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take these broken wings
Outside - general
Written by Bill Trotter   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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barred owls suffer from harsh winter

Deep in the woods of Cape Neddick, Maine, rests a collection of unassuming buildings sheltered by thick forest. On Tuesday, Feb. 26, the only sound in this remote spot came from falling snow. Life seems to move a little bit slower here. That is, until you step into The Center for Wildlife’s main office.

“This is supposed to be our slow season,” said Laura Dehler, the center’s development director and outreach coordinator. This winter has been anything but slow at the rehabilitation facility for injured animals.

Most of the victims in this latest cavalcade of misfortune have come from one species—the barred owl. As of last week, 37 owls had been brought to the Center for Wildlife since late November, including 33 barred owls. With a month of winter still remaining, the numbers have already dwarfed the center’s typical count of six to eight barred owls. Many factors are contributing to the birds’ inauspicious winter, but foremost among them is their struggle to find food.

“It has been determined by scientists that there is a shortage of red-backed voles. That is their primary food source,” Dehler said.
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tough time for toms
Pop Nature
Written by Dave Kellam   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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Remember when people thought Tom Cruise was cool? When he slid across the floor in his tightie-whities early in his career, the public fell in love. The scene, featuring a 21-year-old Cruise lip-syncing “Old Time Rock and Roll” in 1983’s “Risky Business,” has achieved movie icon status, right there with Marylyn Monroe’s billowing dress and a tearful Donna Reed in Jimmie Stewart’s arms. 

But even with the string of hits that followed, including “Top Gun,” “A Few Good Men,” “Born on Fourth of July,” “Jerry Macguire” and the “Mission Impossible” series, Cruise’s popularity has gone belly up. Today, if you mention his name in polite company, people roll their eyes and dismiss the Hollywood star as a flipped-out cult member who is not even worth following in the tabloids.

It turns out that there is a counterpart to Cruise in the natural world, and it coincidentally shares the name Tom. The Atlantic tomcod is a poor little fish with a grand past that has relatively recently lost favor in the public eye. 
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‘The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor’
Tome Raider
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1986, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 106 pages

On Feb. 28, 1955, a windy gale swept eight sailors over the side of a Columbian Navy destroyer and into the Caribbean Sea. Seven of those sailors drowned that day, but 20-year-old Luis Alejandro Velasco managed to fling himself aboard a small life raft, which became his temporary home on the surface of a vast and desolate sea. When he washed up on the northern Columbian shore 10 days later, he was weak, emaciated and blistered by the sun, having eaten nothing but a couple of bites of raw fish and a mysterious root, and having drunk only a few swallows of salty seawater. But he was alive. The account he later relayed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then a young newspaper reporter in Bogotá, offered thousands of eager and curious readers a taste of what it is like to be lost and alone at sea.   

But just as interesting as Velasco’s miraculous tale of survival is the story behind the story. Originally published as a series of 14 daily installments in the El Espectador newspaper, Marquez wrote the story from Velasco’s first person perspective and did not attach his own name to it until some 15 years later. He had spent upwards of 120 hours interviewing Velasco, who had walked into the newsroom with an offer to sell his story to reporters.
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ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Film - general
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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time-lapse documentary illustrates Portsmouth’s shifting character

The immense changes that Portsmouth has undergone over the last several years are difficult to put into perspective. New buildings have crept into the city’s infrastructure, while others have rapidly vanished from the horizon. A new documentary from local filmmaker Thomas Clark provides a rapid-fire pictorial timeline of the city’s evolving personality.

Clark began shooting images for “Drop-Frame” in fall 2004 and continued photographing various city happenings on a near daily basis until late in 2007. Using a handheld digital camera, he took thousands of photos around the city, returning to particular sites day after day to capture the most minute of changes. Much of his work focused on major construction and deconstruction projects, many of which were happening concurrently throughout the three-plus years of shooting. He edited as he went along, stringing together sequences of time-lapse photos that vividly illustrate the incremental changes he witnessed.
The film includes footage of Hilton Garden Inn and Harbour Hill Condominiums rising up on Hanover Street, Eagle Photo being ripped to pieces and replaced with Popovers on the Square on Congress Street, Portsmouth Public Library taking shape on Parrot Avenue and Yoken’s Restaurant tumbling down on Lafayette Road. There is also a fast-forward sequence of Peavey’s Hardware shutting down and being replaced by Goody Two Shoes on Market Street, and Clark personally lays out a stack of hard photos of the North Church steeple renovations in Market Square. 
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Embrace of the Vampire
Tales from the Video Vault
Written by Larry Clow   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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Ministry of Film, 1995
starring: Martin Kemp, Alyssa Milano, Harold Pruett and Rachel True
directed by: Anne Goursaud

