The 23-year-old, who won the Fox singing series last week after competing for four months, is set to release “Music Speaks” on July 16.

Past “Idol” champs released their debut albums in the fall after winning the contest in the spring, but Glover said she’s ready to capitalize on the insta-fame “Idol” has given her.

“I’ve built a fan base being on this show, and my fan base is interested in me now and they won’t see me every Wednesday and Thursday anymore to admire my singing, so I think it’s a good thing it’s coming out this summer,” she said in an interview this week.

“It’s crazy that I’m even talking about an album because last year I was working at a resort,” she added, laughing.

“Music Speaks” was available on pre-order the day after she won the “Idol” crown, beating out country singer Kree Harrison. Glover’s debut single, the inspirational pop ballad “I Am Beautiful,” sold 48,000 tracks in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The St. Helena Island, S.C., native, who auditioned but didn’t make the cut in seasons nine and 11, said the “Idol” experience has made her more confident.

She said taking risks on the show — like performing Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” and Drake’s “Find Your Love” — is helping her find her true voice.

“(From) day one I was still in the mind-set of pleasing people. In season 11, I was all about pleasing people. ... This year I took more chances because I didn’t care anymore,” she said. “I didn’t always have that confidence. I was insecure about how I looked and people would tell me all the time, ‘You don’t look the part.’ And this year I kind of stopped caring about that and just did me.”

Glover said she’s heading to Los Angeles this week to begin work on her album.

“My album will most likely be R&B, soul and a little bit of jazz, almost like a Jazmine Sullivan vibe because I love her. She’s my favorite singer of all time,” Glover said of the Grammy-nominated songstress whose R&B hits include “Need U Bad” and “Holding You Down (Goin’ in Circles).”

When asked what producers and songwriters she would be working with, she said: “I have no idea.”

Glover, who is also influenced by Christina Aguilera, said she wants her album to be full of positive messages, much like her first single.

“I was in school for psychology because I wanted to counsel teenage girls that had those insecurity problems, and I’m glad my music has that connection with people because that’s really what I wanted to do whether I was singing or not,” she said.

The top 11 contestants on “Idol” will kick off a 40-show concert tour June 29 in St. Louis, Miss.

Six or seven listens later and the small nuances on “Trouble Will Find Me” work their way out of the mix, but that first impression of the group’s sixth album still lingers.

The National was anything but restrained as it battled its way to the forefront of the indie rock movement with its last two albums. The quintet distinguished itself from a legion of mope rockers by unleashing two formidable beasts: frontman Matt Berninger and drummer Bryan Devendorf.

Berninger’s majestic baritone and vivid lyrics and Devendorf’s aggressive, time-shifting attack differentiated The National, providing a natural groove so rare among similar bands. With Berninger occasionally exploring new vocal approaches and Devendorf moved back in the mix, that groove is often forced to the side by airy atmospherics and sonic effects that are indeed beautiful, but often insubstantial.

There are several strong entries here regardless of quibbles, including the high-rev “Graceless” and the wistful “Fireproof,” and Berninger remains among the sharpest of emotional interpreters, singing on “Pink Rabbits”: “You said it would be painless/it wasn’t that at all.”

Manzarek died Monday at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his family, said publicist Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald. She said his manager, Tom Vitorino, confirmed Manzarek died around 3:30 p.m. EDT, after being stricken by bile duct cancer.

Manzarek founded The Doors after meeting then-poet Jim Morrison in California. The band went on to become one of the most successful rock ’n’ roll acts to emerge from the 1960s and continues to resonate with fans decades after Morrison’s death brought an effective end to the band.

The Chicago native continued to remain active in music after Morrison’s 1971 death. Manzarek briefly tried to hold the band together by serving as vocalist, but eventually the group fell apart. He played in other bands over the years, produced other acts, became an author and worked on films.

The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Manzarek is among the most notable keyboard players in rock history. His lead-instrument work with the band at a time when the guitar often dominated added a distinct end-times flavor that matched Morrison’s often out-there imagery and persona.

The group is best known for hits like L.A.Woman, Break On Through to the Other Side, The End and Light My Fire and came to symbolize the decadence of Los Angeles as the counterculture grew in the U.S.

Morrison and Manzarek met at UCLA film school and ran into each other in Venice a few months after graduation, Manzarek recounted in a 1967 interview with Billboard.

Outwardly the two seemed so different. The strikingly tall, dark and handsome Morrison looked the part of rock star, while Manzarek, with glasses and comparatively close-cropped blond hair, retained a more professorial look.

Inwardly, though, they were kindred spirits, as Manzarek discovered when Morrison read him the lyrics for a song called Moonlight Drive.

“I’d never heard lyrics to a rock song like that before,” Manzarek said. “We talked a while before we decided to get a group together and make a million dollars.”

The band would make far more than that. The Doors, which also included guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore, has sold more than 100 million albums and their music has been re-released and repackaged multiple times over the years, been featured prominently in movies and holds an oft-debated place in rock history. Manzarek and Krieger reunited to tour as The Doors in recent years.

While Morrison, with his proto-celebrity lifestyle and tragic end, forever will remain the face of The Doors, you could argue Manzarek’s keyboard work was every bit as important and helped balance some of the singer’s more over-the-top moments.

His creepy organ line on Light My Fire adds a weirdo menace to what outwardly is a rock ’n’ roll pick-up song. And his after-hours, lounge style on Riders On the Storm transforms that song into an epic unlike anything else the band did.

Manzarek is survived by his wife, Dorothy, his son Pablo and two brothers, Rick and James. Funeral arrangements are pending.

The influential French electronic duo crafted its first film score, for “Tron: Legacy,” three years ago and are now releasing a well-financed, smartly hyped pop album featuring what they call an ensemble cast of contemporary singers and veteran musicians.

There’s long been a show-biz bent to the work of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who for the last 13 years have hidden their faces in public appearances by wearing robot helmets and costumes. Bangalter compares the mystique-building masks — echoed by musicians including Deadmau5 and MF Doom — to an ever-evolving comic book superhero who starts as a side story “then maybe 50 years later it becomes like a big franchise movie in Hollywood.”

