Music

Now widely known as “The Harlem Nutcracker,” Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote it for Columbia Records, along with film scores and other work. It was met with a sensational reception

Topo, in Fiddler on the Roof, was a Klezmer musician, “schlepping his way from shtetl to shtetl… a distinctive image of pre-war Jewish life in the Ashkenazi communities of Eastern Europe,” according to worldmusic.net.

Tinsley Ellis is out driving around the country on what Alligator Records has dubbed his “Two Guitars and a Car” tour. That car brings him to Healdsburg’s Raven Theater on Friday, Nov. 21.

As a recording artist, if a person hangs around long enough, they get to look back at their body of work. And if they’re really lucky they not only get to revisit their canon, they even get a shot at reinterpreting and reimagining these earlier fruits of their labor. That’s what Alejandro Escovedo has done with his latest album, Echo Dancing. It finds him using the past to shape the future.

“I chose the name Mon Rovîa because at first when I was doing music, it was mainly for myself,” said the performer in a late-August interview. “But then I realized that I wanted to pursue music for other reasons outside of myself, like telling stories about the world and so many things that are going on, especially about my country and its history. Nobody really knows much about Liberia.”