the plot: In her first year at college, Charlotte (Milano) is finding it difficult to reconcile her strict Catholic upbringing with all the freedoms that life away from home entails. Her boyfriend, Chris (Pruett), is pressuring her to have sex for the first time, but Charlotte, just three days away from her 18th birthday, is reluctant. It doesn’t help that she’s plagued by visions of a handsome vampire (Kemp) who is attempting to seduce her. As the visions occur more often, Charlotte turns to her friend Nicole (True) for support. Nicole drags Charlotte to a party where they meet a pair of guys who follow them to an abandoned building on campus. When one of the guys tries to force himself on Charlotte, her mysterious vampire intervenes. He explains that Charlotte is the reincarnation of his one true love, and that she must submit to his advances within the next three days or he will be cursed forever. He begins working behind the scenes, planting seeds of doubt in the minds of both Charlotte and Chris.
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Semi-Pro
Film reviews
Written by Larry Clow   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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rated R

Will Ferrell’s formula for box office success—Will Ferrell + ’70s attire = big bucks—is so well known and easy to capitalize on that anyone can do it. Enter first-time director Kent Alterman, who has assembled Ferrell and a gang of co-stars in “Semi-Pro,” the latest attempt to stick Ferrell’s ridiculous man-child persona into some paisley suits in an effort to mine comedy gold. But, this time around, the cracks in Ferrell’s comedic foundation are starting to show. It may be the beginning of the end for movies that rely on Ferrell’s goofy antics and inappropriate wardrobe choices to carry the production.

Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon, a washed up pop-star turned basketball franchise owner/coach/player. Jackie’s team is the Flint Tropics, the lowest-standing team in the American Basketball Association and the shame of Michigan. More concerned with getting groovy at the disco and showboating on the court, Jackie is neither a good coach nor a good player. When the ABA commissioner announces that the NBA will absorb the top four ABA teams at the end of the 1976 season, Jackie commits to getting his team to fourth place and future NBA glory. To do this, he trades the team’s washing machine for Monix (Woody Harrelson), a former NBA player whose best days on the court are far behind him. Monix’s addition to the team doesn’t sit well with the Tropics’ star player, Coffee Black (Andre Benjamin), who has NBA dreams of his own.
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February is over
Music - general
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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let the RPM celebration begin!

The auspicious date of Feb. 29, 2008, was more than Ja Rule’s 32nd birthday. As if that weren’t enough reason to celebrate, Leap Day also marked the final 24 hours of the 2008 RPM Challenge. Luckily, it fell on a Friday, enabling musicians to work all night putting finishing touches on their RPM albums.

CDs had been trickling into RPM headquarters in Portsmouth’s Vaughan Mall throughout much of the month. But the floodgates opened on Friday afternoon and spilled over into Saturday morning, March 1, when hand-delivered CDs were accepted until noon. By that time, close to 200 new albums had arrived.

On Monday, March 3, the mailman delivered eight cardboard crates to the office, each brimming with variously sized packages. The exact number of albums contained in the crates was difficult to estimate by press time, but our loyal postal worker Buddy concluded that it was “way too many packages for an old guy to be taking up to the second floor.”

As RPM organizers tally the final numbers, the 2,433 artists who registered for this year’s challenge can finally exhale. After a dizzying 29 days of music creation, they can finally listen to their finished projects—and maybe even get a few winks of sleep. 

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300 years of music in his strings
Music - general
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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classical violin phenom Joshua Bell plays The Music Hall

The shower of accolades bestowed upon Joshua Bell over the course of his still young career could flood Royal Albert Hall. The Grammy Award-winning classical violinist, now 40, received the $75,000 Avery Fisher Prize last year, and he was the only American musician to be recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 Young Global Leaders. Billboard Magazine named Bell “Classical Artist of the Year” in 2004, and he was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2005. He has also been named one of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People. The Indiana native began drawing national attention when he was only 14 and made his first recording when he was 18. He has now toured the world repeatedly and has recorded more than 30 CDs. His most recent recording, 2007’s “The Red Violin Concerto,” paired him with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Corigliano, who wrote the Oscar-winning score to the 1999 film, “The Red Violin.”
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balls of foam versus body of mush
Features - general
Written by Larry Clow   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

the glory and the terror of dodgeball

I’ve dodged many things in my life—work, household chores, phone calls from my family (sorry, mom)—but I am largely incapable of dodging balls. I found that out on Tuesday, Feb. 26, when Wire editor (and absolute chump) Matt Kanner and I joined members of the New Hampshire Sports & Social Club for an evening of dodgeball domination.