Yet Daft Punk’s new album “Random Access Memories” isn’t the special effects-filled summer blockbuster you might expect. The group that helped popularize electronic dance music in the United States has used almost exclusively live instrumentation on the 13 songs, many modeled on the easygoing groove of late 1970s pop and disco. At a time when drum machines and urgent computer-generated chords dominate the charts, Daft Punk went the opposite direction.

“Human voices in pop music are becoming more and more robotic,” Bangalter said. “(The album) is a robotic project and a technological one that is trying to get more and more human.”

Through arranger Chris Caswell, the group linked up with players who could evoke their favorite music from Chic, early Michael Jackson, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac. Chic’s Nile Rodgers, drummer JR Robinson and bassist James Genus lay the musical bed for vocalists including Julian Casablancas, Panda Bear from Animal Collective and Pharrell. It’s a long way from the two-man home studio productions that defined the first three Daft Punk albums.

“Making music with musicians and bringing back a certain craftsmanship, that was totally unfamiliar for us. It was somehow a certain fantasy,” Bangalter said. “It’s funny because it was somehow a luxury to be able to do that. But at the same time it was not a comfortable position.”

They started with several days of jam sessions in Los Angeles, then spent four years layering sounds, editing, rearranging and re-recording. Bangalter compares the duo to a film director “shooting for months and months, stopping sometimes to do reshoots and then lots of editing ... to create at the end a certain spontaneity that is somehow constructed.”

Early response has been mixed to the hotly anticipated album, which streamed on iTunes prior to Tuesday’s release. “This album makes me not like LA,” DJ-producer Diplo tweeted. “These guys are way smarter then me. I’m definitely missing something.” Billboard called the album “messy” but said it was “fantastic to hear these masterminds trying again,” while Pitchfork praised its musicianship and “amazing level of detail.”

Beginning with “Bring Life Back to Music,” the album’s lyrics sometimes seem in dialogue with today’s electronic dance scene, which the group has been critical of in recent interviews. They say current laptop production software makes the genre’s music both too easy to create and too similar.

“And yet, technology is this wonderful thing. We are definitely using it on the record in a much more invisible way,” Bangalter noted. “A song like ‘Touch’ with Paul Williams has 250 tracks on it and it’s something we couldn’t have done without the most updated computer technology around. But technology today has a really limited shelf life and we wanted to try to go back, or bring back a certain timelessness of the music.”

When Daft Punk released its last proper album, “Human After All,” in 2005, Facebook was still just for college students and Twitter didn’t exist. To return to cinema comparisons, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo are electro-pop’s Terrence Malick: Taking their time with new projects, mostly staying out of the press and keeping their faces anonymous so they can live relatively normal lives. (Both have homes in Paris. Bangalter also has a house in Los Angeles.)

It’s gone according to plan: Their music is known, while their personalities and personal lives are not.

“People seem really to get it,” de Homem-Christo said. “We’ve been doing that for a while and everybody approves apparently. The star system, the idol, the cult of personality is not the only way to be in entertainment.”

Sitting at a courtyard picnic table at the Jim Henson Studios in Hollywood, site of their Daft Arts production offices, Bangalter responds thoughtfully to most questions posed to the duo; de Homem-Christo is quieter, less comfortable conversing in English. Both wear basic shirts, ripped jeans and scruffy beards. “We’re like regular blokes,” de Homem-Christo said.

“I think people are really more excited to see the robots than they would be to see ourselves,” he added. “It’s like C-3PO or Chewbacca. ... I’m a big ‘Star Wars’ fan but I never wanted to find out who was behind (the characters). And if I did it right now, I would forget his face. It would not interest me. ... The robots are far more trippy and opening your imagination than my face or Thomas’ face, and the way we live, which is not even a crazy celebrity lifestyle.”

Could that ever change? A late-career unmasking of some kind? Not likely, says Bangalter.

“We are artists that go by the name Daft Punk,” he said. “If we put ourselves in the forefront, obviously we are appearing as robots. The idea is to reinvent these characters. We don’t really want to feel like they’re at the end of their existence. But at the same time, if we were to make a film or another project or a book or pictures or anything that would not have the robots, (they) could just be behind, hidden in some sense. That doesn’t mean we would replace the robots with our real faces.”

It’s unclear when fans will next be able to see those robots up close again.

“We are not considering touring right now. We’ll see when that comes,” Bangalter said. And as for a sequel to their “Tron” work, he won’t rule that out: “We usually don’t want to do the same thing twice, but it doesn’t feel like we’ve explored every aspect of what film scoring can be either.”

Swift won eight of 11 awards, including top artist and top Billboard 200 album for Red. She told the crowd: “You are the longest and best relationship I ever had.” She also had a colorful performance of her hit 22 — starting backstage and working her way to the main stage on the back of a bike with help from a dozen background dancers and a flurry of red balloons.

Justin Bieber also performed — twice — and was also a multiple winner with three awards, including top male artist, social artist and the fan-voted milestone award, beating out Swift and Bruno Mars. When accepting the latter — where boos were heard — he alluded to the tumultuous weeks he’s had in the public eye.

“I’m 19 years old; I think I’m doing a pretty good job. And basically from my heart I really just want to say it should really be about the music, it should be about the craft that I’m making. This is not a gimmick,” he said. “I’m an artist and I should be taken seriously and all this other bull should not be spoken.”

Bieber performed with will.i.am and solo when he sang Take You in leather pants, a leather vest and a black shirt that had one sleeve, as blue laser lights beamed.

Miguel, too, had a show-stopping performance, though he seemed to kick a fan when he jumped over the crowd while singing his hit Adorn. The R&B singer seemed to have landed part of his body on one woman, who walked away, and kicked another, who held her head low.

Maroon 5 and fun. were also nominated for 11 awards and walked away with one win each in pre-telecast announcements. Gotye and Rihanna had the second-most wins with four awards each.

