Not a fan of jazz? This Medford festival might change your mind.
In the place of bebop and jazz fusion songs – which Linders says are many folks' main association with the genre – guests can expect tunes from between 1900 and the late 1930s, performed by acts like the
the Berlin Hall Saturday Night Revue.
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From swing tunes to strumming washboards, the festival presents a sampling of area artists who perform prewar music. Linders discovered these various swing, traditional jazz, and jug band communities upon her move to Medford in 2020. As a Midwestern transplant from St. Louis, she holds a deep appreciation for the blues and traditional jazz – 'what you would hear on the riverboats' cruising along the Mississippi, she says.
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While settling into her new home, Linders soon discovered that similar sounds thrived around Greater Boston. Swing came to life through dance organizations like the JP Jitterbugs and Boston Swing Central, traditional jazz and blues boomed at venues such as the
Now, two years later, Linders has broadened the parameters of the festival to incorporate musicians from swing and jug band circles, whose standards sometimes overlap with the catalogs of traditional jazz acts. As a whole, Linders says the festival might be a 'reframe of what jazz is' for folks who aren't already fans of the genre.
'I think a lot of times, an everyday person listening to a bebop band or maybe a fusion band, can't really understand the music, because it's going by so much faster and the chords get more complicated,' she explains.
In contrast, the styles on display at the festival have more in common with the blues and folk music, which Linders thinks many guests may find more accessible. For performers like Rahsaan Cruse Jr., those kindred musical roots and inherent call for connection help preserve early jazz's appeal in 2025.
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'Historically, this music carries the spirit of Black American life — joy, resilience, humor, and truth — and it reminds me that connection has always been at the heart of jazz,' explains Cruse Jr.
'The melodies are clear and soulful, the lyrics have space to breathe, and there's a conversation between the singer and the band that pulls the audience right into the music,' he concludes. 'That buoyant two-beat that slips into swing has a lift and a joy that still feels fresh today.'
GIG GUIDE
Following June's Green River Festival, Western Massachusetts receives another helping of Americana this weekend at the
It's a busy week for anyone checking rock legends off their bucket list, starting with a wallop of hard rock from
Advertisement
Around the corner
not
on a farewell tour – with the latest installment of Taylor's virtual summer concert series, a recording of his
James Taylor, posing here for a portrait outside of his home in the Berkshires, comes to MGM Music Hall at Fenway on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Following the sudden loss of producer and keyboardist Shaun Martin last August – and subsequent tour postponement –
d4vd, performing here during the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, comes to Roadrunner Thursday, Aug. 28.
Amy Harris/Amy Harris/Invision/AP
NOW SPINNING
BIA with Young Miko
,
Advertisement
UMI
,
Los Angeles singer UMI swerves between backdrops of banjo, boppy piano, and sighing synths on her sophomore record, "people stories."
Eric Nguyen
The Noisy
, 'Grenadine.' Take the sound of Chappell Roan's 'The Subway,' toss in an undercurrent of tasteful trumpet, and you have 'Grenadine,' the breezy new single from The Noisy. The Philadelphia group translate teen memories into bittersweet bedroom pop, which doubles as quite the teaser for their October album.
Philly band The Noisy - fronted by Sara Mae Henke - release its new breezy new single "Grenadine" on Friday.
Morgan Kelley
BONUS TRACK
This month, Massachusetts officials are putting homegrown artists on the map. Worcester celebrated hometown rapper
will be honored with a public street naming ceremony
Victoria Wasylak can be reached at
. Follow her on Bluesky @VickiWasylak.bsky.social.
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Not a fan of jazz? This Medford festival might change your mind.
