I love the transparency of fundraising efforts through Kickstarter. The website lists donors’ names immediately and keeps a running total of the amounts raised. No pledges are final until the entire campaign goal is met. Kickstarter takes a 5% commission…
Tag: Savannah Music Festival
Embedded video for Savannah Music Festival’s campaign to support Swing Central Jazz
Attending one great Savannah Music Festival performance after another, it’s easy to forget about the SMF’s tremendous education efforts. The most important of those efforts might be Swing Central Jazz, an ambitious effort to bring high school jazz bands to…
Savannah Music Festival review: Salif Keita
Salif Keita was an impressive figure onstage at Trustees Theater last night. Albinism obviously is part of the striking visual, but so too was his stolid figure, his glistening white clothes and hat, and his mesmerizing, somewhat high-pitched voice that…
Savannah Music Festival review: Jazz Meets Brazil with Dianne Reeves and Chico Pinheiro
I could listen to Dianne Reeves sing, I think, for hours, before my notoriously short attention span would surface. Her voice fills a room like the Lucas Theatre with such beauty, such ease. The highlight of last Saturday’s lengthy set…
Savannah Music Festival review: Citizen Cope
There was a lovely simplicity to Citizen Cope’s solo performance at the Savannah Music Festival on Tuesday night at Trustees Theater: the artist, his guitar, and occasional changes to the lighting on the big stage that seemed to fit the…
Savannah Music Festival review: Robert Randolph & the Family Band
Even if I had lost the sense of hearing for the night, I think I would have enjoyed Robert Randolph’s virtuosic performance Friday on his pedal steel guitar. He looks like a pretty big, strong guy, but his movements —…
Savannah Music Festival review: Masters of Indian Music & Dance: Amjad Ali Khan & Zakir Hussain and Vijayalakshmi
Dancer — and in a sense historian — Vijayalakshmi was up first in this remarkable and beautiful night of traditional Indian arts at the Lucas Theatre. Dressed in white with gold accents, wearing stylized makeup, Vijayalakshmi gave a brief description…
Savannah Music Festival review (sort of): The Avett Brothers
Seven minutes after leaving the spectacular show by Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Mayer at the Lucas Theatre on the 7th night of the 2011 Savannah Music Festival, we were a few feet from the stage at The Avett…
Savannah Music Festival review: Bela Fleck, Edgar Mayer, and Zakir Hussain
“Nobody’s ever stayed for the second set before,” Bela Fleck lied, eliciting a lot of laughter from the adoring Lucas Theatre audience, after he, Edgar Mayer, Zakir Hussain took the stage after intermission. The visual of the three master musicians…
One act on the books for the 2012 Savannah Music Festival: Zakir Hussain and the Masters of Percussion
The Savannah Music Festival is generally pretty tight-lipped about its bookings until the entire lineup is unveiled late in the year, but sometimes director Rob Gibson drops names in his introductions of acts. Tonight, in his introduction to Masters of…
Savannah Music Festival review: Delta Guitar Slingers with Michael Burks, Lucky Peterson & Sherman Robertson
There were vicious storms and even hail blowing through the Savannah area just before 5 p.m. today, but there was still a packed house at the Morris Center for the Delta Guitar Slingers, featuring Michael Burks, Lucky Peterson, and Sherman…
Savannah Music Festival review: “African Interplay” with Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal and the Lionel Loueke Ensemble
The West African 21-stringed kora is one of the most extraordinary instruments I’ve ever heard. Too bad I haven’t heard it more often. To my western ears, it sounds like a mix of harp and harpsichord, maybe even banjo. The…
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: a review from the 2011 Savannah Music Festival
I was among the first ticket buyers for last night’s electric performance by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at Trustees Theater on Broughton Street, so we were seated in the front row. Well, for a minute anyway. In a rarity…
The Savannah Music Festival: watching the audience
I’m going to be making a number of posts over the next couple of weeks about the Savannah Music Festival, which begins today. I’ve got tickets for tonight’s performance of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings — I’ll be disappointed…