I’ve never thought of a ceramics sale as an art show until I rolled through the Still Life Studios in Ferndale.

It’s the blatant commerce of it all. Couples shopping for last-minute holiday gifts, one partner always a little more curious and willing than the other. To me, people browsing as consumers just look different than patrons stoically meandering through a museum.

Ceramics artist Kim Khamo changed my perspective with her display at Still Life, which rents out space, supplies and equipment to a wide ranging level of talent.

In less than a year, the Assyrian artist has developed a full-bodied artist identity through ceramics under her Nahrain Ceramics label. (Her work is pictured above.)

“A lot of my work is inspired by the geometric patterns of Mesopotamia because that’s who I am,” said Khamo. “That’s my roots. That’s my ancestry.”

She wasn’t the only artist there who convinced me there was more depth here than mugs and vases for sale.

Sara Zhao of Saratonin Clay brought a sense of sleek whimsy to her designs. It was surprising just how precise these artists can be with their handiwork.

Trent Bradley-Mitchell went a different way entirely, bringing a sense of horror, shock, deformity and disfigurement that stood proudly in contrast to the knack for cleanliness other artists gravitated towards. (An example is pictured at the top of this story.)

Amadeusz Sepko felt like one of the most complete artists on display, or maybe that’s just what a handle on abstraction and control can do for an artist’s vibe.

Did it have the decorum of a museum? No. Did it function primarily as a sale for the public? Yes.

But I think if you look a little closer at the ceramics displayed and the stories behind them, there’s more than mugs and vases for sale at Still Life.

“In The Groove goes to…” is published by WDET in partnership with Midbrow.

Sometimes at Cliff Bell’s, the jazz gets drowned out by the clink of forks on plates. That’s usually on the weekend date nights, when fur coats and suctioned-on dresses dominate the wardrobe.

But on Thursdays, Cliff Bell’s is for jazz lovers. The real heads, if you will. It’s the first night of the weekend run. The musicians sprawl out a bit more, experimenting, figuring each other out, getting ready for the weekend warriors.

It’s less busy. There are diners at tables, sure, but the best seat is at the bar. It’s relaxed, more casual. There’s a handsome older man in a suit at the bar. There’s a young European tourist in a windbreaker at the bar. There’s me in a t-shirt at the bar. 

When the band strikes a particularly fascinating motif or unleashes a righteous solo, the crowd doesn’t hold back. There’s hollering. There’s hooting. There are shouts of “c’mon!” and “god damn!” 

That felt constant during Elew’s Thursday night opening set (he’ll be here Friday and Saturday performing two sets each night). The whole room was captivated by him and his band, with Detroit’s own Louis Jones on the drums and Jeff Pedraz on bass. Pedraz tells me after the show that they haven’t played together in years. You’d never guess by the chemistry this trio already has on the opening night of their run on a sleepy, freezing Thursday in Detroit.

“I’ve never seen someone play the piano like that,” my friend comments. 

It’s his first time at Cliff Bell’s, a jazz club that dates back to the 1920s. It still has all that Art Deco charm, too. Bringing someone here for the first time is like guiding a religious pilgrimage. It’s an honor, really.

I’ve never seen someone play the piano like that, either. So much intensity, so much spirit, so much control amongst the alternating fury of mashing keys or lightly tickling them to create the same spiritual effect of a harpist gently plucking strings.

When Elew really let loose during a sprawling, 20-minute take on John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things,” he looked possessed, like watching someone speak in tongues at a Baptist church.

“And I’ve got a nice rum and Coke over here, another one of my favorite things,” Elew says in the mic.

“I’ve never seen someone make the piano look so small,” my friend comments.

Elew is working the piano like a trinket, reaching inside and bending the piano strings to give a muted, electronic-esque sound to his take on “Heartbeats” by the Swedish electronic duo The Knife.

That’s the wild thing about Elew, a.k.a. Eric Robert Lewis. He opens his set with Sonny Rollins, takes you on a third-eye-opening journey through Coltrane’s best-known tune, stops off for a bit of pop music before performing Wynton Marsalis’ “Delfeayo’s Dilemma.”

By the end of it, I realize I’ve just witnessed one of my favorite jazz sets of all time on a sleepy, freezing Thursday. Sitting at the bar with a friend and a bunch of strangers, all of us in awe of what we’ve just taken in. There for the music and only the music.

Every person I see today and this weekend, I’ll be saying, “you’ve got to go see this guy down at Cliff Bell’s.”

“In The Groove goes to…” is published by WDET in partnership with Midbrow.

It’s hard to catch a vibe on a Monday night in Detroit.

We’re not quite yet a seven-night-a-week sort of town where the lights stay on and there’s music to be found everywhere.

But leave it to the weather cracking 50 degrees in December in Detroit to make it feel like spring has sprung. Certainly felt that way at Motor City Wine on Monday.

The wine bar with a patio on Michigan Avenue was playing host to “Monday Is The New Monday.” The DJ residency has locked it down for eight years at Motor City Wine. And it’s completely free.

And maybe it’s the fact that it’s been around that long that I take it for granted. Because damn it is a special, beautiful way to launch into the week with great music from master selectors on the turntables. 

“Monday Is The New Monday” is made up of five rotating resident DJs — Tammy Lakkis, Charles Trees, Ryan Spencer, Kenjiro and Shigeto. This Monday, the special guest was DJ Skeez.

And while I love them all for different reasons — the calm and coolness of Lakkis, the focus of Trees — I’ve got to signal out Shigeto here for his approach to full body DJing. 

Shigeto cut his teeth in Ann Arbor on the drums and with a jazz background, part of the early cast of characters that helped carve out a name for the Ghostly International label out of the same town. He’s always brought jazz alongside his bag of electronic music.

He’s gone on to become a critical piece of the musical infrastructure of Detroit since then, releasing his first new record in years — “Cherry Blossom Baby” — which brings a who’s who of Detroit musicians to the session with wonderful results.

Of course, Shigeto is part of the WDET team now too, with his New Music Show on Saturday nights.

And when he DJs, it’s a show, too. Truly throwing himself into the art form of spinning vinyl, his energy is infectious. The electro-techno records he was dropping filled the room and had the dance floor jumping, people excitedly peering over the DJ booth to dap him up and yell with joy when a track really hit. Tracks from the 1989 German compilation “Technopolis” hit particularly hard.

The room was perfectly lit. The patio jumping because hell, it felt like spring in December. The smell of Filipino food filling the room courtesy of Kusina’s pop-up at Motor City Wine. Shigeto completely captivating the room with his love for his craft and records to match the mood.

It’s a small moment but a powerful one. A reminder that even on a sleepy night in Detroit, there’s music in the air.

And a damn good reason to be at Motor City Wine on Mondays.

“In The Groove goes to…” is published by WDET in partnership with Midbrow.