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By STEVE PFARRER

It’s still winter, but music festivals, small and large, are in the works. Here’s a look at some coming events, one that’s imminent and one further down the road.First off, Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares is offering a mini-fest next weekend, Feb. 22-25,...

By STEVE PFARRER

Back in the 1980s, Jack Frisch, then in his early twenties, got bitten pretty hard by the jazz bug, taking the ferry from his home in Staten Island, New York, over to Manhattan with some friends and haunting record shops.His interest had been...

By STEVE PFARRER

When John Piskor opened his Cajun-style restaurant, Gombo Nola Kitchen & Oyster Bar, in Northampton last year, he said he eventually wanted it to turn it into something akin to a New Orleans cafe, where people come out for a drink and live music after...

By STEVE PFARRER

In my last column, I mentioned that The Parlor Room in Northampton and the Marigold Theater are maintaining busy schedules right through these early, dead-of-winter days.Another area venue that keeps pumping up the music is The Drake in Amherst, and...

Hot tickets at the moviesAMHERST — Amherst Cinema usually has plenty of interesting and critically lauded films on its schedule. But at the moment, the independent movie house is screening two titles that are generating Oscar buzz as well.“The...

By STEVE PFARRER

Max Roach is celebrated as one of the most influential drummers in jazz history, a pioneer of Bebop who led groundbreaking ensembles in every decade of his long career. As a drummer and a composer, he’s credited with making drums a more expressive and...

By STEVE PFARRER

Musicians are always looking for another venue to play. Actors and playwrights search for a new place to stage a show. Dancers want another floor to move on.At Holyoke Media, they all can find room.The independent, nonprofit organization, funded...

By STEVE PFARRER

A few years ago, Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares (PVJS), the member-supported concert series, faced the same issue all musicians, clubs, and show promoters were dealing with: a problem called COVID-19.Like others, PVJS went online during the worst of the...

By STEVE PFARRER

Joe Farnsworth was 10 or 11 when he got the chance to meet a drumming legend: Max Roach.It was at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1979, where Roach taught. Farnsworth, who grew up in South Hadley, remembers how one of his older brothers,...

Dancing in the streets: Jazz & Roots FestivalSPRINGFIELD — Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival returns to the city for the second consecutive year in a multi-day format, with over 16 musical acts on tap as well...

By STEVE PFARRER

In 2019, Felipe Salles put the finishing touches on an ambitious project: an extended composition that blended jazz, Latin American music, and classical elements, all of it based on interviews he’d conducted with younger immigrants about what it was...

Time to celebrate Hadley grassHADLEY — New England Public Media’s Asparagus Festival, now in its ninth season, returns to the Hadley town common June 3 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., offering a variety of family-friendly events such as music and games, as...

By STEVE PFARRER

When he and his wife moved to the Valley in 2005, Edo Mor says he found much to his liking: good bread, good bicycling country, nature and more. But for some time, the kind of eclectic music he liked, from North African guitar sounds to Middle Eastern...

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s a long way from Boston to the Appalachians, but you wouldn’t know it for the number of top bluegrass players and string bands that seem to come out of The Hub.Consider Molly Tuttle, for instance, the award-winning guitar picker who studied at...

By STEVE PFARRER

Over the years, Glenn Siegel has worked with a huge number of jazz musicians and composers, both as the founder of the former Magic Triangle concert series at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and with his Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares program.But...

By STEVE PFARRER

The official start of spring is less than three weeks away, though it’s anyone’s guess when the weather will really warm up. But as if she’s anticipating that time, Kimaya Diggs has a new single out that could serve as a wonderful soundtrack for that...

By STEVE PFARRER

Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, Matthew “Fat Cat” Rivera didn’t hear a whole lot of jazz. But what he did hear began to pique his interest.By the time he was in high school, Rivera says, jazz had become “an obsession,” and in college he was...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — Over 30 years ago, Glenn Siegel, then working as a jazz DJ at WMUA-FM at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, went to talk to Frederick Tillis, the director of the university’s Fine Arts Center. Siegel and some other jazz DJs at the...

By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

AMHERST — Local jazz legend Tom McClung, a pianist and composer known for his versatility, died Saturday at the age of 60 after a yearslong battle with cancer.McClung was born in New York in 1957 to Robert McClung, the acclaimed Amherst author of some...

At Hope & FeathersThe sixth annual “Small Works” show at Hope and Feathers Framing, 319 Main St. in Amherst, will be up through Jan. 14. The show features dozens of works by local artists in all mediums, including photography, paintings, illustration...