Equinox Jazz Orchestra in orbit over the ‘Banks

Jeremy Davis brought his big band (which is not synonymous with that of your grandfather) from Savannah, Ga., the home of Johnny Mercer, to the First Flight High School Saturday for the penultimate concert of the 2011-2012 Outer Banks Forum for the Performing Arts season. With two roving singers and a casual atmosphere the musicians kicked off a sumptuous evening with ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and assayed the big-band playbook with wit and power. Arranger Hoppy Hallman, who has worked with Connie Francis, Rosemary Clooney and others, came up with some magical moments, executed with a relaxed professionalism, to the delight of the audience. (Peter Hummers | Sentinel Staff)

Outer Banks Forum: Beethoven under Glass

Brooklyn Rider (an atypical but not unprecedented – nor particularly modernist – name for a string quartet, itself a form going back as far as the sixteenth century) brought the music of a rather newer group of composers, mostly still living, in fact, to the First Flight High School Saturday evening. Johnny Gandelsman, violin, Colin Jacobsen, violin, Nicholas Cords, viola, and Eric Jacobsen, cello, didn’t shy from modernism – or storms of eighteenth-century romance, for that matter. Philip Glass (b. 1937), whose Suite for String Quartet was the centerpiece of the first set, appeared to hold the key to deconstruction of ‘the classics,’ but the evening’s only composer not among the living, Beethoven, still ruled after the intermission. His Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, received a stirring reading from the expert musicians, who brought their twentieth-century passions to the work with fascinating results. (Peter Hummers | Sentinel)

Can it really have been fifty years?

… since the Fab Four burst on the scene and changed forever the face of popular music? Shane Landers (Paul), Michael Fulop (George), Adam Thurston (Ringo) and Richard Stelling (John) brought ‘The Return’ to the Outer Banks Forum concert at First Flight High School Saturday evening, and time stood still – after backing up. The lads had done their homework and recreated everybody’s favorite group flawlessly, with physical and vocal similarities to the original band, playing the correct vintage instruments with musical chops to match. (Their models were a hard-working club band before the world discovered them.) From “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to a rousing “Kansas City” they whipped up the sold-out audience, which included a sizeable teenage contingent along with those who remembered the Beatles firsthand, with thirty terrific tunes. Meet The Return (Peter Hummers |

Pianafiddle, the primal orchestra

Playing the polyphonic piano and the vocal violin respectively, Randy Morris and Adam DeGraff deconstructed and reassembled a diverse selection of music on the spot at the Outer Banks Forum concert at First Flight High School Saturday evening. If you have a program you can throw it away, because we really don’t know what we’ll play until we play it, said DeGraff. Old Man River, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Autumn Leaves, Ashokan Farewell, Wabash Cannonball, Stairway to Heaven (that’s right), Maple Leaf Rag, the Beautiful Tennessee Waltz, Amazing Grace/America the Beautiful and other eclectic selections comprised a terrific program that would have gotten them thrown out of the Tea Room at the Plaza – no background music this. (Peter Hummers | Outer Banks Sentinel)