By Charlene Arsenault

If it’s Friday, and it’s summer, that means there’s a Jazz at Sunset concert at the EcoTarium in Worcester. This unique setting allows the audience to bring a picnic and sit out on the lawn, bringing blankets, lawn chairs and their favorite snacks.

The 19th annual season, as always, draws an array of styles - all with the thread of jazz tying it together.

Jazz at Sunset concerts run for six Friday evenings, through July 24. (There will be no Jazz at Sunset concert on July 3.) Major support for the series is provided by Commerce Bank and media support is provided by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Worcester Living. Concerts are held at the EcoTarium, 222 Harrington Way, Worcester, on Friday evenings, 6:30-8:30 p.m. (gates open at 5:30 p.m.), rain or shine; in case of threatening weather, concerts are held in a tent pavilion.

Light dinners, snacks and beverages are available at all concerts. Beer and wine are available by the glass. Tickets: $18 per person (includes museum admission), $15 for EcoTarium and WICN members. Free for children under 12. Advance tickets are available up to 4 p.m. the Thursday before the show by calling 508-929-2703, or buy them online at www.ecotarium.org. No refunds. Tickets are also available at the gate on the night of show. Advance Table Seating: reserve one table with seating for up to four people for $80 per table (includes concert and museum admission).

2009 JAZZ AT SUNSET PERFORMER SCHEDULE

June 12: The Love Dogs - Based out of Boston, this hard blowing septet just celebrated its thirteenth year wowing audiences and critics alike with their combination of great musicianship and pure fun. The Dogs combine elements of jump blues, New Orleans R&B and early rock ‘n’ roll into their own powerhouse sound.

June 19: Greg Abate - World renowned jazz saxophonist Greg Abate is widely considered one of the best post-bebop alto players around today.

June 26: Sunny and her Joy Boys featuring Duke Robillard - A soft yet powerful rhythm reminiscent of the heyday of jazz of the ’30s. Sunny’s beautiful voice and the stylings of this talented group of musicians will entrance you while taking you through the Great American Songbook.

July 10: The Worcester Jazz Orchestra - Hot jazz. Cool tunes. Sizzling performances. The Worcester Jazz Orchestra is celebrating more than 13 years of critically-acclaimed Big Band music. This 18-piece orchestra highlights music from Stan Kenton, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson and others.

July 17: Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas - Experience traditional Southern Louisiana Creole roots music without leaving New England through the accordion-driven dance music of these zydeco masters. Fast and furious musical beats with percussion, electric guitars, R & B influences and a definite Caribbean lilt.

July 24: Cassandre McKinley - The rich sound of accomplished vocalist Cassandre McKinley has impressed audiences all across Boston and beyond and has inspired the Boston Globe to anoint her the queen of “jazzsoul.” Drawing from a diverse group of influences, McKinley has developed a sound and style that is so unique, there are no comparisons.

Renowned Broadway musical “Cats” is coming to The Hanover Theatre in Worcester Jan. 23, 24 and 25. The longest running show in Broadway history, Andrew Lyod Webber’s masterpiece still packs in audiences with its memorable songs and performances.

• Show and ticket information

He’s been dubbed “America’s best unknown songwriter,” but his sound is both familiar and fresh. Worcester’s own Roger Salloom appears at The Hanover Theatre Jan. 17.

Salloom locally is probably best known for his 1975 “Gotta Get Out of Worcester,” but his music spans four decades with a music style that was influenced by artists like Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.  According to Rolling Stone Magazine, “Roger Salloom is a superb story teller with a good sense of rhythm and a great sense of timing, and the music is incredibly infectious.”

• Buy tickets
• Visit Roger Salloom’s Web site
• Worcester Magazine story on Salloom
• Roger Salloom on MySpace Music

One of the most prestigious symphonies of the Czech Republic will perform at Mechanics Hall in Worcester Feb. 5 at 8 p.m.

The Czech Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Theodor Kuchar will perform Smetena’s “The Moldau,” Dvorak’s sixth symphony and Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in E minor. The orchestra will be joined by violinist Jennifer Frautschi. A pre-concert talk will begin at 7 p.m. The concert is presented by Music Worcester

• The program and tickets
  

• About the Czeck Symphony Orchestra

CLICK HERE FOR STORY

The main focus of the story are a couple of studies — a paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and written by economists Gerald A. Carlino and Albert Saiz and a paper written by Saiz and Harvard economist Edward Glaeser and California economist Jed Kolko titled “Consumer City.”

What these studies found, among other things, is that spending by local governments on parks and other recreations and amenities yielded both an increase in visitors as well as general growth to a city. Essentially, cities that are the types of places people want to visit, are the types of places that attract high-skilled and high-income people who, in turn, invigorate the economy. This paragraph from the story stood out in particular:

Social scientists had long studied the growth of cities, but in the 1990s they started to notice something puzzling: Cities like Seattle and Austin were booming as new-economy hubs for no apparent reason other than the fact that the people responsible for the greatest innovations in high technology had chosen to live in places that were bike-friendly, had good music scenes, and allowed them to show up to business lunches in jeans.

It’s an interesting notion and one with real-life examples right here in Worcester. While the city struggles to give rebirth to City Square and the downtown, areas like Shrewsbury Street (the unofficial county destination for fine dining) seem to have exploded with success on their own.

Nickelback will arrive in Worcester on the band’s Dark Horse tour March 5. The phenomenally-successful rock band will begin touring in February on the heals of it’s sixth album, “Dark Horse.”

Tickets are available now through Tickemaster online at ticketmaster.com or at 617-931-2000.