But the awards show, airing live from MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on ABC, is less about the trophies — which reflect success on the Billboard charts — and more about the performances. Selena Gomez sang her seductive new hit, Come & Get It, while Chris Brown danced around the stage to his latest single, Fine China, though his voice began to crack during the performance. Duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis also performed their massive hit, Thrift Shop, which won top rap song.

“First and foremost, gotta thank Goodwill, gotta thank Value Village,” Macklemore said to laughs.

Mars and his band kicked off the show in silky red suits that matched their silky dance moves, with bright gold disco balls hanging above them during a performance of the upbeat and old-school flavored Treasure.

Nicki Minaj won the first award in the live telecast for top rap artist, beating out Drake, Flo Rida, Pitbull and Psy.

“I definitely did not expect this one,” she said, wearing a bright red dress. She performed High School with Lil Wayne and gave the rapper a provocative lap dance onstage.

MONTARO CAINE

Sidney Poitier

Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier’s first novel, Montaro Caine, is a corporate thriller that veers into science fiction as it follows a beleaguered New York CEO on an unexpected quest to secure two mysterious coins that may hold significant scientific and commercial value.

The coins first appear in the hands of two newborn babies who eventually grow up to marry each other. The impending birth of their first child, and its potentially cosmic importance, spurs corporate greed and brings together collectors, scientists, physicians and lawyers.

The story jets from New York City to Europe and to Poitier’s native Bahamas. Read in the context of emerging Caribbean science fiction writers such as Karen Lord who explore the region’s complicated history of migration through alien civilizations, Poitier’s narrative hinging on a Bahamian medicine man who sees the big picture in the supernatural events affecting CEO Montaro Caine is interesting.

Otherwise, Montaro Caine is a jumble of subplots, adverbs and twists that resolve in a “pay-it-forward” morality. There’s a formality to Poitier’s writing that perhaps is expected of an actor with such a prestigious filmography (Lilies of the Field, In the Heat of the Night). The novel reads like the screenplay of a cable movie about a CEO who learns to appreciate daily life thanks to the wisdom of an island man lacking his education or achievements.

Poitier’s novel may carry a heartfelt message about the potential for good within each one of us, but Montaro Caine doesn’t live up to its potential.

— Jennifer Kay

Associated Press

MODERN VAMPIRES OF THE CITY

Vampire Weekend

Good songs win out in the end, and Vampire Weekend has plenty of those. The New York foursome fronted by Ezra Koenig has been simultaneously celebrated and denigrated since even before the release of their self-titled debut album, which generated loads of blog buzz — and just about as much backlash — in 2008. Sure, these guys had lots of catchy tunes that cleverly used Graceland-era Paul Simon as a point of departure, but weren’t they just a bunch of spoiled Upper West Side kids?

The band’s second album, Contra, was perfectly solid as well. But on Modern Vampires of the City, Vampire Weekend really distinguishes itself with sharp, smart, grown-up, terrifically energetic tunes that are still clever, but never merely so.

The first tip-off is the single Diane Young, whose punning title hints at the intimations of mortality that apparently haunt the boys in the band as they get ready to turn 30. “Wisdom’s a gift, but you trade it for youth,” Koenig sings in Step, one of many songs that stand out, thanks in no small part to crafty arrangements that showcase keyboard player Rostam Batmanglij. “Age is an honor, but it’s still not the truth.”

You could go on nitpicking the band and resenting their privileged beginnings, but you’d only be cheating yourself.

— Dan DeLuca

Philadelphia Inquirer

GOLDEN

Lady Antebellum

After pulling out the stops with the heavily orchestrated grandeur of 2011’s platinum-selling album Own the Night, Lady Antebellum heads in the opposite direction with the stripped-down sound of Golden.

The country vocal trio hinted at its new direction with the sparse, soul-strutting groove of Downtown, one of the spring’s most engaging country hits. As usual, Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood deal with the complexities of modern relationships — in this case, a woman asking why her man doesn’t take her out for a fun night on the town, like he once did.

The bare-bones arrangements also work well on the emotionally moving It Ain’t Pretty, about a woman living out her heartbreak in public, and on the roots-rocking Better Off Now (That You’re Gone), which is reminiscent of classic Tom Petty.

The album occasionally recalls past successes: Long Teenage Goodbye has the sunny innocence of the 2010 hit American Honey, once again showing off Scott’s shimmering alto. The dramatic crescendos of All For Love prove that a big, grand sound, deployed at the right time, fits the group’s dynamic duets.

A couple of weak songs dampen the overall impact, but Lady A continues to experiment and grow while sounding like no one else in contemporary country music.

— Michael McCall

Associated Press

Mr. Mays, 62, who died Saturday, was a singer and multi-instrumentalist, proficient on keyboards and guitar, and even taught himself to play the cello. In his younger days, Mr. Mays played in a few bands, including the Duke Curry Quartet that gigged regularly at country clubs and other places throughout the area, but he mostly preferred to perform alone.

Mr. Mays’ years as a struggling musician included a few nights sleeping in his car. In 1990 Mays, who was working for a security company, took a job offer from the Stewart Primary School, later Stewart Afrocentric School, where his wife, Barbara Dinkins Mays, also worked. The job, as resident musician for the school and eventually the entire Akron Public Schools system, not only changed his life, but he helped change the lives of thousands of students throughout Akron. He retired in 2010.

“Oh honey, the whole black community loved Mr. Mays, children and parents,” said Barbara, his wife of 35 years. “He was honest, he was loved, that was his life.”

Across his 20 years in the school system, Mr. Mays was called upon to perform at events and schools all over the district, and he often performed and taught his original compositions with students. Mays even formed a singing group with some students called Baby Blues.

In 2003, Mr. Mays was commissioned to compose a song for Akron’s Coming Together Project’s 10th anniversary celebration. Imani In Our Hearts was based on the seven principles of Kwanzaa, “imani” being faith. The piece, arranged for 30 string players, was performed by the Akron Symphony Orchestra at Picnic Pops concerts throughout that summer.

“We were honored,” Barbara Mays said. “They treated us like he was a celebrity. They called him the ‘black Bacharach.’ In his life that’s all he wanted to do was to compose music.”

