I read that Esa Tapani, the Eastman School of Music's guest recitalist on Monday, February 25, is an award-winning horn player. He won the Nordic horn competition in 1989 and was nominated for Brass Player of the Year in 1990 by Lieksa Brass Week. I read that he is arguably one of the best horn players in the world, with years of concerts under his belt and a resume that includes many of the world's major symphonies and chamber groups.

But what I heard from Tapani as he played a two-hour recital, designed to showcase his French horn skills, was anything but what I would expect to hear from such an accomplished musician.

Tapani took to the stage, in front of about 40 people in Kilbourn Hall, and played several minutes of seemingly random notes and sounds from Olivier Messiaen's "Des Canyons aux etoiles."

Alexandra Nguyen took to the piano and accompanied Tapani for the rest of the night. The remaining three songs prior to the intermission were bland and lacked any real energy or flair.  Tapani and Nguyen worked through pieces by Gounod, Poulene, and Dukas in an almost mechanical manner; just playing the notes without utilizing dynamic range, intensity, or physical animation.

During the break, I asked a handful of Eastman students, who sat through the first half as still and indifferent as the rest of the audience, what they thought. The all claimed they thought it sounded wonderful and that we were sitting in the presence of greatness. But not one could tell me something specific that they enjoyed.

The second half picked up as Tapani and Nguyen worked through Kirchner's "Tre Poemi for Horn and Piano." Tapani attacked the notes and swayed back and forth as he created a dissonant melody, complemented by Nguyen, who at times stood and plucked the strings inside the piano and hammered down on the keys so hard it echoed.

After the concert ended, the audience spontaneously erupted into a standing ovation with cries of "Bravo!" shouted out by several people. This was absolutely shocking, from an audience that seemed to nod off during a good portion of the evening. Regardless, the duo gave in to audience demands and retuned for an encore.

Parked beneath fedora shade, jazz beater Eddie Israel celebrated his 84th birthday Friday night, doing what he does - talking with his sticks' tasty licks. Israel's Thatt Groupp set the keen tone Friday night for the packed Bistro 135 in East Rochester; it's an uber-cool joint with desserts as big as my head. Israel has got to be one of the most relaxed cats to ever ascend to the throne, and he fired off pops and accents amidst the sweet swing. Don't forget, this is a dude who once kept time for Dizzy.

On Saturday openers Over The Rhine blew Ani DiFranco away. Sure, the Auditorium virtually offered the righteous babe a home-court advantage, but the vocal half of this duo, Karin Bergquist, floats in the same ether as Joli Holland, Neko Case, or Gillian Welch. It sounds so nice up there, doesn't it? The music was optimistically dark; melancholy with a smile. And when you have no expectations, you still have the opportunity to get knocked out, no matter how jaded you've become. DiFranco followed, and by contrast came off even more percussive in the way she made the guitar talk, and in her tight and strident diction. You'll never accuse her of slurring he words.

Eddie Nebula and The Plague fans were slurring their words at the band's CD release show Saturday night at The Bug Jar, thanks to band swag that included those little in-flight bottles of bourbon. The Plague followed 40 Rod Lightning and The Veins, who tried it unplugged the night before at Boulder Coffee. The band plugged back in for this show, and I think The Plague even plugged in twice. Yup, all seats were in the upright and locked positions, as we flew the friendly skies on Plague airlines. There was more singing along and toasting with the band than at an Irish wedding, and the various on-stage guests that also embellish the band's new "Spends You Money" disc made it sound like The Plague on Broadway. And did you get a load of those...arms, on the cover? Hubba!

Mordecai Lipshutz, one of the most recognizable voices on Rochester radio, is retiring from his afternoon shift on WXXI 91.5 FM.

For more than 30 years Lipshutz has brought music to classical fans with a dignified eloquence and deep understanding of music.

This however, is not the final adios. You can take the boy out of music, but you can't take the music out of the boy.

"You'll still hear me bravo-ing from the balcony of the Eastman Theatre," Lipshutz tells City. "And I'll still be singing the last song of the Jazz Festival." He'll also continue with his Christmas and New Year shows on WXXI.

Things have changed significantly since Lipshutz hit the airways back in 1976

"Everything came over radio wires, the telephone wire," he says. "The concerts came on tapes that went from station to station to station getting progressively worse sounding as they went."

And where he marvels at the technological advances, Lipshutz laments the decline of the listening experience.

"Part of it is people just don't have the time to relax and really immerse themselves in what they're hearing," he says. "Take off their glasses, put away their computers, turn off the TV and allow themselves to be brought into the realm of the music by a person who loves the listener and loves the music, too."

