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By CAROLYN BROWN

In a year of international strife, the Northampton Jazz Festival is aiming to bring people together with music that transcends borders. The Northampton Jazz Festival, which will return for its 12th year on Sept. 27 and 28, is celebrating the unifying...

Peachy keenStone fruit season is in full swing and this Sunday, Aug. 18, there will be an opportunity to celebrate at the Outlook Farm Peach Festival in Westhampton. Located at the scenic Outlook Farm winery and brewery, the event will include a pig...

By STEVE PFARRER

Fresh on the heels of Django in June, Northampton’s annual celebration of jazz manouche and Django Reinhardt, Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares has organized its own summer jazz series for July, both to say “thank you” to supporters and to give local...

By STEVE PFARRER

It was 20 years ago today … Well, maybe not exactly to the day, but Django in June, the annual Northampton celebration of the music created by the legendary Belgian-French guitarist Django Reinhardt, is marking its 20th anniversary this year.That’s no...

By STEVE PFARRER

When he was growing up, John Anz knew that his father, Johnny Anz, played piano and sang. But he didn’t know much about his dad’s musical background, especially as Johnny Anz died when his son was just 7 years old.But a little over 50 years later,...

By Alexa Lewis

EASTHAMPTON — Carol’s Jazz Night is back, and CitySpace has announced the upcoming stars of the Blue Room: The Argiro Quintet and the Rich Goldstein Quartet.Jazz vocalist Carol Abbe Smith welcomes community members into CitySpace’s Blue Room at 43...

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...