Mays said besides his music, her husband left behind “a wife that loved him to the day he died, from his head to the bottom of his feet, and the children in the community. His life was music and Stewart School.”

“Music was his life until the day he died. He played cello, jazz guitarist, keyboard player, singer, dancer, arranger and a composer and he took all that and took it to Stewart school to help black kids … any kids … everybody.”

Also surviving him are sons Marcellus Nash and Timothy Jermaine Prade; daughters Tiffanie Nash-Sommerville, Monique Martin and Sonya Skipper; and 10 grandchildren.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Stewart & Calhoun Funeral Home, 529 W. Thornton St., Akron. Friends may visit at the funeral home from 10 a.m. until time of service. Condolences may be sent to 1104 Mercer Ave., Akron, Ohio 44320.

Great Lakes folk singer Lee Murdock will not appear, the National Park Service reported.

The show has not be rescheduled. Refunds for previously purchased tickets are available by contacting the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park at 330-657-2909, ext. 100.

It’s been a decade since Akron opened Lock 3, and in that time (according to the city’s figures), the park’s events have drawn more than 2 million people to downtown Akron. I remember shortly after I arrived in Akron in 2002 (yikes!) I talked to more than a few Akronites who believed that nothing short of a line of city officials handing out free bags of cash to passers-by would bring folks back to Akron’s dangerous, depressing financially and spiritually dead downtown.

Well, it’s 10 years later and downtown Akron may not have become the ultra-hip yuppie haven of which some dreamed, and restaurants and bars seem best equipped to survive the lean season (you know, when the college kids go away for summer). But the eyeball test says it’s certainly closer to a destination spot — or at least contains more viable destinations — than the ghost town it was when I arrived here.

This year, Lock 3 Live, which starts up May 24, will continue its standard groove with the free WONE (97.5-FM)-sponsored tribute bands (of which you Ohioans can’t seem to get enough) often with a local opening band every Friday night.

The lineup contains many of the usual suspects including season opener Evil Ways, a tribute to Carlos Santana, along with local blues rockers the Juke Hounds.

Other tribute bands include ersatz versions of classic rockers (and Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Buffett) such as Bon Jovi (Bad Medicine, June 7), ZZ Top (Sharp Dressed Men, June 28), the Beatles (the beloved 1964 the Tribute, July 12), Van Halen (Atomic Punks, July 26), U2 (Elevation, July 5), Queen (Simply Queen, July 19), Aerosmith (the officially endorsed Draw the Line, Aug. 16), Journey (Separate Ways, Aug. 17) and, of course, Led Zeppelin tribute ZOSO (Aug. 30).

There are also a few new and interesting entries such as the awesomely named Thunderbox, the All-Girl Tribute to the Best of Metal, and the Prince Experience, which from what I can glean, focuses on Purple Rain-era Prince complete with the Revolution and a Morris Day impersonator.

This season also sees the return of Old School Soul on June 29 featuring a double shot of R&B bands headlined by the surprisingly oft-covered and sampled Rose Royce who brought us Car Wash and had its songs Wishing on a Star, I'm Going Down and Love Don't Live Here Anymore, covered by Jay-Z, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige and Madonna.

Also on the bill are veteran Brooklyn funksters Brass Construction, known for hip shaking, horn heavy grooves such as its 1976 No. 1 hit Movin' and its sound-a-like follow-up Changin’ and the simmering Message. Brass Construction never crossed over to the pop charts but the band was well known to R&B aficionados in the mid-’70s through the mid-1980s.

From 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. July 21 will be the 33rd Akron African-American Festival which has been around since 1980 but has only been a part of the Lock 3 Live schedule for a couple of years.

There will be music throughout the day but the festival's headliner is Zapp, who even without the late mastermind Roger Troutman is still a pretty good live band.

If that’s not enough R&B bands, then head back downtown on Aug. 24 for an evening with ’70s/’80s group Cameo who across its 40-year career has suggested listeners Shake Your Pants, told us about the Single Life and Candy and to watch out for an Alligator Woman and helped make the phrase Word Up part of the ’80s zeitgeist.

There will also be the sixth and final Keepers of the Art-sponsored Akron Hip Hop showcase. No acts have been announced yet, but I hope the KOA guys plan to go out with a big splash.

For jazzbos and bluesbos (I just made that up!), beginning on July 10 through Sept. 5, will be the Lock Bottom Blues & Jazz Club (actually just the area adjacent to Lock 3) where every Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. folks can check out some local jazz and blues bands.

Among the 10 bands are season opener Wanda Hunt, supremely talented local jazz guitarist Dan Wilson and his group (July 24), North Canton jazz trio Esto Jazz (Aug. 21), original blues band Rooster Jones fronted by powerful singer Dorianne Denard (July 31) and Cleveland jazz octet Blue Lunch (Aug. 28).

For 2013, Lock 3 Live has expanded its schedule to include Gospel Sundays beginning July 28 with the St. John CME Inspirational Choir followed by the Exalting Him Choir, Henry Dunns’ Road to Glory on the Road, Carla Davis featuring Ken McCorvey and Friends, the House of the Lord Choir and wrapping up on Sept. 1 with the Mount Calvary Baptist Church Choir.

One thing I’ve learned and appreciate about Ohioans is that when the weather turns nice, they tend to immediately get up and out. It’s as if they know at any moment Mother Nature might change her fickle mind.

If you’ve never been to a Lock 3 Live event, it’s worth picking out one or two and may I suggest one of the food-oriented major events such as the eighth annual Hamburger Festival Aug. 17-18, the 66th annual Italian-American Festival the July 12th weekend or the city of Akron’s Rib, White and Blue Festival on Fourth of July weekend, to make the trek downtown to check them out. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Point your Googlebox to www.lock3live.com for more details on specific shows.

Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, or follow him on Twitter @malcolmxabram.

