It’s been nearly 30 years since the legendary British band the Police officially announced they were splitting, following a seven-year run of hits such as “Roxanne” and “Every Breath You Take” and arena-busting shows around the world. Those turbulent years are addressed...

Taking an art form out of its natural habitat — be it theater, gallery, museum, recital or concert hall — risks diminishing the art to the extent that it’s no longer displayed to the best possible advantage. On the other hand, giving a particular art the daylight test, and...

Epiphanies can be spurred by the most unlikely occurrences. That can certainly hold true for practitioners of the blues.

It’s a busy afternoon at home for Sydney Sierota, just weeks away from her 18th birthday, sitting by the light of a living room window as a hair and makeup artist prepares her for another night onstage. Waiting on a nearby hanger is a sparkling silver dress.

The Beatles’ “White Album,” which befuddled fans and divided critics upon its arrival in 1968 in a plain sleeve embossed with the band’s name, is a work of broad scope and meticulous detail.

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  Photo Gallery: The Beatles' "White Album" at the Alex

In 1922, when 5-year-old Clifford Gilpin Snyder moved to Burbank with his parents, no one could have guessed he’d end up as the patriarch of a West Coast country music empire. The family bought 5 acres on rural Pass Avenue, where they ran a nursery and kept a dog kennel. When Cliffie was...

Pioneering Chicano rock ‘n’ roll originator Chris Montez, famed for frantic international 1962 hit “Let’s Dance,” is one of the most exciting performers still working from that era. Now 73 years old, Montez, who appears Saturday at Joe’s Great American Bar &...

Trombonist Michael Vlatkovich’s recordings are musical journeys. He writes and works in many different modes of ensemble expression: Pieces and passages may float weightlessly, roar like fire trucks through a busy intersection, or converge with layers of instrumental counterpoint. True to...

“You never know who’s going to steal the show,” says Paul Rock, talking about the Wild Honey Orchestra & Special Guests perform the Beatles’ “White Album” concert that’s set to take place at the Alex Theatre in Glendale on Saturday, Feb. 28.

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  Photo Gallery: Beatles' "White Album" coming to the Alex Theatre

Never let it be said that concert pianist Gloria Cheng isn’t up for a challenge. She’s known for tackling some of the knottiest and most technically difficult contemporary classical music of the last century. Nor does she lack for inspired conceptual premises. In her newest album,...

As a young man in Liverpool, John Lennon had two creative passions in life: art and rock ‘n’ roll. One fed the other, and each revealed something of an emerging personality with a playful, sometimes biting view of the world around him. The Beatles eventually made him famous, but he never...

It’s Saturday night at Redwhite + Bluezz, which shares a courtyard with the Pasadena Playhouse. The business began as a high-end gourmet restaurant with an extensive wine list, in its first home off of Pasadena’s Paseo in 2008. It’s changed hands and moved over to 37 N. El Molino...

In the early 1980s, a group of hot young players from around the country made names for themselves in New York. They weren’t free-jazz avant-gardists, neo-beboppers, electronic funksters or a part of Wynton Marsalis’ “young men in suits” brigade. These young bloods played the...

Muffs bandleader Kim Shattuck is a die-hard rock ‘n’ roller. When the Glendale resident hits the Satellite’s bandstand on Friday night, she’ll bring bales of the masterly combination of rabble rousing, stink-stirring and bubblegum pop in overdrive sound that’s kept...

From the strings of prohibition-styled jazz to pop beats that warrant quick toe-taps, music lovers can venture to Pasadena for the "Saturday Nights in August" concert series.

Looking out over a roomful of cowboy hats, full-sleeve tattoos, and Ramones T-shirts, Jonny Whiteside — who's been promoting a once-a-month musical series called "The Messaround" at the Viva Cantina in Burbank for the last four-and-a-half years — says, "People always think 'The...

Readers of this byline may recall a feature on the jazz at Glendale's Neat Bar in the Glendale News-Press in March 2012. While the bar itself and the band were worthy enough subjects, the big discovery that night was young bassist Katie Thiroux and her boyfriend, drummer Matt Witek. Their...

Up to the first of the year, one sure bet for jazz in Southern California were the monthly nights at Jax where pianist Frank Strazzeri held court. Though seldom acknowledged nationally, he was one of the reigning masters of jazz piano, with a wealth of composition and arrangement background that...

When all-female garage rockers the 21st Century Pandoras get to work Friday night at Burbank's Pin Up Girl, they won't just be resurrecting one of Southern California's wildest rock acts, they will also be adding fuel to the fire of a bitter rivalry that's smoldered for a quarter of a century.

Martin Short is a Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor with dozens of films behind him and a small crowd of bizarre characters that follow him everywhere. The "completely mental" Ed Grimley — with slippery cowlick and pants pulled up to his chest — has been with him since 1977. And by the...

Danielle Sadd is a rare breed of entertainer in Los Angeles: a native, who can sing a soulful rendition of “The Sister Act” opening and crack killer jokes about falling in love with guys named Taylor at Starbucks.

How often have we seen prodigies show brilliant early promise, only to crash and burn years later when confronted with real-world professional realities? The streets of Hollywood are paved with such casualties. Jazz singer Sara Gazarek is an early bloomer who has not only shown gratifying...

Recently formed rock quartet Texas Space Monster Jalopy has a pedigree as wild and unexpected as the band's unconventional moniker. Fronted by veteran guitar virtuoso Gary Myrick (best known for his moody, pulsating 1980 New Wave rocker "She Talks in Stereo") and the powerful singer-guitarist...

You can tell a lot about a composer from the performers who champion him or her. Tigran Mansurian, the 75-year-old Armenian composer of music in which deep cultural pain is quieted through an...