With a voice that embodies a dusty road at the moment when day surrenders to evening, Citizen Cope found the intersection of sensual and earthly. The Memphis-born, D.C.-raised post modern troubadour blends reggae, jazz, folk and various strains of roots music as if there are no lines dividing music — and it shows on his dusky The RainWater LP on his own RainWater Records.
A group of Island musicians was in the key of comfort Friday night at Nancy’s in Oak Bluffs, mixing old school tunes with a little new school funk. The Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Quintet was performing together for the first time. The group is a mix of jazz cats young and old — the three members of the Vineyard high school group Ramblin’ Tides and three members of the Brian King Nelson Sextet. Different ages, same passion.
Fasten Seatbelts, Prepare for Lift Off
Motivation comes in many forms. But rarely do you hear the words, like a cow before slaughter, as a singular muse. But then again, David Parker is not your ordinary choreographer.
Eleven-year-old Sophie Donohue doesn’t have far to travel for the Community Sing each week. During the summer she lives with her family in the Oak Bluffs Camp Ground. Sophie’s Vineyard experience could be described as a time to swim, sail and, of course, sing.
On Wednesday, July 20, at the third Community Sing of the summer, Sophie mingled with the crowd. “I’m waiting for my friends,” she explained. “We come every week to sing together.”
On Saturday, August 6, the Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) will present a program of dance entitled Footprints from My Head’s Rhythm, at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs. The dance troupe was founded in 2004 with the purpose of fusing various traditional African dance styles with contemporary movement and music. If you have ever seen JJDC then you know what you will be doing on August 6 at 8 p.m. And if you haven’t, well, now is the time to mend your dance deficient ways.
On Sunday, July 31, at 8 p.m. at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs, David Crohan and friends will perform a benefit concert in support of Cherie Stannard, an “Island girl” who has spent all of her summers at her family cottage in the Camp Ground. In 2010, Ms. Stannard was left paralyzed from her shoulders down, the result of a car crash. After the accident, Cherie’s sister and brother quit their jobs and stayed at family-housing at the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Ft.