• Nickelback official Web site

Tim Russert may be gone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep your own election score card. Every vote counts, but as we’ve learned from past elections, some state’s votes count more than others — particularly if you’re in a swing state.

Check out this interactive map from 270towin.com. Play political pundit and calculate just what states your favorite candidate needs to win.

By Noah R. Bombard

Ralph Nader  is running for president. If you didn’t know that, don’t feel bad - you’re not alone.

Nader, 73, who ran a 21-stop campaign marathon across Massachusetts Saturday has remained relatively off the radar this election season, despite having launched his campaign in February.

But as Nader worked a fever pitch of coffee shops, college campuses and cafes Saturday — including his stop at Clark University here in Worcester — he had his sights set clearly on rallying politically dissatisfied Americans into what he repeatedly called a “third political force.”

Those looking to check something other than “Republican” or “Democrat” on their ballot were listening.

A little more than a week before the election, Nader would not outright concede his chances in the election were nil - although he told supporters in Cambridge that Sen. Barack Obama would surly “landslide McCain” in Massachusetts and referred several times to “the Obama presidency.” But while the country looks to the Nov. 4 election, Nader was clearly looking beyond it. 

“The more votes you get before Nov. 4 the more you can build a force after Nov. 4,” Nader said by phone Saturday night on his way to Stockbridge after completing 19 of the scheduled 21 stops for the day stretching clear across the state.

The aggressive campaign push itself was part of Nader’s message. Small gatherings scattered throughout communities rather than big fundraising events is how presidential candidates should be addressing voters, he said. And it’s not entirely coincidental he packed so many into one day. Nader is trying to nab the record for most campaign stops in a state in one day - campaign workers whisked him from one location to the next from 8 a.m. to midnight. As the campaign neared its end Saturday, Nader said pending confirmation from Guinness World Records, the record should be his.

But campaign stops and world records aside, Nader appeared to be on a mission Saturday - a mission beyond the White House in ‘08 . Nader continually voiced the need for a new force that would put pressure on the two major parties, which Nader has for years accused of being beholden to big business and special interest groups. Is Nader looking to form a new political party? That depends largely on the public he’s spending time shaking hands with.

“If there’s enough groundswell,” Nader said.

All along the campaign trail Saturday, Nader told supporters that the majority of Americans aren’t represented by the two main parties. A former Green Party candidate in 2000, Nader said, the Green Party has some great ideals, but that it can’t seem to organize or raise money effectively. Instead, Nader referred to the 2012 election and building a force that could realistically challenge the Republican and Democratic parties.

Related story: Third parties and the presidency

A longtime political activist, Nader is campaigning on a host of reform policies such as taxing Wall Street securities speculators, adopting a single-payer national health plan, shifting the nation’s energies to solar power and reversing U.S. policy in the Middle East.

“Over the shoulders of the Obama administration will be a growing grass-roots political force,” Nader said while speaking to supporters at ZuZu’s restaurant in Cambridge around noon. He referred to a vote for Obama as a vote for the “least of the worst.”

This new political force, he said, will be a “watchdog and a hammer and a constant rising political eminence of the kind that the two parties understand.” What those parties understand, he said, “is losing votes to a third political force.”

That comment may hit a sour note with Democrats, many of whom attribute Nader’s more than 97,000 votes in Florida during the 2000 presidential election as having contributed to George W. Bush’s narrow win over Al Gore in that state.  It’s an argument Nader scoffs at.

In May he told the Wall Street Journal, “If the premise is that we have an equal right to run for election, no one’s a ’spoiler’ - unless we’re all ’spoilers’ of one another. So when they say, ‘You cost Gore the election,’ I say, ‘I thought Bush took more votes from Gore.’”

Nader received 2,882,955 votes in the 2000 election. In 2004, running as an independent, he pulled 463,653 votes.

Nader said this time around he’s had difficulty getting media coverage of his campaign and complained of the two-party monopoly.

“Once you’re excluded by the two party system, you can’t get coverage,” Nader said.

He said he feels the system can be cracked by a “large group of national citizens.”

“We need a second American political revolution,” he said.

By 10:35 p.m. Saturday, after 14 ½ hours of speeches and shaking hands, Nader was still going as the campaign left Northampton and continued on to Stockbridge and then the final stop: a campaign party in Sheffield.

He still had his voice.

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H. Ross Perot came the closest in modern history with his 1992 run as an independent. Polls at the time had Perot running neck and neck With Bill Clinton and then-President George H. Bush prior to dropping out of the race for several months. He re-entered and pulled more than 19 million votes that year, but no electoral votes. Political analysts at the time believed the temporary withdrawal from the race damaged Perot’s showing.

For as long as the Democratic and Republican parties have gone head to head, however, the 1912 election was the only time a minor party candidate took both a higher electoral and popular vote than one of the two major parties. Former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt left the Republican Party that year to form the Progressive Party, which beat Republican nominee and sitting President Howard Taft. That split, however, is largely credited with dividing the Republican Party and resulting in the election of the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.

The Times & Courier newspaper in Clinton reported last Friday that one of the men on the state’s “most wanted” list of sex offenders turned himself into Clinton District Court last Friday. The man, Shayne M. Sampson, is a former Worcester resident.

From the Times & Courier:

“Sampson, 48, is wanted by Clinton Police for violating an abuse prevention order and by the Worcester Police Department for failing to register as a sex offender. He is also wanted in Worcester County for violating probation conditions of a previous conviction in West Boylston for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, disseminating obscene material to a minor, and open and gross lewdness.”