Advertisement In the place of bebop and jazz fusion songs – which Linders says are many folks' main association with the genre – guests can expect tunes from between 1900 and the late 1930s, performed by acts like the the Berlin Hall Saturday Night Revue. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up From swing tunes to strumming washboards, the festival presents a sampling of area artists who perform prewar music. Linders discovered these various swing, traditional jazz, and jug band communities upon her move to Medford in 2020. As a Midwestern transplant from St. Louis, she holds a deep appreciation for the blues and traditional jazz – 'what you would hear on the riverboats' cruising along the Mississippi, she says. Advertisement While settling into her new home, Linders soon discovered that similar sounds thrived around Greater Boston. Swing came to life through dance organizations like the JP Jitterbugs and Boston Swing Central, traditional jazz and blues boomed at venues such as the Now, two years later, Linders has broadened the parameters of the festival to incorporate musicians from swing and jug band circles, whose standards sometimes overlap with the catalogs of traditional jazz acts. As a whole, Linders says the festival might be a 'reframe of what jazz is' for folks who aren't already fans of the genre. 'I think a lot of times, an everyday person listening to a bebop band or maybe a fusion band, can't really understand the music, because it's going by so much faster and the chords get more complicated,' she explains. In contrast, the styles on display at the festival have more in common with the blues and folk music, which Linders thinks many guests may find more accessible. For performers like Rahsaan Cruse Jr., those kindred musical roots and inherent call for connection help preserve early jazz's appeal in 2025. Advertisement 'Historically, this music carries the spirit of Black American life — joy, resilience, humor, and truth — and it reminds me that connection has always been at the heart of jazz,' explains Cruse Jr. 'The melodies are clear and soulful, the lyrics have space to breathe, and there's a conversation between the singer and the band that pulls the audience right into the music,' he concludes. 'That buoyant two-beat that slips into swing has a lift and a joy that still feels fresh today.' GIG GUIDE Following June's Green River Festival, Western Massachusetts receives another helping of Americana this weekend at the It's a busy week for anyone checking rock legends off their bucket list, starting with a wallop of hard rock from Advertisement Around the corner not on a farewell tour – with the latest installment of Taylor's virtual summer concert series, a recording of his James Taylor, posing here for a portrait outside of his home in the Berkshires, comes to MGM Music Hall at Fenway on Tuesday and Wednesday. Erin Clark/Globe Staff Following the sudden loss of producer and keyboardist Shaun Martin last August – and subsequent tour postponement – d4vd, performing here during the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, comes to Roadrunner Thursday, Aug. 28. Amy Harris/Amy Harris/Invision/AP NOW SPINNING BIA with Young Miko , Advertisement UMI , Los Angeles singer UMI swerves between backdrops of banjo, boppy piano, and sighing synths on her sophomore record, "people stories." Eric Nguyen The Noisy , 'Grenadine.' Take the sound of Chappell Roan's 'The Subway,' toss in an undercurrent of tasteful trumpet, and you have 'Grenadine,' the breezy new single from The Noisy. The Philadelphia group translate teen memories into bittersweet bedroom pop, which doubles as quite the teaser for their October album. Philly band The Noisy - fronted by Sara Mae Henke - release its new breezy new single "Grenadine" on Friday. Morgan Kelley BONUS TRACK This month, Massachusetts officials are putting homegrown artists on the map. Worcester celebrated hometown rapper will be honored with a public street naming ceremony Victoria Wasylak can be reached at . Follow her on Bluesky @
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More than a decade, of course, has passed, and Horror Unleashed is more diverse in its horror offerings. A maze themed to Universal's classic creatures winds through a castle and catacombs with vintage-style horrors and a mid-show scene in which Frankenstein's monster comes alive. Original tale "Scarecrow: The Reaping," which began at Universal Studios Florida, mixes in jump scares with more natural-seeming frights, such as the aforementioned simulated dust bowl. TJ Mannarino, vice president of entertainment, art and design at Universal Orlando, points to cultural happenings outside of the theme parks in broadening the terror scene - the success of shows such as "The Walking Dead" and "American Horror Story," which found audiences outside of the Halloween season, as well as "Stranger Things," which he says opened up horror to a younger crowd. Theme parks are simply reflecting our modern culture, which is craving darker fantasies. Universal, for instance, recently opened an entire theme park land focused on its classic monsters at its new Epic Universe in Florida, and even Disney is getting in on the action, as a villains-focused land is in the works for Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. "We think our audience really wants this," says Mannarino, noting theme park attendance surveys were prodding the company to give horror a permanent home. And at Universal's Orlando park, Halloween Horror Nights starts earlier, beginning in late August. "Just a couple years ago, we started in August, and we were selling out August dates," Stevenson says. "On a micro level, we're seeing that, boy, it doesn't matter if you extend past the season or extend out before the season - people are coming. People want it." Universal is betting on it, as the company has already announced that a second Horror Unleashed venue will be heading to Chicago in 2027. 