The bouncy rhythm, the delicate music arrangement and good musicianship have made Harmonious Wail, one of the few outstanding bands that combines Eastern European folk songs and American jazz music.
For those who missed their first Taiwan concert in Chiayi yesterday, try to catch up with one of the six other concerts during their Taiwan tour.
Their upcoming gigs are Oct 1 in Yuanlin, Changhua county, Oct 3 in Taipei's National Concert Hall, Oct 5 in Taichung, Oct 6 in Chungli, Taoyuan county, Oct 7 in Kaohsiung and Oct 8 in Hsinchu.
Established in 1987, Harmonious Wail inlcudes mandolin, acoustic guitar, double bass, occasional fiddler and a female vocal. Its music owes a debt to musicians such as Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, and David Grisman.
Harmonious Wail founder and leader Sims Delaney-Potthoff said, "It's Jethro Burns' fault," when asked about the style of the band's mandolin-heavy gypsy-jazz.
For seven years, Sims studied with Burns, the legendary jazz mandolinist, laying the foundation for Harmonious Wail's acoustic string sound. He studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music, honing his skills while immersing himself in "gypsy" music.
Vocalist Maggie Delaney-Potthoff is a captivating performer. Equally at home scat-singing over a bebop tune, soaring on a solo, or blending with Wail's tight vocal harmonies, she delivers both powerhouse tunes and ballads with confidence and ease. Her well-received tunes include I'm always Chasing Rainbows, After You've Gone.
As a strings-based band, the guitarist Tom Waselchuk and bassist John Mesoloras are vital to the band's music. Waselchuck has performed with and led jazz groups such as Full Count Jazz Band, Wholly Cats, and played folk and blues and western swing.
Mesoloras has a powerful, rock steady and energetic stand-up bass playing style and is a perfect match for Sims Delaney-Potthoff's mandolin. Together, the band has a unique aura that brings the audience back to the scene of Paris jazz clubs of the 1930s.
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
When 17-year-old Lin Shih (林石) crossed the Taiwan Strait in 1746 with a group of settlers, he could hardly have known the magnitude of wealth and influence his family would later amass on the island, or that one day tourists would be walking through the home of his descendants in central Taiwan. He might also have been surprised to see the family home located in Wufeng District (霧峰) of Taichung, as Lin initially settled further north in what is now Dali District (大里). However, after the Qing executed him for his alleged participation in the Lin Shuang-Wen Rebellion (林爽文事件), his grandsons were
Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, there will be no Features pages. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when Features will also be resumed. Kung Hsi Fa Tsai!
RSS