A celebrated New England saxophonist, flutist, and composer, Greg Abate has an impressively diverse international career, including playing for the Ray Charles Orchestra and the Artie Shaw Orchestra. With over 24 recordings and collaborations with jazz greats like Phil Woods and Kenny Barron, Abate is a significant force in jazz, touring extensively and teaching. He was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame in 2016 and recently ranked in the Downbeat Readers Poll. The quartet for this show includes Kent Hewitt on piano, Paul Del Nero on bass, and Gary Johnson on drums. The performance will feature selections from the American songbook, jazz standards, popular tunes, and Abate’s original compositions. “It will be swinging,” Abate said.
For more Last Dance Productions events, Click Here.
The Divas return for two shows this holiday season. You’ll want to get your tickets ASAP, since they always sell out!
Divas with a Twist is a group of five powerful female vocalists backed by Grammy-nominated musicians. They’ll perform classic holiday songs with fresh new arrangements and harmonies. Get in the holiday spirit with selections including a rocking “Drummer Boy,” “Do You Hear What I Hear,” Aerosmith’s “Rocking on Top of the World” from The Polar Express, “O Holy Night,” a beautiful a cappella version of “Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas,” and some of their regular rock songs that you’ll recognize. Don’t miss out on this rocking holiday show!
For more Last Dance Productions events, Click Here.
https://lastdanceproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LastDanceProductions-Logo-360x80-1-300x67.gif00Last Dance Productionshttps://lastdanceproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LastDanceProductions-Logo-360x80-1-300x67.gifLast Dance Productions2025-09-13 19:52:472025-09-13 20:06:26Divas With A Twist Returns to the Mass Arts Center
Guitarist Barry Goudreau, formerly of Boston, recently announced the release of his new CD, “The Road,” from his band Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room. Barry’s blues/rock ensemble includes his former RTZ bandmates Brian Maes on lead vocals and keyboards, as well as Tim Archibald on bass. Both Maes and Archibald were members of Peter Wolf’s House Party Five, playing on two of his records and touring the world extensively. The band is rounded out with “Old” Tony DePietro on drums and Mary Beth Maes, Terri O’Soro, and Joanie Cicatelli on background vocals. Expect some favorites like “Smokin” and “Long Time” in their live set, alongside songs from the new CD as well as tracks from “Full Steam Ahead”, the 2017 release from Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room.
Produced by Brian Maes, “The Road” features songs written by Goudreau, Maes, Archibald and DePietro, with the sole exception of “The Rhythm Won’t Stop”, penned by Brad Delp and Barry Goudreau. Goudreau calls it “Contemporary classic rock”, an apt description of songs like “Love Will Lead The Way”, “Word To The Wise”, and the power ballad “Shade”–songs inspired by the iconic music of the great rock bands of the 70s and beyond.
The Engine Room’s 2017 CD Full Steam Ahead” covers the whole spectrum of blues and rock, from the stripped down blues of “All Mine” to the all out rock assault of “Need”. A longtime friend of Goudreau’s, legendary bluesman James Montgomery, sits in on harp for “Layin’ it Down {In Beantown}.” Barry says, “I wanted to look back to the acts of the late sixties and early seventies when they were reinventing the blues in new and exciting ways”. Maes produced the record in his studio with Goudreau recording the guitar tracks in his own home studio.
With new music to play, Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room looks forward to a return to the stage!
For more Last Dance Productions events, Click Here.
Peter Asher, we first came to know him through the global smash “World Without Love” as one half of the British Invasion duo Peter & Gordon. He returns–now a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire– in “Peter Asher: A Musical Memoir of the 60s and Beyond” which brings a multimedia experience to the stage, hosted by the two-time Grammy winner for Producer of the Year. Peter Asher moved effortlessly from his role with Peter & Gordon to Music Executive with the Beatles’ Apple Records, then famously- (as in cover of Rolling Stone magazine level famous)- to Producer and Manager, handling the careers of James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and a host of others. Books abound, documentaries with half-truths (and worse) are all too common, but, now, finally, Mr. Asher tells firsthand his tales from the eye of the cultural hurricane in this intimate evening.
“Memoir” includes film footage and photos from Peter’s considerable personal archive, brought to life with a storyteller’s gift, transporting audiences back to the heart of 60s popular culture. Icons such as Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithful, Yoko Ono, Carole King, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt are among the cast of characters in this narrative – along (of course) with the greatly missed Gordon Waller. The evening is filled with the music of Peter & Gordon, including “I Go to Pieces,” “True Love Ways,” and “Lady Godiva.” The songs given to Peter & Gordon by Paul McCartney are also front and center: “Woman,” “I Don’t Want to See You Again,” Nobody I Know,” and “World Without Love,” all of which were US Top 40 hits. Peter presents these timeless classics along with other old favourites from that golden era.
The show brings the audience through the earliest days of Peter’s journey to the present day, and projects including his SiriusXM radio show on the Beatles Channel, “From Me to You”. Peter’s book, based on the show, “The Beatles A to Zed,” was released by MacMillan on October 29, 2019; the book is already in its third printing.
Songwriting duo Pete and Maura Kennedy make a strong return to the studio and stage after three years of weekly live-streamed lockdown-era concerts. They took the opportunity to explore classic songwriting in depth, performing over a thousand songs during the pandemic. That vast overview strengthened and refined their own writing and laid the foundation for this new collection of original, socially-conscious songs.
So Much To Do.
“After such a deep dive into American roots music, we felt like we had a new set of writing tools. We were ready to create this body of work, and there’s just SO much to write about,” says Maura. “During our five-year hiatus from writing and recording, America changed in massive ways, divisive ways that have shaken our whole foundation. That has to be addressed by creative artists, those of us who have a voice to speak for others. Our love of the great things about this country, things that are under threat, is the reason we decided to make “Headwinds” the title track of the CD. Political and social headwinds are making it hard to get back “home’ to our greatness as a nation. We want to push back in a positive way against those winds.”
In addition to singing and writing, Pete and Maura are multi-instrumentalists. The thirteen songs are cast in a soundscape that draws from the classic canon of American roots, in keeping with the theme of getting back “home” as a nation. Acoustic and electric guitars, a vintage steel guitar, a gospel-inflected piano/organ mix, and even a slide ukulele all add colors to a songbag of sounds that have drawn us together during hard times. Pete and Maura believe that those sounds still have the power to pull us through again.
Three Decades Of Touring
The Kennedys began their writing and touring life three decades ago as members of Nanci Griffith’s Blue Moon Orchestra, developing their own sound as a frequent support act on Nanci’s tours across America, Ireland, Scotland and England. Collaborations with Nanci continued, culminating in Pete and Maura producing her final album, “Intersections.” Along the way, they hosted a nationwide radio program, “The Dharma Cafe” on Sirius/XM, wrote and released sixteen CDs of original music, and have been core artists on folk radio, expanding their audience further with the inception of the AAA and Americana formats.
For more Last Dance Productions events, click here.
https://lastdanceproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LastDanceProductions-Logo-360x80-1-300x67.gif00Last Dance Productionshttps://lastdanceproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/LastDanceProductions-Logo-360x80-1-300x67.gifLast Dance Productions2025-07-09 10:42:062025-07-09 10:46:05The Kennedys Return to The Rose Garden Coffeehouse
