Starting June 23, and up until July 1, Rochester will once again become one of the hottest destinations for live jazz, and music in general. Once a year, for a nine-day stretch, the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Fest brings this medium-sized city wall-to-wall big city talent from across the globe. Headliners at the glorious Eastman Theatre, the Club […]
Hearing Aide: Andy Hall & Roosevelt Collier ‘Let the Steel Play’
Roosevelt Collier, the pedal steel player from the Lee Boys, and Andy Hall, the dobroist for The Infamous Stringdusters, forged a friendship aboard the Jam Cruise in 2012. Since then, they’ve managed to play together occasionally when their schedules aligned. The relationship grew and has finally borne fruit, in the form of their new release, Let […]
Kevin Morby Provides a Preview of Things to Come in Philadelphia
Kevin Morby is releasing his new album in just a couple weeks (out June 16), but you’d forgive those in attendance on Friday, May 26 during the sold out show at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia if they were unaware. The album didn’t even getting a passing mention from the stage, even as the band filled […]
Leif Vollebekk Honestly Good at German House
Honest Folk, a little over a year in existence, promotes occasional pop-up folksy shows in the Rochester area. For their latest booking, they brought Montreal’s Leif Vollebekk to the Historic German House. Rather than plop Vollebekk and band, drummer Evan Tighe and bassist Michael Felder, up on the venue’s tall stage, they set up on […]
Leif Vollebekk Playing Rochester’s German House
Montreal multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk is bringing his deep and moving lyricism to Rochester for what will be a special show at the Historic German House. He is touring behind his critically-acclaimed third album, Twin Solitude, released earlier this year. The three years between records saw him in a creative rut, brought on by […]
Rochester Congregates for the Gospel of Robert Randolph
With an even mix of covers, instrumentals, and tracks off his new album, Got Soul, in just a little over an hour, Robert Randolph made Anthology his house of worship. When you’re on stage with Randolph you’re a part of his family, whether you share blood relation or not. Other than his actual cousin Marcus sitting […]
Robert Randolph Rolls Through Upstate New York
Touring behind their February release, Got Soul, their debut on the Sony Masterworks label, Robert Randolph and the Family Band play multiple shows this week in upstate New York. Randolph has become the leading purveyor of Sacred Steel, a sound Rochesterians know well from Randolph’s friends and mentors, local legends the Campbell Brothers. He starts with […]
Hearing Aide: Woods ‘Love is Love’
Some protest music speaks to specific events. Sometimes it commands specific actions. Other times it is a non-specified reaction. Woods’ Love is Love is a reaction to the unexpected turn of events that flipped the United States on it’s head last November. Recorded in the immediate months that followed, it is not overly negative, angry or […]
Hearing Aide: Formula 5 ‘All Points North’
On All Points North, the new album from Albany jam-rockers Formula 5, ‘North’ is not a physical direction, but a mental state. North is up, and up is good. And so we begin with a happy-go-lucky blast of B3 on album-opener “Come Along.” Even a dark turn toward a minor key on the following “Sad […]
Hearing Aide: Son Volt ‘Notes of Blue’
Back in 1994, alt-country pioneers Uncle Tupelo split in two seemingly equal parts. Both made critical hit debut albums, but one, the Jeff Tweedy-led Wilco, rode an ever increasing wave of success. The other, Jay Farrar’s Son Volt, has had a steadier, though less visible, run. Three decades later and both bands are still going strong […]