Lipshutz, now 58, plans on doing some traveling, visiting relatives, and listening from the other side of the mic.

"It'll be an interesting new perspective," he says. "I thought it would be nice to have a few extra years to do some things that are new before the old rocking chair gets me."

I counted a mere three sips of water, and even fewer gulps of air, as Henry Rollins talked non-stop for three hours last Tuesday at the Harro East Ballroom. The way he overlapped stories and moods was brilliantly put together. It wasn't so much a diatribe as it was a conversation where you're just too enthralled to participate.

Standing in what frequently looked like a martial arts pose, Rollins went from the election to the war to world travel to Van Halen fans to his relentless urge to stick it to the man, and to the discovery that sometimes, he is the man. It didn't have the cadence of spoken word per se, but Rollins' flow and eloquence was so riveting that three hours flew by. I did find it funny that after all his aversion to celebrity and his claims that he ain't one himself, when I handed him a copy of his interview in last week's City he promptly autographed it.

As much as Bruce Springsteen's newer stuff bores me, his live intensity sells it. I walked out of Blue Cross Arena Thursday night with a better understanding and appreciation of all of The Boss' stuff. "Born To Run," "Darkness On The Edge Of Town," "The River," and especially "Nebraska" are my faves, and he dipped into them a little for the sold-out crowd. I was knocked out when he pulled off a raw and rockin' version of "Reason To Believe," howling through a Green Bullet mic. The band was lean and mean, and despite the venue's size it gave the arena some juke joint charm.

Ahh, the nostalgia; sandwiched in there with all my fellow aging rock fans, I got a little misty, looking back on the days of rock concerts in Blue Cross Arena. Concerts where the air was electric with the anticipation of the general admission dash, the smoke was so thick, you couldn't see the overhead score board, and tickets were $8. It really hit me as I looked over the crowd during "She's The One," and spied one - one - lone lighter held aloft, in what back in 1979 would have looked like a lake of fire.

Party in the Park will not take place at the High Falls Festival Site this year, according to Lorie Lachiusa Barnum, the city's director of cultural affairs. A Rochester Gas & Electric hydro power project slated to begin in the High Falls gorge in May has bounced the free concert series to a new, yet-to-be-determined location.

That new venue won't be the recently renovated Manhattan Square Park, which previously housed the series. "Our event outgrew it," Barnum says of the downtown location. "The size of the crowd and the size of the stage needed for our level of acts."

The city is negotiating a new site for the 2008 season, which will run July 5-August 7, and plans to announce more details soon.

Got a big taste of chaos at the Main Street Armory last night with a long list of the new heavy. Hardcore, punk, and heavy metal have been melted down and polished into pure adrenaline and aggression.

Top of the heap is Atreyu, which has developed beyond the teeter-totter of the genre's standard-issue scream/sing/scream dynamic. Unfortunately, when you get close to 4,000 sweaty kids screaming/singing/screaming, you tend to horse it into the boat. All of the subtlety found on the band's latest "Lead Sails Paper Anchor" went out the window as the group pummeled and pounded like a monster truck in freefall.

Headliner's Avenged Sevenfold followed, and mayhem ensued. This is one of the heaviest bands out there that still manages to throw some nice and catchy amid the dark and loud. I dug the fast take the band did on "The Beast and Harlot."

I honestly think melody is the only avenue left unexplored; AX7 and its contemporaries are simply running out of ways to amp-up the heavier aspects. And please don't tell me I'm the only one that hears Thin Lizzy in the band's twin guitar attack.

I counted a mere three sips of water, and even fewer gulps of air, as Henry Rollins talked non-stop for three hours last Tuesday at the Harro East Ballroom. The way he overlapped stories and moods was brilliantly put together. It wasn't so much a diatribe as it was a conversation where you're just too enthralled to participate.

Standing in what frequently looked like a martial arts pose, Rollins went from the election to the war to world travel to Van Halen fans to his relentless urge to stick it to the man, and to the discovery that sometimes, he is the man. It didn't have the cadence of spoken word per se, but Rollins' flow and eloquence was so riveting that three hours flew by. I did find it funny that after all his aversion to celebrity and his claims that he ain't one himself, when I handed him a copy of his interview in last week's City he promptly autographed it.