I had few preconceived assumptions about the game. The last time I played dodgeball was in elementary school, and my only other relevant experience consisted of a handful of viewings of that Ben Stiller movie. I was prepared for two things, though: a) that I would probably fail miserably in my dodgeball endeavor, and b) that I would, despite athletic ineptitude, still kick Matt Kanner’s ass nine ways to Sunday. Neither of those things happened. However, I was—and remain—impressed by the absolute intensity of NHSSC dodgeball.
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dodgeball!
Cover Stories
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008
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N.H. Sports & Social Club sends balls flying

Dodgeball was originally conceived by humankind’s prehistoric ancestors Australopithecus robustus, who would scratch lines in the savannah sands and hurl rocks at each other.

The game hasn’t changed much. Only now, instead of rocks, the players hurl six-inch, rubber-coated balls and compete on courts with parquet floors. And, without all the terrible rock-inflicted wounds and concussions, it’s a lot more fun.

On a snowy night in February, fellow field reporter Larry Clow and I embarked on an in-depth exploration of the modern game. We arrived shortly after 8 p.m. at Spinnaker Point Recreation Center in Portsmouth, where games were underway between participants in the local chapter of the New Hampshire Sports & Social Club. There we met local dodgeball organizer Todd Henley, captain of Casual Encounters, who gave us an introduction to the awesome world of dodgeball.

The rules are fairly simple. Each team begins with 10 players, at least three of whom must be women. Eight balls are lined up on the centerline as teams take their starting positions at opposite ends of the court. When the ref blows the whistle, four “runners” from each team dart out to the centerline and gather balls. They then must drop back behind the “attack line” before they can begin flinging balls at their opponents.
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three bills address affordable housing;Seacoast Women’s Week kicks off this weekend
In Brief
Written by Patrick Law & Bill Trotter   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

three bills address affordable housing

Throughout the Seacoast and the rest of New Hampshire, many communities seem to treat workforce housing with little concern and, at times, outright contempt. Three bills now before the New Hampshire Legislature would ensure affordable housing developments receive a fair shot in municipalities throughout the state. Senate Bill 342 would establish a way for developers to appeal municipal actions that deny, impede or delay qualified proposals for workforce housing. Senate Bill 421 and House Bill 1472 would require municipal land use regulations to provide reasonable opportunities for the creation of workforce housing.

“Municipalities just want to build upscale housing on large lots,” said state Sen. Margaret Hassan (D-Exeter), a sponsor of SB 342 and SB 421. She said that many towns will create obstacles for workforce housing because they fear such developments will cost the town extra in terms of education and other public services. “What they’re not understanding is that this is a real barrier to the kind of commercial development that we also need for our tax base,” she said. 
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big plans brewing
News - general
Written by Patrick Law   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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Smuttynose seeks new brewery in Hampton

A hulking, black file cabinet sits in the Smuttynose Brewery office on Heritage Avenue in Portsmouth. It’s long enough and wide enough to hold large architectural drawings and geo-technical surveys. Most of the drawers are labeled with small, white markers. On one of the bottom drawers, a label reads, “Newmarket, Kittery, Lafayette Plans.” This is the archive. At the top, another label reads “Towle Farm Plans.” Smuttynose owner Peter Egelston reaches into this drawer for renderings of the new facility he wants to build in Hampton.

Egelston’s latest proposal represents his third serious attempt to build a new home for the Seacoast brewery. Over the last several years, he has explored potential sites throughout the region, fixing his gaze on spots in Dover, Epping, Exeter and Kittery, Maine. In Newmarket, he proposed renovating the old mill buildings along the Lamprey River. When that deal fell through, he approached Portsmouth with plans to build on Lafayette Road. After a stormy and impassioned permitting process, that deal fell apart last May.
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LPFM leadership
News - general
Written by Hilary Niles   
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

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community radio advocates storm Washington

“The Capitol looks really big at night under spotlights when you’re alone on the front steps,” said Tim Stone. The Portsmouth resident and founding member of Portsmouth Community Radio (WSCA, 106.1 FM) returned last week from a trip to Washington, D.C., during which he advocated to U.S. representatives from New Hampshire for expansion of community radio possibilities nationwide. 