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They've definitely invested in Halloween and horror fans. They're all-in." Horror, says author Lisa Morton - who has written multiple books on the Oct. 31 holiday, including "Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween" - is thriving in part because today it is taken more seriously by cultural critics. The genre also has metaphorical qualities - the struggle, for instance, that is life, art and creativity in "Sinners" or the underlying themes of PTSD that permeated the latest season of "The Last of Us." That makes it especially appealing, she says, for today's stressful times. "I suspect that's part of the reason horror is booming right now," Morton says. "Everything from climate change, that we seem to have no voice in, and our politics, that don't seem to represent us. Many of us are filled with anxiety about the future. I think horror is the perfect genre to talk about that. When you add a layer of a metaphor to it, it becomes much easier to digest." To step into Horror Unleashed is to walk into a demented wonderland, a place that turns standard theme park warmth and joy upside down. Don't expect fairy tale-like happy endings. The space's centerpiece performance is twisted, a story centering on Jack the Clown and his female sidekick Chance, who have kidnapped two poor Las Vegas street performers and are forcing them to execute their acts to perfection to avoid murder. The deeper one analyzes it, the more sinister its class dynamics feel, even if it's an excuse to showcase, say, street dancing and hula hoop acrobatics. The space has an underlying narrative. Broadly speaking, the warehouse is said to have been a storage place for Universal Studios' early monster-focused horror films. That allows it to be littered with props, such as the throne-like chair near its entrance, and for nooks and crannies such as a "film vault" to be renamed a "kill vault." Somehow - horror loves a good mystery - the space has come alive, and don't be surprised to be greeted by a vampire or a costumed swampland figure that may or may not be related to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The goal, says Universal creatives, is to give Horror Unleashed a bit of an immersive theater feel, something that can't really be done among the chaotic scare zones and fast-moving mazes of a Halloween Horror Nights event. But here, guests can linger with the actors and probe them to try to uncover the storyline that imbues the venue. One-to-one actor interaction has long been a goal of those in the theme park space but often a tough formula to crack, in part because cast members are costly and in part because of the difficulty to scale such experiences for thousands. "As we've evolved this style of experience, we have given more and more control of the show to the actors," says Mannarino on what separates Horror Unleashed from Halloween Horror Nights. "It's less programmed. It's less technology. I've had conversations with tech magazines, and they'll ask me what is the most critical piece, and I'll say it's the actors. ... The lifeblood of our all stories - we can build all of this, but it doesn't go without the actors. "It's what really drives this whole animal," he adds. It extends a bit to the mazes as well. Audiences should expect to spend about five to seven minutes in each of the four walk-through attractions, but unlike a Halloween Horror Nights event, where guests are rushed from room to room without stopping, in Las Vegas there will be one dedicated show scene per maze. Here, groups will be held to watch a mini-performance. In the "Exorcist" maze, for instance, that means witnessing a full exorcism, complete with special effects that will have walls give way to demonic specters. In the '70s-themed "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" haunt, look out for a bloody scene designed to drench guests. The mazes are intended to be semi-permanent. Stevenson says there's no immediate plans to swap them out in the near future but hints that Horror Unleashed will be an evolving venue and, if all goes according to plan, will look a bit different in a few years. Thus, he says the key differentiator between Horror Unleashed and Halloween Horror Nights is not necessarily the tech used in the mazes, but the extended time they can devote to unwrapping a story. "When Universal builds a haunted house, the level of story that starts that out is enormous," Stevenson says. "There's so much story. All of our partners need that because they base every little nuanced thing off of that story. Unfortunately, we don't always have the chance to tell that story, and all our fans tell us they want to know more story." Story percolates throughout the venue. Flatbreads, for instance, are shaped like chainsaw blades. Desserts come on plates that are mini-shovels. Salad dressing is delivered in syringes. In the past, says Mannarino, no one wanted their food to be played with. '"Don't do horrible things to my food!'" he says in mock exaggeration. "But now, people really love that." Little, it seems, is obscene, when every day can be Halloween. ___________ Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
