I call it the surprise hit of our 2015 summer season – the Palladium debut of Monday Monday in Hough Hall.  We had booked the band because two of the performers  – Liz Hollister and Ed Woltil – are some of the most talented folks I know.   But the[…]

Just before the start of our sold-out Bossa Nova Guitars show in the Side Door last Friday, someone asked me “what’s the secret to all these sold out shows in the summer?”   That was an easy one. The formula for the elusive “sell-out” – even in the dead of[…]

Here at the Palladium we love presenting some of the top blues musicians working today. And this weekend is no exception. We’re bringing in JP Soars and The Red Hots to the Side Door for a Saturday night show.   JP is one-third of our favorite super-group – Southern Hospitality[…]

Always  happy when the local paper takes a look at our shows. This week, TBTimes arts writer Andrew Meacham previewed not one but two of our weekend Side Door shows.   Meacham interviewed Ward Smith, the actor and comic who is organizing our Friday night comedy show (which also features[…]

One of our Palladium Side Door faves – Lauren Mitchell – is returning this Saturday night with a new band and some new songs and a new “do!”.   Because she’s in the Side Door – our great listening room – she’s also trying something else new. She will open[…]

Standup comedy is returning to the Side Door this Friday night with another edition of Ward Smith and Friends. In case you’ve not seen Ward’s shows, he’s got a ton of national TV credits as a comic and actor and Palladium fans saw him recently as the blowhard Navy Commander[…]

Our summer season is starting off strong with a sold-out cabaret show on Friday night and Saturday’s inaugural appearance at tbe Side Door of one of my favorites – Uncle John’s Band.   I didn’t realize but these guys have been playing Dead music since 1989.  I’ve caught them at[…]

I’ve been spending some time with Palladium favorite John Lamb and decided to take notes and turn our visits into a story. I’m publishing it here today. Hope you enjoy it:   You don’t have to look far to find someone anxious to sing the praises of John Lamb, the[…]

The Palladium has become a home for key political debates during election season and 2016 is no exception. Candidates for U.S. Congressional District 13 will meet in a televised debate co-sponsed by the Tampa Bay Times, WTSP TV and St. Petersburg College.   For details, here’s a link to the[…]

People are falling in love with St. Petersburg Opera’s production of South Pacific – currently running at the Palladium through July 10. Friends who attended shows over the July 4th weekend were gushing about the production, the singing, and, of course, the songs.  Few shows in the history of musical[…]

I was lucky enough to be among the judges for a scholarship competition sponsored by the Tampa Bay Business for Culture and the Arts. I got to hear a lot of great music including a young trumpeter from Gibbs High named Jason Charos. Jason won the instrumental music scholarship and[…]

The Palladium is now officially edible.   Sure we’re an award-winning venue with name stars and shows from top arts and community organizations.   Sure we’re got the best nightclub in Tampa Bay – the Side Door Cabaret.   In the past five years our audience has doubled. So have[…]

Sometimes, when a big jazz show was coming up, Buster Cooper would call me. I had told the  jazz legend that he could be my guest for any show he wanted to see, but Buster never assumed anything.   This time, Branford Marsalis was coming to the Palladium and Buster[…]

That stormy fellow named Colin – also known as Tropical Storm Colin – must be an opera lover. Or perhaps a supporter of St. Petersburg Opera. Or maybe he’s just a self-destructive bohemian who lived excessively and died young.   Whatever the reason, Colin spared SPO production of La Boheme[…]

So much news as the Palladium heads toward our summer season that it takes a list to get it all in:   Our Side Door Cabaret has been quiet in May and June – community shows on our main stage have taken all potential Side Door dates. It’s a good[…]

Califore quartet continues to establish themselves as the hottest young ensemble in chamber music. Another major award, this one with a $100,000 prize from the University of Michigan, drew the attention of the New York Times and the TB Times. It’s quite an accomplishment for a quartet just a few[…]

I’m happy to report our beautiful theater continues to earn honors for our shows, our facility and our prices.   The current issue of Tampa Bay Magazine includes a list of businesses, arts organizations, resaturants and people who have earned a “Best of 2016” award. The Palladium was named “Best[…]

