In the RI jazz community, connections run deep, so with a loss comes profound sorrow. Recently, the jazz community lost one of its most cherished souls, Debra Mann, and the outpouring of both grief and love toward her from across the state has been inspiring to see. Debra Mann graduated from Berklee College of Music in […]
Rhode Island has a rich and varied musical tradition that dates from the 19th century. For proof, all you have to do is take a stroll through the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame’s gallery in the Hope Artiste Village and see the local musicians it celebrates. You’ll see everything from opera to country, rock, […]
Blackout Chatter with Rafay Rashid Ravi Shavi’s new record, Blackout Deluxe, was one of my favorite records from 2018. It was released just before Christmas and shows a more adventurous side of Ravi Shavi. Their previous self-titled release was pretty much straight forward rock ‘n’ roll, but Blackout Deluxe incorporates everything from new wave funk (“Midnight”) to haunted grunge-stained […]
The popularity — and profitability — of programming an evening of one-act plays is quite undeniable for most smaller theaters. In our current short-attention-span culture, televised entertainment is often doled out to viewers in 20-minute packages, so it stands to reason that live theater would easily follow suit. While television and plays are commonly produced […]
The nominees are out! We asked club owners, booking agents and journalists – anyone with expertise in our local music scene – to nominate their favorite musicians for the Motif Music Awards. We reached over 60 of them. The results of their efforts are here and now we turn it over to you, our readers, […]
As a lifelong Rhode Islander who loves the genre of hip-hop, both the local and nationwide scene, it’d be a mistake to say that Dee Gomes does not stand as one RI’s most popular and most successful acts. Working on his craft year after year, Dee Gomes has grown into the budding star he currently […]
Bobby Hackett, a one-of-a-kind original soft-performing trumpet-player, was born in Providence in 1915. His slow and romantic high-quality tone has never been properly imitated, though many performers have tried. He became popular in the last part of the previous century after being recorded with seven labels, including his most important recordings with the Capital Studios. Over the […]
This week, we reach the milestone I assume you’ve all been waiting for: this column finally breaks the surly bonds of Earth and gets some perspective from the rest of the universe. Zoink Zulag and the Galactic Shag The Galactic Shag are a “rogue band of troubadour aliens from universes outside of our own” that have […]
Okee dokee folks … for this pre-Valentine’s Day issue, I thought I’d write a little primer on how to love a musician. These are words I have used to school my current and former partners in the finer points of dating musicians. Over the years I also have talked to musician friends — both women and men — about this […]
Okee dokee folks… The duo Aztec Two-Step has been performing for almost 50 years and are one of my biggest musical influences. Aztec Two-Step is Rex Fowler and Neal Schulman but now it is just Rex, Neal has retired. Fowler has a new group of musicians filling the void left by Neal’s retirement. One of […]