The veteran British keyboardist, whose resume includes playing with Cream's Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, Jeff Beck, Tom Jones, John McLaughlin, Jimi Hendrix, the Monkees and many more, has a dedicated audience for his toe-tapping funky jazz-rock here in Northeast Ohio and he'll be bringing his singing daughter Savannah Grace and son Karma as part of his quartet for his run at Nighttown.

2) The 2013 Cleveland Asian Festival, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Asia Plaza, East 27th Street and Payne Avenue, Cleveland, free, www.clevelandasianfestival.org.

Did you know that May is Asian Pacific American Heritage month? Neither did I. But the city of Cleveland knows full well and is celebrating with the fourth annual festival featuring a performance by second season of “The Voice” contestant Cheesa, who dropped her debut album last month, along with amateur sumo wrestling (via inflatable fat suits), sushi- and egg-roll-eating competitions, martial arts demonstrations and various Asian community groups.

3) Flying Lotus, 7:30 tonight, House of Blues Cleveland, 308 Euclid Ave. $20-$25, 216-523-2583.

Critically hailed L.A.-bred producer/musician Flying Lotus (aka Steven Ellison) brings his erudite, alternately funky, ambient, jazz and hip-hop flavored strain of electronica from his excellent three-album catalog including his most recent release, “Until the Quiet Comes,” along with fellow Brainfeeder labelmate bassist/singer Thundercat for an evening of very contemporary music.

4) Manning Up, 8 tonight, Actors’ Summit at Greystone Hall, 103 S. High St., Akron, $19-$30, 330-374-7568.

The local theater group presents a “warm-hearted comedy” about two soon-to-be-dads and best buds, Donnie and Raymond, who are understandably freaking out about the huge change coming in each of their lives in infant form.

5) Foam Fest 2, 8 p.m. Saturday, the Vortex, 1167 Brittain Road, Akron, $10 for 21 or older, $15 under 21, www.thevortexakron.com.

You may recall that foam parties (essentially a dance party with a foam-producing machine in overdrive) were all the rage several years ago. Well, the Vortex says screw the zeitgeist because dancing and drinking with friends while covered in foam is always a good time. The music will be provided by a series of DJs spinning dubstep, Brostep, U.K. Garage and various strains of extreme bass-heavy dance music that can alter your heartbeat. Sure you'll be rinsing that dried foamy stuff out of bodily crevices you didn't know you had for days afterward, but you'll likely have a few good memories to go with the dried goo caked in your ears.

The program, which marks Kaufman’s final Big Show before she retires, will highlight some of the program’s greatest hits since the Big Show began in 2000. The performing arts school had spring concerts from 1993 to 1999, but in 2000 it was transformed into the Big Show, complete with choreography, costume changes and sets.

“We wanted to give the kids a feel for being in a major production,” said Kaufman, who with former librarian Sandy Carpenter produces every detail of the annual show.

The Big Show, which began in the school theater, eventually outgrew that venue. Five years ago, vocal booster club president and parent Chad Crawford led the charge to transfer the show to the Civic Theatre.

“We gotta think big,” he said at the time.

Renting the Civic, which is a union house, is expensive, so the vocal program has held fundraisers to cover expenses, including a raffle that made $16,000 in its first year. The Big Show is being held for the fourth year at the Civic, with more than 3,000 total attendees expected at performances Friday and Saturday night.

The massive production wouldn’t happen without the parents, who help with dress rehearsals, man the dressing rooms, wrangle kids and bring cases of water.

Brian Shellito, parent of eighth-grader Georgia and a Beacon Journal designer, created the show’s poster, which features the DeLorean from the movie Back to the Future. Other parents have choreographed numbers — Kirsten Fitzgerald (mother of Kassidy) did the parent number Hard Knock Life and Carey Sommer (mother of Jon and Grace) created the dance for the fourth-graders’ You Got a Friend in Me.

Parents also became involved with costuming, with Becky Kear (mother of Hannah) creating a cheetah puppet for the seventh- and eighth-grade number Circle of Life and Rosanna Koehler (mother of Jacob) coming up with a mummy costume for Walk Like an Egyptian.

“We’ve got a great group of boosters, and they really come out,” Kaufman said.

This weekend’s program includes 33 songs, featuring duets or solos by Jon and Grace Sommer, Sabrina Reed and Vy Truong, Abbey Lyman and Jasmine Moore. Eight different backdrops will range from a train station for Chattanooga Choo Choo to a grand hall for Be Our Guest.

In this huge joint effort, Miller South alumna Mackenzi Bolyard-Pizana, a Firestone High School senior, has choreographed 15 numbers, often re-creating the original choreography from shows past. Current seventh-grader Kiarra Anderson choreographed the seventh-graders’ In the Navy/YMCA and seventh-grader Molly Chelovitz re-created the basketball-themed Sweet Georgia Brown. That number was originally choreographed in 2010 by fourth-grade teacher Amy Heffernan, who this year choreographed Walk Like an Egyptian, a show choir number reprised from 2009.

Carpenter, who was librarian at the school for 19 years until retiring last year, is in charge of the show’s many costumes, at least five for each student.

At a recent rehearsal, the fourth-grade Rising Stars choir members wore adorable butterfly, spider and ladybug costumes and headpieces as they practiced Ugly Bug Ball, crooning, “I got nobody to hug. I’m such an ugly bug” as they did a softshoe dance.

The fifth-grade Rising Stars popped their cheeks in perfect unison and sang three-part harmony while holding sweets props in Lollipop. Kaufman did what she always does, standing as she accompanied the kids on piano and cued them on lyrics.

Kaufman, who created the school’s vocal program when Miller South opened 20 years ago, is an expert multitasker who kept playing and rehearsing even while answering questions from an adult.

Leaving the program that she has built, she is inordinately proud of her choir students in fourth through eighth grade as well as the show choir, which performs 30 to 40 shows annually.

Among Kaufman’s biggest fans are her mother, Viola Werner, 93, and father, Byron Werner, 95, who will be in the Civic Theatre audience this weekend, as they have for every one of Kaufman’s public Miller South concerts in the last 20 years. Kaufman’s husband, Art, brought his former college roommate Don Lippe to the show last year, and he liked it so much, he’ll return from Seguin, Texas, to see this year’s production.