As much as Bruce Springsteen's newer stuff bores me, his live intensity sells it. I walked out of Blue Cross Arena Thursday night with a better understanding and appreciation of all of The Boss' stuff. "Born To Run," "Darkness On The Edge Of Town," "The River," and especially "Nebraska" are my faves, and he dipped into them a little for the sold-out crowd. I was knocked out when he pulled off a raw and rockin' version of "Reason To Believe," howling through a Green Bullet mic. The band was lean and mean, and despite the venue's size it gave the arena some juke joint charm.

Ahh, the nostalgia; sandwiched in there with all my fellow aging rock fans, I got a little misty, looking back on the days of rock concerts in Blue Cross Arena. Concerts where the air was electric with the anticipation of the general admission dash, the smoke was so thick, you couldn't see the overhead score board, and tickets were $8. It really hit me as I looked over the crowd during "She's The One," and spied one - one - lone lighter held aloft, in what back in 1979 would have looked like a lake of fire.

Got a big taste of chaos at the Main Street Armory last week with a long list of the new heavy. Hardcore, punk, and heavy metal have been melted down and polished into pure adrenaline and aggression.

At the top of the heap is Atreyu, which has developed beyond the teeter-totter of the genre's standard-issue scream/sing/scream dynamic. Unfortunately, when you get close to 4000 sweaty kids screaming/singing/screaming, you tend to horse it into the boat. All of the subtlety found on the band's latest "Lead Sails Paper Anchor" went out the window as the group pummeled and pounded like a monster truck in freefall.

Headliners Avenged Sevenfold followed, and mayhem ensued. This is one of the heaviest bands out there that still manages to throw in some nice and catchy amid the dark and loud. I dug the fast take the band did on "The Beast and Harlot," and the guitar player's obvious nod to Rick Nielsen. And please don't tell me I'm the only one that hears Thin Lizzy in the band's twin guitar attack.

I honestly think melody is the only avenue left unexplored; AX7 and its contemporaries are simply running out of ways to amp-up the heavier aspects. We're not talking Jerome Kern here, but these boys are pulling out a few tunes you can actually hum.

Caught The Demos Friday night at The Club @ Water Street, where the band blazed through what was apparently all of its material. A little tip, boys: save at least one for when the kids scream for an encore like they did. That, or learn to bullshit around a 12-bar shuffle like the rest of us do.

Had the distinct pleasure of playing as part of Brian Coughlin's Songwriters In The Roundat The House of Hamez Saturday night, along with Coughlin and Lisa Bigwood. The well-caffeinated audience was most forgiving as Coughlin and I played stump the band with ourselves. Bigwood, on the other hand, brought it. She was engaging, charming, and frightening. She hides a lot of subtext in her lyrics and there's an underlying current in her playing as well. Listen and you'll hear even more sting in what she doesn't play, as it stands shoulder to shoulder with the ghosts.

The four grease monkeys in Rumble Club rumbled into the Bug Jar Thursday night, coming from Kentucky with the leather-stetson'd double-bassist promising to "soak your drawers" as soon as the band took the stage. Relying heavily on the old minor seventh for the majority of its 45-minute slap-back stampede, the band played rockabilly on the danger side. And don't the ladies love a low voice? Lead singer Jack Coray rumbles with a sub-strata drawl that I'm sure fulfilled the band's earlier promise; there wasn't a dry seat in the house. The volume was big and bold, loud enough to feel where it counts, and without the upper end that typically leaves your head ringing and nose running.

Brokedown stepped in to clean up and seems to be going the way of Izzy Stradlin's early, post-G'N'R stuff. Lots of bar-brawlin' guitar and a rock 'n' roll beat and tone that straddles the Mason-Dixon. And that plank guitarist Croonin' Curt was giving a spank as pure Hound Dog Taylor. Yeah, I know I plug ol' Hound Dog a lot, but I ain't gonna rest until everyone knows his name - or Brokedown's.

The jazz scene at The Grill at Strathallan isn't really a well-kept secret anymore. Everywhere I stood was apparently an aisle as I dug ex-Rochesterian, ex-Big Roots trombonist Dave Gibson intone on the 'bone Saturday evening with Bob Sneider's posse. Anybody can blast when it comes to brass, but Gibson played as cool as he carried himself - all charcoal suit and scotch rocks stroll.

P-Funkster Andre Foxxe returned to Montage Live Music Hall later that night with a brand new band. These cats were rough and ready, lying down Foxxe's brass-knuckle funk and groove. It would be fun to see them do a residency here and really build up a following, as this music can really stir things up when the dance floor gets sweaty. Foxxe knows I dig his tune "Summer Girls" big time, and since a cord malfunction marred the first take, he did it again. He is so f**king cool.