The bouncy rhythm, the delicate music arrangement and good musicianship have made Harmonious Wail, one of the few outstanding bands that combines Eastern European folk songs and American jazz music.
For those who missed their first Taiwan concert in Chiayi yesterday, try to catch up with one of the six other concerts during their Taiwan tour.
Their upcoming gigs are Oct 1 in Yuanlin, Changhua county, Oct 3 in Taipei's National Concert Hall, Oct 5 in Taichung, Oct 6 in Chungli, Taoyuan county, Oct 7 in Kaohsiung and Oct 8 in Hsinchu.
Established in 1987, Harmonious Wail inlcudes mandolin, acoustic guitar, double bass, occasional fiddler and a female vocal. Its music owes a debt to musicians such as Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, and David Grisman.
Harmonious Wail founder and leader Sims Delaney-Potthoff said, "It's Jethro Burns' fault," when asked about the style of the band's mandolin-heavy gypsy-jazz.
For seven years, Sims studied with Burns, the legendary jazz mandolinist, laying the foundation for Harmonious Wail's acoustic string sound. He studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music, honing his skills while immersing himself in "gypsy" music.
Vocalist Maggie Delaney-Potthoff is a captivating performer. Equally at home scat-singing over a bebop tune, soaring on a solo, or blending with Wail's tight vocal harmonies, she delivers both powerhouse tunes and ballads with confidence and ease. Her well-received tunes include I'm always Chasing Rainbows, After You've Gone.
As a strings-based band, the guitarist Tom Waselchuk and bassist John Mesoloras are vital to the band's music. Waselchuck has performed with and led jazz groups such as Full Count Jazz Band, Wholly Cats, and played folk and blues and western swing.
Mesoloras has a powerful, rock steady and energetic stand-up bass playing style and is a perfect match for Sims Delaney-Potthoff's mandolin. Together, the band has a unique aura that brings the audience back to the scene of Paris jazz clubs of the 1930s.
Oct. 21 to Oct. 27 Sanbanqiao Cemetery (三板橋) was once reserved for prominent Japanese residents of Taipei, including former governor-general Motojiro Akashi, who died in Japan in 1919 but requested to be buried in Taiwan. Akashi may have reconsidered his decision if he had known that by the 1980s, his grave had been overrun by the city’s largest illegal settlement, which contained more than 1,000 households and a bustling market with around 170 stalls. Fans of Taiwan New Cinema would recognize the slum, as it was featured in several of director Wan Jen’s (萬仁) films about Taipei’s disadvantaged, including The Sandwich
“Wish You Luck is not just a culinary experience, it’s a continuation of our cultural tradition,” says James Vuong (王豪豐), owner of the Daan District (大安) Hong Kong diner. On every corner of Kowloon, diners pack shoulder-to-shoulder over strong brews of Hong-Kong-style milk tea, chowing down on French Toast and Cantonese noodles. Hong Kong’s ubiquitous diner-style teahouses, known as chachaanteng (茶餐廳), have been a cultural staple of the city since the 1950s. “They play an essential role in the daily lives of Hongkongers,” says Vuong. Wish You Luck (祝您行運) offers that same vibrant melting pot of culture and cuisine. In
Much noise has been made lately on X (Twitter), where posters both famed and not have contended that Taiwan is stupid for eliminating nuclear power, which, the comments imply, is necessary to provide the nation with power in the event of a blockade. This widely circulated claim, typically made by nuclear power proponents, is rank nonsense. In 2021, Ian Easton, an expert on Taiwan’s defenses and the plans of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to break them, discussed the targeting of nuclear power plants in wartime (“Ian Easton On Taiwan: Are Taiwan’s nuclear plants safe from Beijing?”, April 12, 2021). The
Artificial intelligence could help reduce some of the most contentious culture war divisions through a mediation process, researchers say. Experts say a system that can create group statements that reflect majority and minority views is able to help people find common ground. Chris Summerfield, a co-author of the research from the University of Oxford, who worked at Google DeepMind at the time the study was conducted, said the AI tool could have multiple purposes. “What I would like to see it used for is to give political leaders ... a better sense of what people ... really think,” he said, noting surveys gave