As usual, Kaufman will be at the piano for this weekend’s Big Show, and she’ll also play the Mighty Wurlitzer organ before each show and during intermission.

So what are Kaufman’s plans for retirement? She will keep playing the organ at the Civic and continue as choir director at St. John/St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church downtown. She and her husband will learn to play the banjo together and Kaufman also plans to get back to her woodworking shop.

Big Show performances will be at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $5 for senior citizens and children, available at the Akron Civic Theatre box office. Call 330-253-2488 or see www.akroncivic.com. The shows have open seating.

Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or at kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

BET announced the nominees Tuesday. Rappers Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz are up for 8 awards each.

Drake is nominated three times for the top prize, video of the year. His hit, “Started from the Bottom,” will compete with his collaborations with 2 Chainz (“No Lie”) and A$AP Rocky (“Problems”). The top award has 10 nominees, including Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie,” Kanye West’s “Mercy,” ‘’Adorn” by Miguel and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop.”

Chris Brown and R. Kelly will perform at the awards show, to air live June 30 from the Nokia Theater L.A. Live.

Chris Tucker will host the BET Awards.

The New York quartet maintains the layered arrangements it established as its signature on its self-titled 2008 debut and 2010’s “Contra,” with organs and strings in the musical mix. But the vocals are more in focus here, with a choir adding haunting depth to the two closing tracks, “Hudson” and “Young Lion.”

These 12 new songs are more coffee house than college party, but that’s not a bad thing. There are enough upbeat entries — including cleverly titled rockabilly single “Diane Young” — to satisfy expectations, and the slower pace allows Vampire Weekend to show what else it can do.

Swift, Miranda Lambert’s Pistol Annies, Luke Bryan, Hunter Hayes and Little Big Town are the first performers announced for the June 5 awards show.

Jason Aldean and Kristen Bell are set to host the fan-voted awards show when it’s broadcast live from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.

Lambert, Bryan and Eric Church are this year’s top nominees. Fans can vote in all categories at the music channel’s website through June 2. Six finalists for top honor video of the year will be announced at the top of the broadcast and fans can vote on a winner during the show.

More performers and presenters will be announced later.

Last month, Brown celebrated the series’ second anniversary with a packed show.

“Two years of people supporting live music and people are looking forward to coming to the events. People always tell me it’s the place to be,” Brown said. “I'm so happy about the support we get from Akron and Cleveland and the surrounding areas that come and support Jazz and Wine Total Experience and the musicians who perform.”

For May, Jazz and Wine Total Experience will take on an exotic flavor with “Spring Caribbean Island Night” next Saturday featuring Detroit-based smooth jazz saxophonist Shelby Brown (no relation to Carla) and his band along with DJ Mo Lee spinning music between sets at the Holiday Inn Akron West in the Montrose area in Bath Township.

“Expect a lot of reggae,” Brown said, chuckling.

Shelby Brown, a returnee to Jazz & Wine Total Experience, started playing the violin at 9 years old and by age 13 he had discovered jazz through listening to the late smooth jazz sax man George Howard. Brown released his debut album, Miracles, with guitarist Dee Brown (not related) in 2003 and began touring internationally. Two years later he released his second album No Boundaries which helped him get an endorsement deal with Dymusic USA & Wisemann Saxophones allowing him to take his music around the globe including gigs in Shanghai and Beijing.

Brown has also bolstered his international reach and shown his support by performing for U.S. troops stationed throughout Asia.

Brown's most recent album is The Meaning of Life featuring Brown's 11 new groovy songs including a few duets with vocalists.

Since it’s Spring Caribbean Island Night, Brown, the promoter expects Brown, the musician, to add a little Caribbean spice to his sets.

“He better. He knows what the theme is,” she said laughing.

Carla Brown has been a lifelong lover of live music and she spent several days at the recent Tri-C Jazzfest in Cleveland, soaking up not only the music, but also observing how the events are run.

“You just take it all in and enjoy the atmosphere and talking to (various jazzfest officials) to get more knowledge on how these big events are done,” she said.

Though the monthly series had proven successful and has a loyal audience that turns out for each month’s event, Jazz and Wine Total Experience is still a labor of love for Brown.

“I get more excited and filled with anticipation about each event and the different entertainers that come. They all bring in their own creative style and since [starting] two years ago, I have a lot of out-of-the-area artists that want to come here and play because they heard about it,” she said.

Brown teased that she has a big surprise for her series followers in July that she hinted would be a nationally known artist.

“It's all about supporting live music. That was the goal of it all when I started and I’m still excited to be doing it and that people keep coming.” Brown said.

Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, or follow him on Twitter @malcolmxabram.

Kenny Chesney

Kenny Chesney opens his new album Life on a Rock with the hit Pirate Flag, a rowdy beach-bum anthem reminiscent of his many fun-in-the-sun party songs of the last dozen years.

While most of the rest of Life on a Rock references island life, instead of rocking out, the songs are about unplugging from the chaos of the daily grind and reflecting on quieter pleasures.

Writing four songs by himself, and co-writing four more, this is the singer’s most personal album since 2005’s Be As You Are (Songs from a Blue Chair). There are light moments, as in the duet with Willie Nelson on Coconut Tree, but the focus is on offbeat, real-life characters (Lindy) and on taking a moment to count one’s blessings (the title song).

It’s a bold move, considering that a new crop of country rockers are selling millions of albums modeled on Chesney’s pounding arena-rock sound. But, to his credit, Chesney follows his muse and offers up an album that exposes his weathered soul. The result is as appealing as it is surprising.

— Michael McCall

Associated Press

The Woman Upstairs

Claire Messud

Nora Eldridge is the title character of Claire Messud’s new novel — “the quiet woman at the end of the third-floor hallway,” with tidy trash, a bright smile and dashed dreams of being an artist.

She’s a distant relation of Bronte’s madwoman in the attic, a descendant of Thoreau’s quietly desperate men, and to round out the literary allusions, an artist in need of a studio of her own.

