MusicViews at One Longfellow Square
These are MusicView columns from performances at One Longfellow Square in Portland, Maine. It's a cozy venue in the heart of Portland, a few yards from Longfellow's statue. OLS brings a fabulous assortment of singer/songwriters and groups to our lovely town. Check out their schedule at onelongfellowsquare.com.
Alash Returns to Portland
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland, Maine ~ October 21, 2011 ~ capsule review
The music was entrancing, particularly a piece named for the mountain for which it was written, Bai-Taiga. That composition was orchestral in depth and breadth, taking us beyond time and space and nearly inducing us into a shamanic journey.
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An Enthralling Evening with Vishten
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland, ME ~ July 14, 2011 ~
I was swept away from the first note and heard myself let out a big sigh after the first song. The tension was leaving me and I was all ears and heart, awaiting the onslaught of more beauty.
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Maura O’Connell Teaches Me to Be a Better Listener
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland ME ~ June 3, 2011 ~
Those low notes held me captive and fascinated. I wanted to lie down on them -- they made me think of a soft bed. I realized that as a singer, she catches my attention and helps me hear things on more than one level.
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A Wild, Incendiary Performance by Caravan of Thieves
Venue: One Longfellow Square Portland, ME ~ April 22, 2011 ~
We decided to attend based on a few seconds we’d seen of a video in which they were joyously and rhythmically pounding on a wooden trunk, garbage cans and other objects on stage.
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Po' Girl on the Road with Peter Mulvey
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland ME ~ April 1, 2011 ~
Allison Russell and Awna Texiera are like enchanted panpipes -- the music flows through them like fiber optic cables. Their faces are beautiful and luminous when they sing...
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Peter Mulvey on the Road with Po' Girl
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland, ME ~ April 1, 2011 ~
Mulvey’s musical teeth were cut while playing for years in the Boston subway. He seems totally at home on stage and has that sort of vital male energy that emanates like sunshine, the way fit muscles burn calories at rest.
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A Swingin' Good Time with the George Cole Quintet
Venue: One Longfellow Square Portland, ME
~ January 15, 2011 ~
~ January 15, 2011 ~
Oh, you poor silly heads who stayed home, what were you thinking? Peter and I got to sit in the front row, right in the middle, only a couple of feet from George...
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Glen Velez and Lori Cotler
and the TA KA DI MI Project
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland Me ~ November 19, 2010
What really blows me away about musicians such as Glen Velez and Lori Cotler (and Inanna, which opened for them) is that they are tapping into fundamental places within human beings when they perform. The first drum rhythm we hear is the heartbeat of our mother.
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Inanna, Sisters in Rhythm, Interpretations of Ancient Voices, Rhythms and Drums
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland Me ~ November 19, 2010
I was enthralled from the first moment. I was excited to see educated looking, mid-life white women, (my demographic!), playing complex drum rhythms, singing like angels and dancing like them too, all with generosity and joy.
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Over A Cardboard Sea Makes a Gurgling Splash
Venue: One Longfellow Square, Portland ME ~ October 2, 2010
Charming head vocalist, Timmy Findlen, whose voice recalls Rudy Vallee or Al Jolson, hammed it up wearing a porkpie hat while strumming a ukulele and mini-banjo. He also inspired shock and awe in the audience as he coaxed out the haunting melody of “Shine on Harvest Moon”, from the singing saw.
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