Not long ago at one of the premier music education facilities in the region - The Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts at Tri-C Metro Campus - a unique collaboration took place when veteran record producer Tommy LiPuma and rising star trumpeter Dominick Farinacci worked on a new album scheduled for release sometime this year. It was a project that was years in the making, and ideastream’s Senior Arts Reporter, David C. Barnett has the story.
In 2013 the Cleveland Music Settlement received a gift: The Bop Stop night club on Cleveland’s near west side. It had been closed for a while, but was still in great shape, and the Settlement gratefully accepted. The only problem - no one at the Music Settlement knew anything about running a night club, so, they turned to someone who also had very little experience in that area, but who had put a lot of thought into it. We sent ideastream’s Dan Polletta to the Bop Stop to bring back the story.
All this month on 90.3 WCPN and WVIZ/PBS ideastream we’ve been reporting on cancer in an effort to empower people, reduce their risk and help cancer patients to better manage their disease. In 2011, Angelo Merendino and the love of his life, Jennifer, faced that disease as she battled breast cancer. It was a fight that Jennifer lost, and as a way to cope with the tragedy unfolding before him, Angelo did the only thing that he knew how to do - take pictures. The images are part of book he published called, "The Battle We Didn't Choose, My Wife's Fight With Breast Cancer."
Dominick Farinacci, Musician
Tommy LiPuma, Record Producer
Gabriel Pollack, Manager, The Bop Stop
Angelo Merendino, Photographer