Jazz violinist Regina Carter and her band gave a beautiful performance at Overture Center on the 16th. #1 Son loves jazz, and used to play the violin, so we went. We moved back a row at intermission to be sure he had enough elbow room to move to the music.

Carter has classical, jazz, and African music training, and her performances are a collage of styles and themes. Imagine beginning with Faure's "Pavane" on a solo violin, with percussion introducing a Latin jazz beat, then various riffs, crescendos, decrescendos, quotations of themes from other songs, all run together seamlessly.

"And when Thorin struck (the harp) the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands unders strange moons, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit hole under the hill."--Tolkien

Mrs James