Big as it was, the Capitol was not unapproachable for Stone, who met with Sen. Judd Gregg and staffers for Sen. John Sununu and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, in addition to FCC staff, last Tuesday. Stone was one of about four dozen community radio leaders from across the country who attended Low-Power FM Leadership Days on Feb. 25 and 26.  The event was organized by Prometheus Radio Project, a nonprofit community radio advocacy group based in Philadelphia. 

When Portsmouth Community Radio applied for its license back in 2000, it was one of 29 entities in New Hampshire applying for a newly created class of radio frequencies. Operating at less than 100 watts and typically reaching a radius of 3.5 miles, these low-power stations were intended to restore localism to airwaves that were increasingly dominated by large, commercial businesses. However, the same year that these frequencies were created by the FCC, many were taken away. 
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cheering her way to the Super Bowl
Outside - general
Written by Bill Trotter   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

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UNH student/Patriots cheerleader featured in Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue

For the New England Patriots Cheerleaders, saying goodbye to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, last April was a bittersweet moment. They were there to shoot the team’s annual swimsuit calendar, but the sunny weather was more appealing than anything New England had to offer at the time. The team members had just boarded the plane and settled into their seats when Tracy Sormanti, the Patriots Cheerleaders’ director/choreographer, cut through the plane’s continuous drone.

“You got it!” Sormanti shouted. The jubilant announcement caught cheerleader Meghan White off guard.

“Got what?” she inquired.  

Sormanti explained that White had been selected as one of the featured models in Sports Illustrated’s 2008 Swimsuit Issue. Just being considered was a tremendous honor, but it was now official: White, a native of Bedford, would travel to New York City to pose in a photo shoot for SI’s annual swimsuit edition.
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a serial thriller
Stage - general
Written by Rick Agran   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

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‘Chase a Killer…Catch a Killer…Run, Run, Run’ at The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth

Savage Productions, composed of wife and husband team Scarlett Ridgway Savage and Christopher Savage, just debuted a tense little thriller. It’s a script that’s been percolating for a couple of years, and it does a lot of things well. Scarlett Ridgway Savage has written this type of material before in “Dear Daddy, Love Cassie,” and this is another interesting iteration.

“Chase a Killer” is a fascinating look at criminal intention and the effects that sexual crimes have upon men who witness or perpetrate them. The writing is tight, tense and funny at turns, and powerful, harsh and disturbing at others. At its best, the timing is great. The charismatic actors have a good working feel for one another in the interplay of characters.

James Drake (Chris Savage) is a funny, intelligent lawyer with a hobbyist’s fixation on serial killers. Drake’s reputation is ruined, however, when he is indicted for four grisly murders and pegged as the Seacoast Slasher. He is, in fact, innocent of the crimes, and he defends himself to the point of acquittal, but he’s still held in suspicion by Detective Tim Morgan (Ed Hinton). Morgan pulls Drake in for questioning when another slasher crime takes place a few years later. A prominent local journalist, Leigh Anne McDermott (Liz Krane), has been kidnapped, and Drake is offered an opportunity to “redeem” himself in the public eye by assisting Morgan on the case (as long as the forensics don’t prove Drake to be the killer). It’s an odd premise, but the pair’s growing rapport helps viewers buy it.
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Whether you come for the food, music, dancing or a combination of all three, you are likely to find
Food - general
Written by Bill Trotter   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

Whether you come for the food, music, dancing or a combination of all three, you are likely to find a good time at Saunders this Friday. The restaurant will feature a blend of all three components during the “Take the Leap” cocktail reception and dance party on Friday, Feb. 29.

“It’s the complete package,” said Doug Zechel, owner of Saunders Restaurant at Rye Harbor. “The food has always been incredible, the band is phenomenal.” And what about the dancing? “Well, I am your classic old white guy,” Zechel said. But when the infectious music fills the building, everyone in attendance, including Zechel, “can’t help but dance.” 
 
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Brainscan
Tales from the Video Vault
Written by Larry Clow   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

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Coral Productions, 1994
starring: Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, Amy Hargreaves and T. Ryder Smith
directed by: John Flynn

the plot: Michael Bower (Furlong) is a nerdy teen, still reeling from the effects of a car accident that killed his mother. He spends much of his time hanging out in his room, watching gory horror flicks, playing computer games and surreptitiously videotaping Kimberly (Hargreaves), his longtime crush. When his best friend and fellow horror fanatic tells him about a new videogame called “Brainscan,” Michael has to try it. The game promises to put players in the mind of a killer and, during his first time playing, Michael slaughters what he thinks is a video game victim. But the next day, Michael sees a news report about a grisly murder—and recognizes the victim as the man from the game.
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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Film reviews
Written by Trevor F Bartlett   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

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rated PG-13

Director Julian Schnabel’s third film is, put simply, a work of art. A lifelong painter himself, he’s made it his business to celebrate the lives of fallen compagnons d’art on film—precocious grafittist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1996’s “Basquiat”; Cuban born poet Reinaldo Arenas in 2000’s “Before Night Falls”; and now playboy/fashionista Jean-Dominique Bauby.