When the novel opens, Nora is consumed with uncharacteristic rage, practically ready to kill the glamorous, globe-trotting artist/academic couple who cruelly betrayed her several years before.

They are Sirena Shahid, an Italian-born installation and video artist on the cusp of fame, and her Lebanese-born husband, Skandar, an academic at Harvard for a year to write a book. Their 8-year-old son, Reza, is enrolled in Nora’s class at a progressive school.

The two women become friends after Reza is bullied in the schoolyard, and Sirena rekindles Nora’s desire to make significant art. Nora has suffered from artist’s block for years because, she believes, she lacks the ruthless gene necessary for greatness. The Siren, of course, has it in spades.

Messud, the best-selling author of The Emperor’s Children, does a fine job of building suspense as she constructs the intricate machinery necessary to thoroughly humiliate Nora. We know her relationship with the Shahids will end badly, we just don’t know how.

By the end of the novel, you may be thinking good riddance — to Nora and her halting, digressive, precious way of thinking. Although Messud is an admirable writer in many respects, Nora strains credulity. Ostensibly a third-grade teacher, she thinks like someone who writes literary fiction.

In Messud’s fictional world, Nora and Sirena occupy opposite ends of a character spectrum that runs from pathetic self-abnegation to pathological narcissism. Unfortunately, neither one is much fun to be with.

— Ann Levin

Associated Press

Authentic

LL Cool J

Somewhere between Grammy hosting duties, starring on a hit CBS cop drama and thwarting home burglars, LL Cool J has completely lost touch with what launched him into superstardom: rapping. That startling disconnection is what bogs down his 13th album, Authentic.

His first offering in nearly five years not only misses the mark, it doesn’t even come close.

In the nearly 30 years since the Queens emcee first emerged, the lady killer has become a force in entertainment. But where other aging rhymers like Jay-Z and Nas have evolved, the album sounds like an artist light-years past a creative peak that helped establish the genre.

LL still shines when he’s doing what he’s known for: wooing the ladies. The R&B-tinged grooves (Something About You, New Love, Between the Sheetz) are standouts, as are the ’80s hip-hop flourishes on We Came to Party and Whaddup. But those few moments are sandwiched between forgettable tracks that desperately reach for a hybrid of rap, pop and rock. It could work if the material was interesting enough (just ask Lil Wayne).

Even worse, he allows himself to get lost amid an exhaustive list of guests including Fitz and the Tantrum; Eddie Van Halen; Snoop Dogg; Earth, Wind & Fire; Bootsy Collins; Travis Barker; Chuck D; Tom Morello; Z-Trip; and Brad Paisley. Some of his collaborators elevate the material, and others make you wish they’d done the track themselves.

Thankfully, his collaboration with Paisley, the semi-rock ballad Live for You, isn’t as big a misfire as the controversial Accidental Racist. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to save the record.

— Gerrick Kennedy

Los Angeles Times

Even though the “Pitbull of Comedy” and Cable Ace award winner has been doing stand-up for three decades and has appeared on television shows and in films, including “Family Guy,” “Dreamgirls” and ‘‘Politically Incorrect,” his attitude has not brightened. Both of Slayton's Saturday shows will be recorded for an upcoming cable television special, “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”

2) The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum will present The Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Satisfaction at the museum at 100 Rock and Roll Blvd, Cleveland, $18-$22, 216-781-7625, www.RockHall.com.

While the exhibit doesn't open until May 24 (I can't wait to see Charlie Watts' mariachi shirt from 1975), the rock hall wants YOU to be a part of the “fan-generated interactive exhibition” — visitors and fans will be able to upload their original images to Twitter and Instagram via #rockhallsatisfaction starting Monday. The fan-generated content will be a featured part of the physical exhibit as well as the online portion.

3) Mothers Day Brunch Buffet, 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday, the Tangier, 532 W. Market St., Akron. $12.99-$24.99, 330-376-7171, www.thetangier.com.

Full disclosure time: I've been to Tangier's Mother's Day brunch and not with my mother. It's a delicious and pleasant way to spend an afternoon with mom and/or loved ones noshing on carved honey baked ham with spicy mustard, roasted pork loin, meatless lasagna Florentine and a variety of salads. Yum.

4) Mother's Day at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, (admission closes at 4:30 p.m.), Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, 714 N. Portage Path, Akron. $14, $6 for youths 6 to 17, FREE! for mothers, 330-836-5533

In honor of Mother's Day, Stan Hywet has invited all mothers to enjoy their grounds for free. The visit includes a self-conducted tour of the 65-room mansion, conservatory and grounds.

5) Aziz Ansari, 7 p.m. Sunday, Palace Theatre at Playhouse Square, 1615 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. $35-$45, 216-241-6000, 866-546-1353.

Hot stand-up comedian Ansari's Q rating has risen sharply. He can be seen weekly on the NBC sitcom “Parks & Recreation,” and he appeared in the 2011 comedy “30 Minutes or Less.” He hosted the 2010 MTV Movie Awards and his self-financed online special and tour “Dangerously Delicious” was a rousing success. So much so, that Rolling Stone magazine placed him on the cover of its comedy issue and named him one of the funniest people under 30.

I say only 660 fans get to see Rundgren twice because Tuesday’s show at the intimate Kent Stage is (of course) already sold out and those folks will be getting a very different show than the few thousands who will pack the Akron Civic Theatre when Rundgren returns in August.

Rundgren is touring behind his new album State, which, as has often been the case with Rundgren’s lengthy catalog, is a very different album than his previous album of new studio material — the kind of angry-in-your-face, guitar-driven Arena from 2008. By contrast, State includes a bit of the expansiveness of Utopia (the eight-minute opener Imagination) and synth-heavy solo albums such as Healing. State finds Rundgren further indulging his technology fetish with an album driven by the bleeps, blorps and bloops of laptop electronica and a lyrical dash of his humor in tunes such as Ping Me, Angry Bird and the downright goofy dance-rock tune Party Liquor.

