Art Hounds: Jack Klatt, Rogue Valley, and a painter’s impressions of Minnesota

Members of Rogue Valley at their "spring" show at the Fitzgerald Theater last April.

The hounds are following a "feel-good" musician whose style touches Tin Pan Alley, a prolific indie pop/folk band whose songs are tied to the cycle of the seasons, and a mildly impressionistic octogenarian painter who captures the subtle majesty of the land of 10,000 landscapes.

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As a blogger and booker for Merlin's Rest Pub in Minneapolis, Todd Ojala has a feel for crowd pleasing music, which is why he's high on Jack Klatt and the Cat Swingers. Todd says Klatt melds burlesque, blues and gypsy jazz in a way that inspires good vibes no matter what's being sung about. Jack Klatt and the Cat Swingers are at the Driftwood Char Bar on Thursday, March 31. They'll also be playing at Lee's Liquor Lounge on Tuesday, April 5.

Over the last year, Minneapolis playwright and Fringe Festival communications director Matthew Foster has enjoyed the changing seasons maybe more than ever because each one has been accompanied by a new batch of songs from Rogue Valley. Matthew has been entranced by the indie folk band's "album for every season" project, which culminates Friday, April 1, at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, with the release of the group's "winter" record, "False Floors."

St. Paul woodworker Fred Livesay has known Faith Lowell's gentle, delicately muted Minnesota landscape paintings since he was a kid. For Fred, they conjure the beautifully familiar, still mysterious feeling of being outdoors in the bluffs of the southern part of the state, or the pine forests of the north. Faith Lowell's landscapes are on display at the Sivertson Gallery in Grand Marais.

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And you can get an early sneak peek at the Art Hounds' picks every week by texting the word ART to 677-677.

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