I’m very proud of our favorite young musicians in the Calidore String Quartet. After a return engagement in April, as part of our Palladium Chamber Players season, Calidore will debut next week at Carnegie Hall.   Calidore features violinist Ryan Meehan, who grew up in St. Pete, and cites our[…]

Tuesday, May 3 is Give Day Tampa Bay – and the Palladium, your favorite venue for music, community events and so much more – needs your support.   Join thousands across the region who take pride in their community by contributing online to their favorite nonprofits during this special 24-hour[…]

Rain, lightning and low-rumbling thunder literally stole the show at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival’s second weekend.   It rained early and often and the festival grounds became a good place to launch a canoe, but not a place to enjoy music. Stevie Wonder’s much-anticipated show never even[…]

Our local blues legend, Roy Book Binder, brings his acoustic guitar, finger-picking and off-beat stories, to the Palladium this Friday night. The Travelin’ Man, who spends most of the year on the road both nationally and internationally, is back home for the winter. And he’s sharing the intimate Side Door[…]

Our Chamber Music season concludes Tuesday, April 12, with a concert featuring one of the hottest young chamber ensembles – the Calidore String Quartet. To add to the musical mix, they will be joined by our Palladium Chamber Players pianist, Jeewon Park. It is a must-see show!   This young[…]

April is a prime month for jazz at the Palladium. We’ve got Chuck Redd, the Baltimore-based vibraphonist and drummer, in town tonight, playing with local favorites, La Lucha. Israeli-born jazz pianist Roy Assaf Trio is coming in from New York on the 17th.  And Laurence Hobgood, a Grammy winning pianist[…]

April is a prime month for jazz at the Palladium. We’ve got Chuck Redd, the great vibraphonist and drummer, in town to play with local favorites, La Lucha on April 6. We’ve got sax master Najee on April 10, plus the Roy Assaf Trio in from New York on the[…]

We are excited to welcome back one of last year’s surprise hit shows – The Wellington Ukulele Orchestra. The Wellies return to the Palladium this Saturday – March 19 – and my buddy at the Mahaffey Theater, Bill DeYoung,  has passed along his story about the upcoming show. Check it[…]

I’ve got a guest blogger today. Daniel Lawless, an SPC English Professor and editor of the literary journal, Plume, wrote this one in advance of a visit to the Palladium by the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe-Herrera. That reading is Monday, March 21 at 7:30. I’ll turn it over[…]

Thanks to our Friends at the Bill Edwards Foundation and the Mahaffey Theater, the great music of Paul McCartney is coming to the Palladium this Sunday. To get you in the mood, here’s a blog about the show written by Bill DeYoung, who interviewed Yuri Pool, who leads the band.[…]

The St. Petersburg Jazz Festival continues to grow and the Palladium’s role in this festival is growing this year as well.   The intimate Side Door Cabaret is the site of three of the festival’s concerts. The artists are young and exciting.  And the shows feature a mix of touring[…]

We are fortunate that the organizers of the Awakening Into The Sun Festival have again chosen the Palladium as a primary venue for the event. On March 4 we are welcoming sax powerhouse Mindi Abair, and multi-talented singer, writer and producer Seth Glier to our mainstage. We’ll have more on[…]

It’s a great weekend for music – and for convenience – at your favorite historic venue – The Palladium.   Returning on Friday is Tony Sands and his Rat Pack show. Tony is recognized as one of the top Sinatra tribute artists and for this show he’s backed by the[…]

Know the name Bria Skonberg? In case you aren’t familiar with the incredible trumpeter and vocalist coming to the Side Door on Friday, Feb. 12, you should listen to the great jazz guitarist, Bucky Pizzarelli:     “Bria radiates an energy that is so refreshing to see, and her compositional[…]

Stand-up comedy returns to the Side Door this Friday. Ward Smith, an actor and comic, has put together almost a dozen shows at the Side Door and they are audience favorites.   The last “Ward Smith and Friends” show sold out, so don’t wait too late to get tickets for[…]

