Is Love Pop or Not?

Experienced live, their mix of spooky Goth organs, hippie drum circles and Katrina Ford's eerily compelling vocals is both hypnotic and blissful. The image is somewhat incongruous: a saxophonist, sitting cross-legged in colorful robes, accompanied by a violinist and mridangam player. A self-described "smile delivery service," in the past year she's won over toddlers, teenagers and thirtysomethings, adoring Asians, enthusiastic Germans, rowdy Utahns and impassive New Yorkers.
That beautiful school is exemplified by the Moscow Quartet, who will present a wonderful program of Haydn, Beethoven and (late) compatriot Shostakovich in one of their regular visits to our fair city. Raekwon's gritty, obscene rhyming style tips its hat to modern New York street rap while still appealing to the old heads. The leader of the wise-ass avant-pop-jazz quartet Sex Mob, Bernstein has a deep knowledge and sly versatility that manifest in his own band playing swing with a punk sneer, or covering the Beatles a la Nawlins or deconstructing gypsy jazz, all in the course of a single set. It is a bit curious that an instrument as expressive as the cello has not been accorded more concerto treatment, recent times have been more favorable for the cello, and in any case, there is one indisputable masterpiece in the format.