The laugh is still that down low rumble of thunder and a box car about to go out of service, and blues-folk legend Taj Mahal laughs a lot. It’s not just a survival strategy for the guitarist who burst into public consciousness in the sixties, but more the reflection of a love affair with life that has informed the roots icon’s journey through the shifting tides of American music over the last four decades.
The Chappaquiddick Summer Music Festival continues its 2008 season on Thursday, July 31 at 8 p.m. with a performance by Trio Solisti. The program includes Copland’s Hoe-Down, Schoenfield’s Cafe Music, Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, and the trio’s highly acclaimed arrangement of Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition.
After dusk on July 24, I ran up Look street in a downpour, searching for the party. I knew I had found the right place when I saw the ubiquitous Vineyard white-painted wooden parking sign — the one that usually reads “Reserved for: Norton” but read instead, “Reserved for: Rabbi.” I was coming to hear Alicia Svigals and the Klezmer Fiddle Express perform at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven.
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.
Three Martha’s Vineyard students were accepted into the prestigious OperaFest 2008 workshops on the Island, and two will be performing arias and scenes from famous operas with up-and-coming young singers from New Jersey on Saturday, July 26, at 8 p.m. at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs.
The Vineyard Students are Rosie Bick, who will sing Cunegonda from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide and Mitch Lowe who will sing in the Torreador Scene from Bizet’s Carmen.
Jim Glavin had a wonderful 60th birthday party on Saturday night.