Jeff Spevak
Jeff Spevak has been a Rochester arts reporter for nearly three decades, with seven first-place finishes in the Associated Press New York State Features Writing Awards while working for the Democrat and Chronicle. He has also been published in Musician and High Times magazines, contributed to WXXI, City newspaper and Post magazine, and occasionally performs spoken-word pieces around town. Some of his haikus written during the Rochester jazz festival were self-published in a book of sketches done by Scott Regan, the host of WRUR’s Open Tunings show. Spevak founded an award-winning barbecue team, The Smokin’ Dopes, and believes Bigfoot is real. His book on the life of a Lake Ontario sailor who survived the sinking of his ship during World War II will be published in April of 2019 by Lyons Press.
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I had my coming-out from COVID-19 about a week and a half ago. My first indoor concert in more than a year. Two solo acoustic performers: a ridiculously...
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A handful of framed gold records lined the otherwise mundane hallway of the Rochester Presbyterian Home, and then on to the walls of the one-room...
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Hanif Abdurraqib left Connecticut in the spring of 2017, after a painful breakup. Now he was back in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. A wounded writer....
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It is such a simple morning ritual. Daniel Armbruster gets out of bed. His own bed, after years of so many unfamiliar ones. He pours himself a bowl of...
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In the midst of downtown Rochester’s new Innovation Square development is an ambitious plan to resurrect the former Xerox Auditorium, creating a new...
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Danny Deutsch is watching the charts. Not the Billboard magazine charts. But The New York Times charts, tracking the new COVID-19 cases. And the COVID...
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Jenni Werner moved to Rochester 10 years ago. She certainly knew the stories of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. Everyone who has sat through a...
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The images are black and white, the movements of the actors are herky-jerky, which is what we’re used to seeing in silent films. The acting is hammy:...
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The Maria Schneider Orchestra’s provocative “Data Lords” was one of the local highlights at Sunday’s pandemic-safe 63rd Grammy Awards. In an evening...
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The name of one of the great abolitionists now finds itself in rare air: Our rather pedestrian-monikered airport has been renamed the Frederick Douglass...