Music

Sometimes all you can do is marvel at someone’s dumb luck, blessed fortune, or whatever you want to call it. Like the guy who wins the lottery because he picked one or two of the right numbers by mistake, the woman who hits the jackpot on her first pull on a slot ...

Plenty of young musicians decide to put college on hold to take a shot at having a career writing songs and performing...

Joshua Redman is drawn to collaboration. For his entire career, the tenor saxophonist has surrounded himself with the best musicians in modern jazz, creating a true give-and-take on the bandstand and breaking out of the standard leader-accompanist mold. Redman, who ...

When she moved from San Diego to Boulder in 2007 my partner, Irene, was hoping to discover Colorado musicians who moved her as much as the reggae-tinged San Diego-based alt-folkie Beth Preston had. So one can imagine Irene’s surprise when she went grocery shopping at...

Choreographer Rennie Harris goes beyond linking together steps to make a cool new dance. His performances are all about narrative. In his new dance company, Grass Roots Project, Harris sets out to use dance as a vehicle for change...

What the hell is Matt Costa doing on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records? Everything about his music should be the anti-Jack Johnson, the personification of California’s oxymoronic laid-back image. Costa’s work on his latest album, Mobile Chateau, is laced with ’60s ...

No one knows for certain why some bands connect with the public and others don’t. It’s a mystery that musicians and critics have argued about for ages. No Doubt wallowed in obscurity for almost a decade until Gwen Stefani began writing accusatory songs about her ...

You can’t help but wonder about the mechanics at work when Robben Ford and Larry Carlton work a stage together. Both are monster players with a deep bag of tricks. Carlton has turned an insanely successful ’70s studio career into a jazz and jazz/rock career of ...

If there’s one thing composer Steven Hackman wants you to know about his growing collection of “mash-up” compositions — where he joins celebrated master works from classical artists like Brahms seamlessly with works from contemporary pop culture gods like Radiohead...

If we are what we read, then Nick Murphy is a soul on a journey — a shaman in training.  Like most voracious readers, the...

It’s all about the blend...

There aren’t many artists of Dave Mason’s vintage who can escape being defined by their past, and for most them — rockers who came...