December 12th, 2013
Jazz Central Holiday Reception
The annual holiday party at Jazz Central continues to be a great after work mixer (and not just to get a taste of Judy Murphy’s meatballs).
The intimate theater provides a great opportunity to catch up with all those folks you’ve seen through the year at jazz shows sponsored by the CNYJAF (from Sitrus, Jazz in the City and the Cabaret series as well as the Northeast Jazz & Wine Festival).
A few years ago, despite a snow storm, we caught an impromptu piano performance by Cookie Coogan, Chris Jones and Jeff Stockham. Last night the mood was just as festive with Dave Solazzo providing the musical ambiance.
Jazz Patrons: Assemblyman Sam Roberts, Lanessa Owens and Mike Atkins attended the party.
Tags: Chris Jones, CNYJAF, Connective Corridor, Cookie Coogan, Dave Solazzo, Holiday, Jazz Central, Jeff Stockham, Music, Sam Roberts
Posted in Music | No Comments »
December 12th, 2013
The R&B band Troop performed at the 2005 Syracuse Juneteenth Celebration. The band is pictured here with DJ Chaz, who passed away earlier this year.
Tags: DJ Chaz, DJs, Juneteenth, Music, Syracuse Juneteenth Celebration, Throwback Thursday, Troop
Posted in Music | No Comments »
December 11th, 2013
The nearly century-old sycamore tree stands guard near southern entrance to the Syracuse Center of Excellence (CoE) property.
Construction continues on Washington Street near the CoE building (interrupting our normal Connective Corridor route). We took a recent tour of the facilities and were briefed on the numerous green projects and advanced energy systems. We also found out that Syracuse is taking sustainability + conservation to new heights, because although new foliage was added on Washington Street, they didn’t displace this mature sycamore (located near what will become the CoE parking lot).
Tags: 2013, Connective Corridor, Flora, Midtown, Neighborhood in Transition, Syracuse Center of Excellence (Syracuse CoE)
Posted in Business | No Comments »
December 10th, 2013
Our Reality, the Lyrical Phenom
You can have Justin Bieber; you can have Katy Perry, you can have Miley Cyrus; and you can even have Daft Punk. What excited us most this year in music was the return of our friend, Michael “Our Reality” Childs to the stage. We got to preview the Our Reality album at the beginning of 2013. He spent most of the summer touring. It has been 20 years since we’ve seen him perform, and we finally caught him ripping up the stage and kicking knowledge to a younger generation at the Westcott Theater last night. Ironically, Childs was on the bill with fellow West Coast Hip Hop heads Blackalicious.
Tags: 2013, Adult contemporary hip hop, Blackalicious, Hip Hop, Music, Our Reality, Rap Music, Year in Review
Posted in Music | No Comments »
December 9th, 2013
Gift of Gab
The Westcott Theater served up a dose of West Coast positivity with the anticipated arrival of Blackalicious in Syracuse last night. The group was founded in the 1990s by Tim Parker (aka Gift of Gab) and Xavier Moseley (aka DJ Chief Xcel). Gift of Gab had a health scare with kidney failure last year, so it was good to see him back on stage.
The duo was joined on stage by the Portland team Lifesavas, made up of Vursatyl and Jumbo the Garbage Man (who wore a “Less Drama, More Music” t-shirt).
Their hour-long set included the first Blackalicious single “Swan Lake” and some new material, including the song “Blacka,” from their upcoming album (due out in March).
In the mean time, check out the East Bay Funk from this song.
Openers for the show were Our-Reality and Chaz Ultra.
Vursatyl from the Lifesavas
Tags: 2013, Blackalicious, Chief Xcel, Hip Hop Culture, Life, Lifesavas, Music, The Westcott Theater, Vursatyl
Posted in Music | No Comments »
December 9th, 2013
Maybe the most progressive programming (artistic and otherwise) we’ve covered this year was held at the Community Folk Art Center this year. Here is a short clip of media personality George Kilpatrick talking about his radio endeavors during the CNY Mocha Men event produced by Me’Shae Brooks-Rolling.
Tags: 2013, African American Radio Personalities, CFAC, CNY Mocha Men, Connective Corridor, George Kilpatrick, Me'Shae Brooks-Rolling, Year in Review
Posted in Art, Business | No Comments »
December 7th, 2013
Erika Lovette: A holiday treat at Sitrus
Singer/songwriter Erika Lovette was a great choice to close the Jazz @ Sitrus series along the Connective Corridor on Friday evening. We’ve seen Lovette perform for what seems like decades, though she is quite young. For this audience, she showed her range and versatility by belting out some old school classics such as Aretha, George Benson and Otis Redding.
Tags: 2013, Connective Corridor, Erika Lovette, Holiday, Jazz @ Sitrus, Music, Sheraton Hotel, Syracuse
Posted in Music | No Comments »
December 6th, 2013
Vegetable Delight (Kitchen Series)
Thanks to the customer service department of the Dewitt Barnes & Noble for unveiling for us the newly arrived The Photography of the Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold recently. The coffee-table book, which may be more dense and than a coffee table itself, features the perfect blend of science, photography and gastronomy. The macro shots, microscopic shots and high-speed shots are captured in Myhrvold’s lab/kitchen using a variety of cameras puts a new-school, almost Gladwellian spin on previous a previous work by Charles Jones. Here is a clip of Myhrvold talking to Charlie Rose this week about the project. The book is a great gift idea for all you photographers, scientists or body builders.
Tags: 2013, Barnes & Noble, Books, Charles Jones, Food, Modernist Cuisine, Nathan Myhrvold, Photography, Science
Posted in Photography, Science | No Comments »
