Author Archive
Brooklyn’s own Herbie Solomon- better known as Herbie Mann- became jazz’s most hirsute flutist and devoted fusionist. Mann started on the clarinet as a Benny Goodman disciple, but then switched to flute to make his mark, mixing jazz with Afro-Cuban, R&B, funk, reggae, and most importantly Brazilian– he was one of the first US jazz …
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There were plenty of Jews who got tangled up in the Latin music scene in the 40s and 50s, but only a few went for the name-change masquerade (think radio man Dick “Ricardo” Sugar). Alfred Levy could have become Alan Land but instead opted for Alfredito and morphed into a top percussionist on the NYC …
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The Idelsohn Society will be closing out Lincoln’s Center’s Out of Doors Festival with a re-creation of the 1961 Riverside album, MAZEL TOV, MIS AMIGOS on August 23rd.
The ONE NIGHT ONLY show will feature Arturo O’Farrill and his Afro Cuban Sextet with special guests Irving Fields, Fania legend Larry Harlow, the Antibalas horns, and …
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Jo Amar, a Moroccan-born Jewish singer whose melding of Andalusian and Israeli musical influences made him a star in Israel and a popular performer in Jewish communities around the world, died on June 29 at the home of his son Ouri in Woodmere, N.Y. He was 79 …
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When Hank Ballard and The Midnighters released a minor blues number they called “The Twist” back in 1959, it was a forgettable b-side. When Chubby Checker covered it a year later, it not only became an a- side single that rose to #1 on the Billboard charts, it became a social event, a culture-spanning dance …
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