Take a walk down West Fortune Street in Tampa, in front of the Barrymore Hotel. You’ll encounter a figure cast in bronze, stationary, but with an expression so focused and a gait so purposeful you half expect him to blow right past you. "Lennon Walking Into the Future” the statue is called, and it portrays,... Continue Reading →
That buzz of anticipation you’ve been feeling recently will peak Saturday, April 18. We’re speaking, of course, about National Harmonica Day, a day set aside for us to celebrate, contemplate and participate with this small instrument and its big sound. Unlike most musical instruments, the harmonica is small. In fact, it’s compact enough to fit... Continue Reading →
Congratulations, millennials. Your past has become nostalgia. Case in point: High School Musical turns 20 this year. Those fictional East High students now are in their mid-30s with careers, mortgages and kids of their own, as are many of the Disney Channel movie’s real-life fans. Case in point: Natasha Herrera Brown, Straz’s media relations manager,... Continue Reading →
There is something inherently beautiful about human beings making music together. Differences and divisions dissolve in the warm glow of musical camaraderie. It follows then that gathering 15 grown-ups to play an instrument most people haven’t touched since elementary school is a noble effort. Further, getting that group to play the beloved traditional folk number,... Continue Reading →
An Exclusive from INSIDE magazine Listening to jazz vocalist Samara Joy sing, it’s a struggle to equate her voice and her age. Samara, who turned 26 in November, sings with the authority of someone twice her age – and with twice her experience. Her voice has a depth and richness of tone that ordinarily comes... Continue Reading →
The 2026 Grammy Awards served as a significant turning point to how global artists are represented on the biggest stage in music. While the night delivered its usual mix of big performances, polished speeches and celebrity moments what truly stood out was how clearly the spotlight shifted toward artists and communities that have historically been... Continue Reading →
Bob Dylan’s 2006 album, Modern Times, kicked off with a track called “Thunder on the Mountain” which contains these lines: I was thinkin’ ‘bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from cryingWhen she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the lineI'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could beI been looking for her... Continue Reading →
Were there a Grammy® for least likely musical pairings, an April 2025 performance by Renée Fleming would be a strong contender. Renée Fleming, American soprano and actress Fleming, a soprano who is one of the best-known names in opera, sang with Dead and Company one evening during the band’s residency at Las Vegas’ The Sphere.... Continue Reading →
In 1968, a heavyset, 6-foot-1-inch-tall gentleman calling himself Tiny Tim had a hit with his rendition of “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips With Me.” He sang the song in a startlingly high falsetto, accompanying himself on a ukulele. https://youtu.be/zcSlcNfThUA?si=ZHVSWpxtf2SPmsOO A mere 40 years later, Jason Mraz scored a ukulele-centered hit with “I’m Yours,” which spawned a... Continue Reading →
The bartender adds a scoop of ice cubes to the rocks glass, following with Tanqueray gin poured up to the halfway mark. He tops that off with tonic water and adds a lime wedge, spearing a straw into the glass for his mic drop. https://youtu.be/BJvWH4fHCxw Video by Hanna Toeniskoetter And there his creation sits, sparkling,... Continue Reading →
The origins of some of these National Whatever Days/Weeks/Months are a bit hard to trace. September was deemed National Piano Month, though, by the National Piano Foundation in 1991. So there. Sure, it seems as if you just finished or got through putting up your decorations from World Piano Day, March 29 (or March 28... Continue Reading →
Stage fright is the scourge of many performers across all disciplines. Performers who suffer with it can at least know they’re in good company. Barbra Streisand flubbed some lyrics at a 1967 Central Park concert and didn’t perform live again for nearly 30 years. Laurence Olivier, the actor’s actor, became so rattled playing Othello that... Continue Reading →
First, a clarification: A movie’s score and a movie’s soundtrack are not the same thing. A soundtrack is a collection of songs old and/or new that tie in (or don’t) with the film’s storyline. Whether the soundtrack is good, bad or indifferent, it’s essentially merchandise, like a T-shirt or a tote bag. That’s an important... Continue Reading →
Guitar heroes actual and fictional covet Gibson’s 1959 Les Paul Standard, widely considered the finest solid-body ever made. Watch as Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) expounds on the instrument’s qualities to a clearly impressed Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) in the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. https://youtu.be/g7-5io1muSQ?si=sqHaRe12oDTWACOm Spinal Tap may be fictional but the ’59 Les... Continue Reading →
Expectations must have been a thorn in the side of Michael Jackson. Consider this: His 1987 album, Bad, sold roughly 35 million copies worldwide. That’s impressive by anyone’s standards, except Jackson’s: His previous album, 1982’s Thriller, sold twice that number. https://open.spotify.com/album/3Us57CjssWnHjTUIXBuIeH?si=LJlW_X-kQLWS4ImMhD9_lA MJ the Musical takes place on the eve of Jackson’s tour supporting the album... Continue Reading →
The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble played a handful of dates in the U.K. late last year, opening its program with the work of Wendy Carlos. Moog is an instrument brand, specifically, not an instrument. But the groundbreaking sonic simulators made by Moog were such a step into the future that the electronic keyboard feels to... Continue Reading →
This was a union conceived on broadcast television, nurtured in the overheated, micro-obsessional womb of the internet and born, finally, on a London stage Wednesday, 10 July, this year of twenty and twenty-four: Cypress Hill with the London Symphony Orchestra. Because the internet continues to be overheated and micro-obsessional, fans of Cypress Hill, the LSO... Continue Reading →
Disney’s animated feature The Lion King had its premiere in 1994. That year, roughly 2 percent of Americans had access to the Internet. The 30th anniversary of that film’s release was celebrated in May with a pair of Hollywood Bowl concerts featuring songs from the soundtrack. In the three decades since its release, The Lion... Continue Reading →
It’s a sound that immediately brings to mind Oktoberfest, or at least Polka Night at the Elks’ Lodge. It’s two sounds, actually – one deep and low, the other notably higher. The latter tone is pah, the response to the former, which is oom. As each yang has its corresponding yen, every pah shares an... Continue Reading →
It might seem odd, doing all the things one does to have a night out – buying tickets, hiring a babysitter, finding parking – when it’s preordained that the evening will end in tears. In some cases, though, tears are part of the package. When the curtain falls on Opera Tampa’s production of La Traviata,... Continue Reading →