Sunday in the Pub With Jazz: Offshore Music Lovers Are Nuts for the Improv
Sam Bungey

When jazz crooner Jerri Wells is finally coaxed up to the front of Oak Bluffs’ Offshore Ale by Eddie (Pepé Caron) Larkosh for a rendition of Do You Know What It Is to Miss New Orleans? she does not stick to the script for long. She delivers a few bars of the prescribed number then, like some sort of thief sidling past a security guard, hums her own improvised segue and ducks into the second verse of A ll Of Me, the Billie Holiday version, leaving the band to scramble after her.

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Yo, What’s This Island Hip-Hop? Complex Humans Explain It All
Alexander Trowbridge

The chorus was catchy, the kind that easily got stuck in your head: “When the sparks turn to flames, it’s time to play the blame game.”

The beat was almost inspirational, symphonic samples over a kick and a snare.

“Yo, who’s them four MCs with the same name?” rapped Robert (Bubba) Brown, Matt Lucier and Andrew Larsen, all seniors at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, together with their friend Henry Peacor from Colorado College.

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Kids Do the Flips for SteveSongs Now
Tom Dunlop

Among many funny things about Steve Roslonek, this may be the funniest: After everything that’s happened in the past 10 years, he still thinks his voice — and even his personality — is best suited to singing backup. Think about that when, in all likelihood, he and his band fill the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs with thousands of parents and children for a free concert on Sunday afternoon and get them clapping, stomping and singing along to tunes such as Elephant Hide and Seek, The Veggie Song and Opposite Day.

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Choir Adds Melody to Frost Poems

The West Tisbury Congregational Church choir will perform Frostiana, Seven Country Songs, words by Robert Frost and music by Randall Thompson, in an upcoming afternoon concert also featuring pianist Dr. Lisa Weiss playing Twenty-Four Preludes, Opus 28, by Chopin, and Elite Syncopations and Pine Apple Rag by Scott Joplin.

The concert is set for Sunday, May 4 at 3 p.m. at the church in West Tisbury, with a reception following. The choir will be directed by Linda Berg. The suggested donation is $15, to benefit the choir’s Italy trip.

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Music to Connect With, not to Categorize
Alexander Trowbridge

Trying to define the musical blend of Citizen Cope is a difficult and perilous exploration into the depths of a nearby thesaurus.

The musician’s voice often is described with frequent uses of the words soul and folk. His guitar has the whine of the blues as it slopes across the scale over the steady pulse of a hip-hop beat... Something like that, plus more adjectives.

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Sexton Brings Soul

Sexton Brings Soul

American soul man Martin Sexton got his start playing on the streets and subways of Boston in the 1990s; Friday night he is playing at Outerland.

He released his seventh album, Seeds, last April on his label Kitchen Table Records. “I believe songs are seeds,” Mr. Sexton says about the collection, “once planted they can grow and nourish and inspire and with that, change the world.”

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Acclaimed Cellist, Pianist Perform In Benefit Concert for Playhouse

Boston cello sensation Sebastian Baverstam and the Russian-American piano virtuoso Constantine Finehouse will perform a concert at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown on Sunday, May 25, at 4 p.m. The program includes works of Beethoven, Kodaly, Schemmer and Brahms, and will benefit The Vineyard Playhouse. A free reception to honor the artists and the composer Tony Schemmer will follow the performance.

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String Quartet Will Open Chappy Music Festival

The Chappaquiddick Summer Music Festival opens its 2008 season on Thursday, July 24 at 8 p.m. with a performance by the Jupiter String Quartet. The concert will be held at the Chappaquiddick Community Center.

Called by the New York Sun “one of the strongest young string quartets in the country,” the quartet includes violinists Nelson Lee and Megan Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel, and cellist Daniel McDonough.

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Stage and Che’s

Stage and Che’s

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Little String Stars Twinkle

Little String Stars Twinkle

The All Island Winter String Concert for students in grades one through 12 is set for Tuesday, Jan. 15th from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. Admission is free.

One of the high points of this concert will be the combined elementary, junior high and high school orchestras performing Kings of Stone, a piece for mixed level ensemble inspired by Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. The high school and junior high groups also will perform independently.

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