At first glance, this would seem an odd shift of focus for Schnabel. For most of his life, Bauby spent his days rocketing around the European countryside in convertibles, eating, smoking and drinking to win. World famous editor of French Elle magazine, he was the picture of success, and always surrounded by stunning women. Like a freewheeling Pepé Le Pew fever dream, his appetites may only have been matched by his devil-may-care attitude. But then, in an unbelievable irony, he suffered a grievous stroke, which left him completely paralyzed. He awoke in the hospital, locked inside a broken and useless body, unable to move or communicate in any way.
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RPM '08
Music - general
Written by staff writer   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

You can feel it getting down to the wire. With only days remaining in February, musicians around the world have been scrambling to put together the best 10 songs or 35 minutes of original music they can muster in a single month, thereby fulfilling the sole criteria of the RPM Challenge. The chatter on the RPM discussion board at www.rpmchallenge.com has approached a feverish climax. What follows is The Wire’s fourth and final round of unedited RPM blog entries. Feel the pressure mounting.

Ahhhhh!!!!! its awesome when another piece goes your way. granted, murphy’s law is always ready to f*** things up....it will make the satisfaction of a well made song all worth the hell to make it happen. now only 6 remain! Time to get the metal out!!! <raises slege hammer> —Audio Assault, Phoenixville, PA
 
I have just discovered that I am another song down as a friend of mine who was going to send me some final guitar parts has suddenly been struck down by something vicious in the intestine... so I’m a bit stuck. Can’t use the demo as it was recorded before Feb... Looks like I really WILL be reciting poetry over a disco beat! The last week is always the best. As you were. —sister savage, Bristol, UK
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celebrating jazz history
Music - general
Written by Alan Chase   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

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Monterey Jazz Fest heads to The Music Hall

California’s Monterey Peninsula is considered one of the most beautiful locations in the United States, offering spectacular views of the California coast in a lush and tranquil setting. Each fall since 1958, this stunning location has hosted one of the nation’s longest running annual jazz events, the Monterey Jazz Festival. On Thursday, Feb. 28, the festival’s 50th anniversary tour comes to The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Featured performers include recent Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Terence Blanchard, saxophone legend James Moody, pianist and group music director Benny Green and guest vocalist Nnenna Freelon. Rounding out the band will be bassist Derrick Hodge and drummer Kendrick Scott, both longtime members of Blanchard’s working quintet.

MJF’s marketing associate Tim Orr said the idea for the anniversary tour emerged last year.

“The idea was to broaden the identity of the festival across the country, and to bring the message of what the Monterey Jazz Festival is about to people everywhere,” Orr said.
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an island community of music
Music - general
Written by Matt Kanner   
Wednesday, 27 February 2008

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a glimpse into the fertile music scene of St. John’s, Newfoundland

editor’s note: St. John’s, Newfoundland, is home to The Scope, a biweekly publication that stepped up this year to help host the RPM Challenge from its neck of the woods in the North Atlantic. The Wire decided to take a look into the music scene in St. John’s and see how it compares to that of the Seacoast. The Scope will run a parallel article about Portsmouth’s music scene in its next issue.

Taking a stroll down George Street in St. John’s, Newfoundland, just about any music fan is likely to find something worth checking out. The street is purported to have the most bars per square inch of any road in the world, and live music is a regular feature at most of those establishments. According to local musicians, George Street includes venues geared toward folk, blues, jazz, hard rock, reggae and beyond.

“People here are really musical,” said Elling Lein, editor of St. John’s weekly publication The Scope. “They live it, they breath it and, of course, there’s no chance they’re ever gonna make any money at it.”

St. John’s is the provincial capitol of Newfoundland and Labrador in northeastern Canada. Located at the eastern tip of Newfoundland, it is supposedly the oldest English-founded settlement in North America. St. John’s and Portsmouth are separated by nearly 1,500 miles, which constitutes a drive of close to 30 hours, plus a slow ferry ride to the island. With a population of more than 100,000 people, St. John’s is about five times the size of Portsmouth. Newfoundland is in a time zone 90 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard Time.  
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