club Cleveland, OH January 11, 2026 An evening of completely improvised music by top-level players is not an everyday thing in jny: Cleveland. So the Sunday evening set by the cheekily named Obsolescence Quartet (an oblique reference to the effects on human creators of artificial intelligence) was self-recommending. Chalk that up to the eminence of the musicians. On the front line, tenor saxophonist Joshua Smith, making an intermittent ...
Continue ReadingDave McMurray Hears Himself In All Of Detroit's Music
by John Chacona
Saxophonist and composer Dave McMurray has much of the celebrated history of Detroit music in his memory and under his fingers. Now 70, and with four acclaimed releases on the storied Blue Note label, he is arguably at the pinnacle of a long and remarkably varied career. All the strands of that career are gathered by Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, in which McMurray is a featured voice. In advance of the band's appearance in Cleveland, Ohio ...
Continue ReadingCraig Taborn: When Kabuya Dances
by John Chacona
With every passing year, the genius of the late Geri Allen increasingly comes into focus. “When Kabuya Dances" has all the hallmarks of her style: memorable melodies, a sophisticated approach to rhythm and formal audacity. Allen had left jny: Detroit for Howard University shortly before Craig Taborn arrived at the University of Michigan, but he might have learned about “When Kabuya Dances" from the eminent Motor City rhythm team of bassist Jaribu Shahid}] and drummer {{Tani Tabbal, who recorded the ...
Continue ReadingAretha Tillotson: Sad Junie (to Highway Jake)
by John Chacona
If the average fan living south of the 49th Parallel knows anything about jazz in Canada, it might begin and end with Oscar Peterson and Diana Krall. Yes, jny: Toronto is emerging as a great jazz city and there are all those players from jny: Nanaimo, but in between, nothing, right? Bassist Aretha Tillotson is here to explode that notion (politely, of course; she's Canadian). Her second release, wryly entitled Kinda Out West, is a valentine to the prairie provinces by ...
Continue ReadingCarmen Staaf: Monk's Mood
by John Chacona
There is an iconic image in Charlotte Zwerin's 1988 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser that shows Monk, cigarette in hand, silently contemplating a misty Manhattan skyline. As heard on her recording Sounding Line (Sunnyside Records, 2025), Carmen Staaf's arrangement of “Monk's Mood" that begins with Dylan Vado's spectral bowed vibes perfectly captures the soft-focus melancholy of the image. That Staaf's piano style bears little resemblance to Monk's speaks to the enduring influence of his music, the ...
Continue ReadingThe Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis at the Beachland Tavern
by John Chacona
The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis Beachland Tavern Cleveland, OH September 12, 2025 jny: Cleveland, Ohio can lay a strong claim as one of the three mother cities, along with jny: London and jny: New York City of punk rock and culture (note: it took an act of will not to use the word gritty in that sentence). This should not be controversial. The forces of de-industrialization, disinvestment and alienation--the same ones that ...
Continue ReadingPaul Cornish Trio at BOP STOP
by John Chacona
Paul Cornish Trio BOP STOP at the Music Settlement jny: Cleveland, OHSeptember 5, 2025 Paul Cornish began his concert with a recording of a 1966 John Coltrane interview in Japan. Musicians invoke him all the time these days, but the great saxophonist/saint who ecstatically called the spirits makes an odd match with a pianist whose debut recording You're Exaggerating! (Blue Note, 2025) was measured, thoughtful and maybe a little cool. The first ...
Continue ReadingHingetown Jazz Festival 2025
by John Chacona
Hingetown Jazz Festival Various venues Cleveland, OH August 30, 2025 It would surprise no one if this review of the third Hingetown Jazz Festival in jny: Cleveland began, as such pieces often do, by noting how the festival has grown. But that would not exactly be accurate. By the most common measure of such things, the size of the audience, this year's audience looked a lot like 2024's (this writer was not at ...
Continue ReadingDominick Farinacci & Friends / Taylor Eigisti & Christian Tamburr Celebrate Chick Corea and Gary Burton at Tri-C JazzFest 2025
by John Chacona
Dominick Farinacci and Friends Taylor Eigsti and Christian Tamburr Celebrate Chick Corea and Gary BurtonMimi Ohio Theatre Tri-C JazzFest jny: Cleveland, OH June 28, 2025 Afternoon presentations at multi-day jazz festivals tend to be low key--and often low-pressure--events. So it was on the final afternoon of the two-day Tri-C JazzFest. Let us throw more generous in there, too, because Saturday's kickoff concert was a two-shows-for-one-ticket affair. The opening act, was billed ...
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