We survived a wild and wildly successful stretch here at the Palladium. It included a string of great shows, including two SOLD OUT Side Doors and a sublime Palladium Chamber Players concert.   Our buddy, Gary Bookout, was around to take photos of some of the shows and I wanted[…]

This Saturday night the Palladium’s Side Door Cabaret and our buddies in the band La Lucha, are hopping into the DeLorean for a musical ride back to the 1980s. You’ll hear the big hits of that wacky decade reworked with a jazz sensibility.   We did a version of this[…]

Looking over the next week at the Palladium, I realized that our list of upcoming shows is a perfect microcosm of what the Palladium is all about – amazing talent, local connections, and one-of-a-kind shows.   Let’s start with Friday night and Southern Hospitality. This blues super-group features our own[…]

Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday earlier this month has prompted a flood of live shows, recorded tributes and other Sinatra celebrations. But we are saving the best for last. Steven Maglio, the New York City singer who is generally acknowledged as the best in the business, will be here for one[…]

When I arrived at the Palladium eight years ago, I inherited a talented jazz guitar player named Nate Najar. He was performing a holiday jazz show that featured the music of Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker. I loved the show. Each year Nate’s musicians and singers varied, the venue was sometimes upstairs[…]

So happy to welcome back Chris Thomas King for his third visit to the Side Door Cabaret tonight (12-9). Chris’ sets are rich and varied – he’s a singer, a musician, a story-teller and a natural performer. If you haven’t seen him, don’t miss this chance.   There are still[…]

Thanks to our friends at the Northeast Journal for a great story about Helen Hansen French and our Beacon dance series. Helen and her colleague, Lauren Ree Sloane, co-founded the project. If you were at the show in November, you know it was a artistic and commercial success. We are[…]

Harry O’Donoghue and Carroll Brown have made a lot of friends in the Tampa Bay area over the years and lately they’ve been performing in our Side Door each holiday season. They return tonight with “Celtic Christmas” a collection of songs that include holiday favorites, but also some great Irish[…]

It has turned into a big guitar weekend at the Palladium, with legendary guitarists David Lindley and Adrian Legg, performing in Hough Hall on Friday and the young jazz guitarist Julian Lage – direct from Carnegie Hall – in the Side Door on Sunday. Here’s a bit of a blog[…]

Along with our slate of the best regional jazz and blues artists, we like to spice up the Side Door lineup with top touring artists. And one of the best young players in jazz – Julian Lage – fits that bill.   He just recorded an album with the jazz[…]

We’re so fortunate that Bob Alger married Whitney James and brought her to our town. We got not only a very funny gal, but an incredible jazz singer with a following on the West Coast and New York City. She and Bob are living both here and NYC these days.[…]

I am so excited about our upcoming night of dance and more – a performance on Saturday, Nov. 14 we are calling – Beacon.   Co-producers Helen Hansen French and Lauren Ree Slone have curated an evening of contemporary performance works for the Palladium that explore ideas of place and[…]

We love presenting the best new acts in our Side Door Cabaret and we’ve got one of those special performances coming up this Friday, Oct. 23.   We’re featuring The Peterson Brothers, two teen-age blues phemons from Bastrop, Texas, who are the buzz of the blues world. They’ve opened for B.B.King,[…]

The best reviewed film of the fall season is “Steve Jobs,” and unless you’ve been lost on a deserted island for the past four decades, you don’t need me to tell you what the film is about.   What I’m excited about is the timing. Just as this great movie[…]

Sarah Dees, a writer for Examiner.com, shared a great piece on the recent Palladium visit by Stephan Pastis, the syndicated cartoonist. Pastis spoke to a packed house recently, as he stopped by on his book tour. The event was brought to us by our friends at the Tampa Bay Times.[…]

Talk about timing. Just as we’re kicking off our subscription sales for the Palladium Chamber Players 2015-16 season, the series wins a big award!   Creative Loafing, the journal of all things artistic in Tampa Bay, named our series as a “Best of the Bay” winner in this week’s big[…]

Before taking on the PalladiumPaul job, I was a journalist and was lucky enough to spend time with some amazing people. Up at the top of that list was one of my teenage heroes – Frank Zappa.   Twice, in advance of his concerts, I interviewed him. I’m not sure[…]