Saturday, Dec. 7: The jazz pianist’s inventive solo interpretations of Jobim (2009’s Fred Hersch Plays Jobim) reimagine the music of Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim as introspective and almost classical in its internal, contrapuntal complexity. Even by Jazzstock’s consistently lofty standards, this is a big get.
Sunday, December 15: The isolation and examination of Robert Hunter’s contribution to the Grateful Dead is long overdue, as is his appreciation as a prolific and seminal rock poet.
Saturday, Nov. 30: Fronted by the charismatic Jamaican-born singer and songwriter Nee Nee Rushie, the seven-piece New York band the Big Takeover plays original music that is rooted in and reverent toward the genres and rhythms of Jamaican pop: reggae, rocksteady, ska.
Vassar professor Debra Elmegreen is president-elect of the International Astronomical Union – the largest organization of professional astronomers in the world – and will begin her three-year term as president in 2021. Like Maria Mitchell more than 150 years ago, Elmegreen was recently elected into membership of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Saturday, Nov. 30: This world premiere features “history in the making” (Boston Globe) vocalist Shenel Johns, Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Saxophone Competition finalist Godwin Louis, renowned bassist Russell Hall (Wynton Marsalis, Jon Batiste and Stay Human), CJF fan favorite pianist Mathis Picard (Mwenso and the Shakes, Bria Skonberg) and drummer Savannah Harris.
Monday, Dec. 2: Scratch a hipster and you will typically find a Buddhist. When he is not engaged in pure sound-for-sound’s-sake stuff, Thurston Moore still makes great rock records with long, exploded forms, ecstatic/erotic and unsentimental seeker themes and the creamy, saturated guitar tones – some of the most material guitar sounds ever recorded – for which is justly famous and for which reason the ProCo RAT distortion pedal is still flying off the shelves.
Sunday, Nov. 24: Their latest material leans hard toward funk and soul – a kind of roots mashup that will strike some listeners are a somewhat scruffier and less conservatory-groomed version of Lake Street Dive, with whom they have toured.
When and why do deer lose their antlers? How do squirrels organize their nut hoards? What do shrews eat? Are bobcats making a comeback in the mid-Hudson Valley?
Unlike horns, antlers grow anew each year. But why?
In a contrary motion that J. S. Bach likely would have appreciated, Like Falling through a Cloud moves from an ethereal, poetic confusion in its earliest pages toward an all-too-grounded diagnostic clarity as the reality sinks in and the author advances, often with great reluctance, from consultation to consultation as the unnamable is named.