Music

As soon as the Thanksgiving table is cleared, I feel liberated to start singing along to Handel’s epic oratorio, “The Messiah,” and to practice for the annual sing-alongs in Great Barrington, Mass., and Kent, Conn.

On Nov. 4, the Hudson Jazz Festival decided to postpone its online concerts until the spring of 2021.

The harp isn’t an instrument you normally associate with improvisational jazz, free jazz, avant garde jazz, bebop or … well, you get the idea. 

Lucinda Williams kind of epitomizes what we think of as American country music: Sassy, twangy and a little weary. 

It’s the 50th anniversary of an iconic Grateful Dead album, and the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is celebrating with a free online show on Sunday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. featuring covers of songs from the album and the general Dead song list. 

Listening to music is in itself a pleasant experience, but that experience becomes infinitely richer if you have some knowledge about what you’re listening to and how it came to be.