The tour just started on Tuesday in Woodstock, but local fans hoping to sway to yet another live take on Hello, It's Me or I Saw the Light may have to let those expectations go. As his fans know, Rundgren will do what Rundgren will do when he feels like doing it (unless you can afford to pay him to do it sooner) and the opening night set list was heavy on tracks from State and other recent synth-driven albums including 2004’s Liars and 1993’s No World Order.

Rundgren’s August show at the Akron Civic Theatre, brought to us once again by RundgrenRadio.com, should be a unique experience even for the dedicated Runt fan as the Wizard and True Star and his band (Kasim Sulton, Prairie Prince, Jesse Gress, John Ferenzik and singers Mary Lou Arnold and [wifey] Michelle Rundgren) will perform with the Akron Symphony and Akron Youth Orchestra.

The “Rundgren Pops” format (I just made that up, feel free to use it) is a fairly new one for Rundgren as he’s only performed a few shows with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam in 2011 and 2012 and a couple with the Rockford Symphony Orchestra also in 2012. But when Rundgren plays Akron, the show will feature something new as he has never performed with two orchestras on the same stage, and it’ll be his first time jamming with a youth orchestra.

Though the arrangements will obviously be different, the set list for the Dutch Metropole shows (whose charts the other orchestras have been using) contains a few more fan favorites including Hello, It’s Me; I Saw the Light; and Can We Still Be Friends, along with a variety of album cuts from several eras that lend themselves to orchestral/big band arrangements such as Bag Lady, Another Life and a few tunes from his late ’80s/early ’90s albums 2nd Wind, the popular Nearly Human and A Capella. (I’d still like to hear him do the latter album in its entirety at the Civic).

If you’d like a sneak approximation of what you'll see in August, there is a website featuring a crowd-sourced, multicamera video of one of the entire performances with the Metropole Orchestra at http://www.keezer.nl/trmo/.
html. It’s pretty sweet.

Random acts of live music

• Arguably the hardest working man in local show bidness, Ryan Humbert, will perform in a duo with Erin Vaughn on Saturday night at the Wing Warehouse in Stow.

• Hardcore/metal fans will want to head to the basement of Akron Highland Square mainstay Annabell’s Bar & Lounge on Friday to spend an evening with veteran Cleveland hardcore band Ringworm.

The quintet, anchored by singer Human Furnace along with guitarists Matt Sorg and John Comprix (who also collaborates with Ripper Owens), drummer Danny Zink and bassist Ed Stephens, began plying its ferocious muscular trade around 1991. Ringworm released its debut album Promise in 1993 and toured for several years before grown-up stuff such as Human Furnace’s chain of successful tattoo shops forced it to take a break.

The band returned in 2001 with its third album, Birth Is Pain, and began touring the world with Hatebreed and Damnation AD.

The band’s most recent album was 2011’s Scars, featuring the band's patented mix of scream/shouted hardcore vocals and call-and-response choruses on top of traditional trash-metal tropes such as double-kick-drum grooves and speedy chunka-chunka riffs and some cool, classic metal guitar harmonies.

I honestly can only pick up about every eighth word Human Furnace screams at me, but song titles such as Voluntary Human Extinction, Used Up, Spit Out and Hellbound should give you an idea of the lyrical subject matter, and it ain’t unicorns and puppies, folks.

The band also has a live album released in 2012 and is recording a new album to be released in the fall on well-known metal label Relapse Records. Ringworm isn’t trying to reinvent the hardcore/metal wheel, but it is kicking the current model down the heavy-metal highway with considerable force.

Also on the bill are Akronites FEDS, NRR from Toledo and Gasmask. It should be one of those loud and intense shows where you’re not sure if you’re sweating profusely or if it’s just your eardrums bleeding.

Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, or follow him on Twitter @malcolmxabram.

His fifth solo album, “Prisoner of Conscious,” is being billed as a departure of sorts because of the inclusion of tracks like “High Life,” a collaboration with the Sierra Leone artist Bajah and rapper Rubix Cube that celebrates the music style of one of Kweli’s heroes, the late Nigerian singer-activist Fela Kuti. Another genre detour is a track featuring the Brazilian singer Seu Jorge, an ode to the slums of that country’s cities called “Favela Love.”

And there is a litany of other featured artists sprinkled throughout the record’s 16 tracks, including Miguel, Kendrick Lamar, Busta Rhymes and Melanie Fiona.

But it is Kweli’s expert lyrical flow with its torrent of pop-culture and historical references that shower the listener nearly every time he grabs the mic that underpin this fine record.

Underwood steps in for Faith Hill, who announced last month that she would not be back for a seventh season. Underwood will sing a new version of “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” the network said Tuesday.

Producer Fred Gaudelli said that after Hill informed him in February, Underwood was the only performer he pursued. She was under consideration for the role when NBC first broadcast the Sunday night NFL games in 2006.

Pink sang the opening tune, set to Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” for that first season before Hill came on.

“For me, it just always seemed like something that would be fun to do,” Underwood said during a conference call. “To watch Faith do it week after week, to see that hype for the game, it’s something that’s so cool.”

Underwood plans to adapt the intro to her style, with the lyrics remaining the same. NFL stars will again appear in the video sequence.

A former “American Idol” champion and six-time Grammy winner, Underwood is married to hockey star Mike Fisher of the Nashville Predators. The 30-year-old Oklahoma native sang the national anthem at the 2010 Super Bowl.

Underwood said her husband, who’s friends with several NFL players, was thrilled about her foray into his profession.

“He’s a sports dude,” she said. “Yeah, he plays hockey, but he definitely loves football, as do I.”

The first Sunday night game is Sept. 8, when the New York Giants visit the Dallas Cowboys. “Sunday Night Football,” which averaged 21.8 million viewers last season, is TV’s top-rated prime-time show.

Gaudelli said he contacted Hill’s reps Tuesday to let them know of the hire. Underwood said she expected to get pointers from Hill the next time they cross paths.

Underwood is signed up to star in NBC’s live broadcast of “The Sound of Music” this year. While her familiarity with the network helped, she said, the two deals weren’t connected.