Dave Mallett
Saturday, October 6 – 7:30 pm
Virginia Beach Central Library
626-3655; www.tffm.org
The state troubadour of Maine travels south to one of his favorite homes away from home armed with a guitar and a stash of great songs. Few songwriters of the last thirty years have been as consistently excellent, and Dave Mallett’s weathered baritone voice and down east phrasing make you believe he personally knows the life and lives depicted in his lyrical short stories. Alone on a stage, he is an entrancing performer. When he sings his classic “Garden Song,” everyone in the room is with him: “Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow…”
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Bruce Hornsby & Ricky Skaggs
Friday, October 19 – 8:00 pm
Ferguson Center for the Arts
594-8752; fergusoncenter.cnu.edu
Their CD collaboration spent the spring and summer at #1 on the bluegrass charts and they’ve been knocking audiences out around the country. This musical match-made-in-heaven between our eclectic local wonderboy and the former country music Entertainer of the Year is the coolest tour of the year. Expect to hear a heapin’ helpin’ from their album together plus reinvented takes from each of their back catalogs. Purists may have initially scoffed at the idea of a grand piano in the middle of a bluegrass band, but Bruce’s rich stylistic range fits as snug as a bug in a rug, and he and Ricky sing this stuff like nobody’s business. Theirs is a magnificent melding of the traditional past with the ever evolving present and future.
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Kathleen Grace
Friday, October 19 – 8:00 pm
Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts
923-0003; www.suffolkcenter.org
Kathleen Grace is one of the best of the new breed of young jazz singers. Neither bluesy belter nor diva-esque showoff, she uses her classically trained three-octave voice subtly, wrapping it around a lyric to pull out the depth of a song’s meaning while gently exploring the improvisational possibilities within the melody. Her repertoire ranges from jazz standards to Brazilian reworkings of The Beatles, Broadway melodies to vocal interpretations of instrumental jazz compositions. More Tierney Sutton than Ella Fitzgerald, she is also an award winning jazz composer. Her performance in Suffolk is a rare east coast appearance, one that should attract vocal jazz lovers from throughout the region.
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Randy Brecker
Friday, November 30 – 7:30 pm
Roper Center for the Performing Arts
623-4141; www.jazzongranby.com
Randy Brecker has played with a Who’s Who of the music business, from James Taylor and Bruce Springsteen to Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa. An original member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, he and his late brother Michael achieved a great deal of success in the ‘70s as The Brecker Brothers. Highly regarded on trumpet and flugelhorn, his own recordings have ranged from straightahead jazz jams to funkified urban workouts and sweet Brazilian breezes. Forty years into his career, he won two 2007 Grammy awards. You never know what direction he may go next, but he’ll be coming to Norfolk from the Martinique Jazz Festival in the Caribbean. His concert here four years ago with fellow Philadelphian Marc Copland was positively sublime; he’ll front his own quintet this time around.
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Jonathan Edwards
Saturday, December 1 – 7:30 pm
Virginia Beach Central Library
626-3655; www.tffm.org
“Sunshine go away today, don’t feel much like dancin’.” Jonathan Edwards’ “Sunshine” was everywhere in the fall of 1971, carried by the singer’s distinctive voice, the lyrics’ declaration of freedom and the song’s singalong melody. But it would turn out to be his only trip up the pop charts. Since then, Edwards has traveled the folk and country road, sprinkling songs from that debut album into always energetic performances along with latter day originals and carefully chosen covers. I saw him a couple of years ago at the Flye Point Music Festival, and he was a mesmerizing entertainer, his voice still possessing that unique timbre, his setlist surprising for the number of familiar songs beyond his lone Top Ten hit.
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Livingston Taylor
Saturday, December 1 – 8:00 pm
Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts
923-0003; www.suffolkcenter.org
After James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James single-handedly changed the musical landscape in 1970, the whole Taylor family got record contracts and began releasing albums. Brother Alex sang the blues and sister Kate covered ground similar to that of Carole King’s Tapestry, but it was Liv whose music most closely resembled JT’s, and Liv who appeared most likely to join him on the pop charts. But maybe he sounded too much like his big brother: Despite excellent songwriting, he couldn’t quite grab the golden ring. Nonetheless, he has continued making music, flirting with light jazz and becoming an engaging live performer. He’s been a professor of voice at Berklee College of Music for twenty five years and has staked out a reputation for class and in-concert charisma.
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Manhattan Transfer
with the Virginia Symphony Pops
Saturday, December 22 – 8:00 pm
Chrysler Hall
892-6366; www.virginiasymphony.org
Over the last 25 years, they’ve pretty much done it all—hitting the charts with “Birdland” and “The Boy From New York City,” exploring vocalese, be-bop, doo-wop, R&B, swing, Latin, pop and children’s music. Where do you go after that? Their last CD, The Symphony Sessions, pointed in a direction the quartet has traveled occasionally over the years, working in tandem with orchestras. In my review of that album earlier this year, I wrote that it “makes you want to hear them with our own Virginia Symphony.” Somebody must’ve been paying attention! Cheryl Bentyne was here for a superb solo show this spring, warming us up for the full shebang with her mates Janis Siegel, Tim Hauser and Alan Paul. It’s a nice holiday gift from the folks at the Symphony.
copyright © 2007 Jim Newsom. All Rights Reserved.
