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It was like a marathon within a marathon.

he Smashing Pumpkins opened their much-anticipated 11-night stand at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco - the second longest run in the venue’s fabled history - with an epic three-hour show. The concert began at 10 p.m. Sunday and ended at 1:07 a.m. Monday.

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“Sly is in the house,” shouted concert promoter Franco Herrero to a laid-back, older crowd in San Jose, long dubious about actually seeing the modern day re-emergence of Sly Stone, elusive leader of Sly and the Family Stone.

Because Stone has been nearly invisible since the 1970s, whether or not he would [...]

In the mid-1970s, Beverly Sills was a ubiquitous presence on American television. I remember watching her in action on one of the several occasions when Johnny Carson asked her to be the guest host of “The Tonight Show.” Sills invited three of her gal pals as guests: the comedian Carol Burnett, the [...]

Top summer songs of this decade

2000: “Try Again,” Aaliyah

2001: “Hanging by a Moment,” Lifehouse

2002: “Hot in Herre,” Nelly

2003: “Crazy in Love,” Beyonce`, featuring Jay-Z

2004: “Confessions Part II,” Usher

2005: “We Belong Together,” Mariah Carey

2006: “Promiscuous,” Nelly Furtado, featuring Timbaland

Source: About.com, [...]

What does it take to make a great summer song?

Something light, sheer and easy - much like the right meal or the perfect outfit for this sweaty season. It also never hurts to have something that’s numb in the brain. Heavy thoughts and fussy feelings [...]

With a morning show that includes an African-American guy, a gay guy, a Jewish guy and a blond woman, KBWF-FM (95.7) (”The Wolf”) is a country music station the hosts think wouldn’t work anywhere but the Bay Area.

It’s a team that defies convention and stereotype, and amazingly has made a serious move [...]

NEW YORK - Ornette Coleman, who earlier this year became only the second jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, swept the top honors at the Jazz Awards 2007 last week, winning in four categories, including musician of the year.

Coleman’s “Sound Grammar,” the first [...]

The Vans Warped Tour is now a teenager.

The tour turned 13 this year, thus entering into the same age group that it continues to target so successfully. And one would have to say that Warped wears its age quite well - at least it did during its stop on Sunday at [...]

Chanteuse Tina Fabrique tries to conjure that old black magic as the title role in “Ella,” a tribute to the inimitable jazz singer. Born poor in Virginia in 1917, Ella Fitzgerald went on to achieve legendary status as one of the world’s most famous vocalists before she died in 1996 at the age of [...]

At 16, Ella Fitzgerald longed to get her big break as a dancer. But when she took the stage at amateur night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1934, she just couldn’t find her legs. Luckily she found her voice, and those mighty pipes soon made her one of the most famous jazz [...]