Category: Concert Reviews

June 6, 2015 / Concert Reviews - Archive

The Basement, May 27 The mating of music and venue is always critical. The last time I heard New York’s The Bad Plus they were on an outdoor festival stage, and all the nuance so in evidence here was lost: nuance that is not just the icing on their cake,…

May 18, 2015 / Concert Reviews - Archive

505, May 6 It’s the sort of sound they might outlaw in certain countries as being against the best interests of some deity. Joseph Tawadros’s oud has been surrounded, cushioned or jostled by instrumentation ranging from organ to banjo to the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and most often by James Tawadros’s…

Concert Hall, April 12 One could have reasonably assumed that Mavis Staples and Angelique Kidjo were joint headline acts. Staples, after all, has been a pivotal figure in r’n’b, gospel music and even the civil rights movement. So why was she given the support-act treatment? Why the bottom-drawer production values…