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Valerie Nutt 01.MAY.08
Whether you’re after big band songs from the 1940’s, the sound of a smooth saxophone, a little jazz scatting, local students revisiting the classics, or the timeless work of a polished jazz quintet, this year’s Main Street Jazz Fest is the place to be Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3.
Grammy award-winning trumpet player Nicholas Payton headlines this year’s festival, coming to town fresh from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival the weekend before.
“Every year we try to have a big name headlining,” said Jazz Fest’s Publicity Chair, Sean Gilliland.
This year’s headliner is no stranger to the stage, or to the world of Neo-bop jazz, generally considered more accessible than more improvisationally driven jazz, reworking the classics in a more structured setting. Payton started playing trumpet at age 4, and played in his first band at 9, alongside his father, bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton. He won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Solo in 1997 and has been recording albums since the ’90s, alone and with artists like Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride and Doc Cheatham. [read more] |
With a CD set for release, Cuttlefish plays killer rock ’n’ roll and has fun doing it
 | | Photos by Lara Lovely |
Lara Lovely 01.MAY.08
It’s always a thrill to go to a show, watch a great band and get into the music, but it’s a real treat to be able to sit in on a rehearsal and see the inner workings of the band on a personal level. I was lucky enough to be able to do just that recently with Cuttlefish. With their indefinable ’Boro-Rock sound, influenced by Radiohead, Wilco, Queens of the Stone Age, Jeff Buckley and Pink Floyd, as well as our local Murfreesboro music scene and many others, Casey Strength, Jim Elrod, Eric Giles and Jonathan Gower mesh together perfectly to form the sound that is Cuttlefish.
Guitarist and lead vocalist Strength and drummer Giles played in four bands together including Honeybear, DeMonet, Rachel’s Trapezoid, and then together in Biffs Deville, with Jim Elrod on bass and vocals, all before forming Cuttlefish.
“I’d also like to include that I am completely dependent on Eric,” claims Casey.
“All because of this,” Eric jokingly chimes in on the infamous cowbell. And now the most recent addition, Gower on keyboard, who was introduced to the band by Elrod after the two met at Liquid Smoke one evening.
“Yeah, I met him at a bar, and Casey was looking for a keyboardist and I said ‘well I know a guy and I hear he’s pretty good,’ so he’s been hanging out with us ever since,” explains Elrod. [read more] |
All Souped Up offers tasty homemade soups and fresh sandwiches
 | | All Souped Up’s combo includes soup, a sandwich, chips and a drink. Photo by Chet Overall. |
Jaz Gray 01.MAY.08
Walk into All Souped Up and look to your left. There is a chef with his back turned and his arms bent, slaving away with food preparations.
Three bottles of wine are on his right and a clay bowl filled with deep violet onions is on the counter across from him.
There is a robust brick oven built into a stucco wall and a window overlooking striking green pastures.
The field is not Tennessee farmland, however. It’s not even American farmland. It’s Italian.
Painted the width of the left wall in one of Murfreesboro’s most quaint delis, the mural of a Sicilian chef at work sets the atmosphere for customers.
The creamy soups, filling sandwiches and moist cookies the deli offers provide customers with sustenance.
Owner Steve McGowan says the inspiration for the painting, and for opening a restaurant at all, came from his immigrant grandparents who had a deep passion for cooking that was passed to his parents and then to him.
“Whether you’re Irish or Italian it’s all about the food, the family,” McGowan says, standing next to the family photos that cover the right wall.
In business for nine years, the deli serves everything from box lunches to wraps to salads, and McGowan says everything is “homemade and fresh.” [read more] |
Permanent museum display focuses on blacks on the plantation
Lauren DuVall 01.MAY.08
Plantation culture. Civil War. Emancipation. Legacies. These are the four themes featured in the “Beyond the Plantation” exhibit at the Oaklands Historic House Museum beginning May 1.
The exhibit will focus on the lives of blacks who lived as slaves and freedmen on and around Oaklands plantation. Organizers said the exhibit will serve as a timeline of the institution of slavery and will incorporate letters, photos and artifacts to depict what life was like for slaves.
The idea for the exhibit was conceived as a project for graduate students enrolled in a course called Museum Management taught by Dr. Bren Martin, associate professor of history at MTSU.
“It began a few years ago when the Oaklands Association Board of Directors became interested in placing a memorial marker in Evergreen Cemetery, where the Oaklands slave cemetery is believed to be,” Martin said. “That sparked a broader interest in telling the African-American story associated with Oaklands, which led to this current project.” [read more] |
Angels In Action
 | | Photos by Mike Curran |
Scott Kyle 01.MAY.08
Look! Up in the air! Is it a bird? Is it is a plane?
Actually, it’s several planes; it’s the Blue Angels. The Blue Angels is a name for the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron that was established in 1946, and each year its handpicked members provide air-show demonstrations for some 15 million spectators.
As the oldest military-sanctioned flying demonstration team, the Blue Angels currently perform as many as 70 shows per year in about 35 different locations during the March-November show season, including an April 12-13 stopover in Smyrna for air-show fans who lined up for hours and blocked area roadways to see the Angels fly.
The recent Angels’ visit was the squadron’s only Tennessee show in 2008 and part of The Great Tennessee Air Show 2008, a two-day aviation entertainment spectacular at the Smyrna Airport.
As someone who attended the Blue Angels’ local demonstration, such an air show is something one must attend to appreciate. The roars of the squadron’s six planes and the expressions on people’s faces add to the great time and experience. [read more] |
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