Nate Chinen

3 days ago | wrti.org | Nate Chinen

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass may be sold out at Ensemble Arts Philly, but you’ll have no problem finding your musical bliss elsewhere this week, especially if you’re willing to travel. The big event is down the shore this weekend — I’ll be there, along with a few of my WRTI colleagues. You’ll also find recommended picks in Princeton and in Lancaster County. Tell ‘em Moment’s Notice sent ya.

6 days ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

But by now you’ve surely heard that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected head of the Roman Catholic Church today. Pope Leo XIV, as he will be known, is the 267th pope, and the first to come from the United States of America. As word got out this afternoon, I exchanged texts with my wife, and we both noted how thrilled her father would have been. (He died in 2012, during the papacy of Benedict XVI.)But let’s be specific. Pope Leo XIV isn’t just the first American pope.

6 days ago | wrti.org | Nate Chinen

Keith Jarrett, the eminent American pianist, was in Allentown, PA on this day 80 years ago. In celebration, ECM Records, his longtime label, has just released a new single from his final concert tour, which will soon be available as an album. That album, New Vienna, is due out in just a few weeks, on May 30. It was recorded almost a decade ago in a setting with historic significance for classical music — the Great Hall of the Musikverein, whose first organ recital was given by Anton Bruckner.

1 week ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

Today brought a sickening update about the National Endowment for the Arts, where many senior agency officials have submitted their resignations in the face of a slashed budget and a hostile political environment. As I noted in my coverage of the NEA Jazz Masters concert and ceremony one week ago, the precarity has been palpable for a while now.

1 week ago | knkx.org | Nate Chinen

Andy Bey, who haunted the periphery of American song with his magnetically expressive voice, ranging from a foghorn baritone to a tender falsetto, died on April 26 at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, N.J. He was 85. His nephew, the stage actor and singer Darius de Haas, said he died of natural causes. Bey had a multiphase musical career, with peaks and valleys that had more to do with shifting tastes than any fluctuation in quality.