March 8th, 2008
Benefit for Christopher Rodriguez: March 24
An all-star lineup of Bay Area jazz and classical musicians will play two shows at Yoshi’s Oakland on Monday, March 24, raising funds to assist the family of 10-year-old shooting victim Christopher Rodriguez.
While taking a piano lesson at Harmony Road Music School (Piedmont Piano Company) in Oakland, Christopher was hit by a stray bullet from a robbery taking place across the street from the school. The bullet severed his spinal cord and he is now paralyzed from the waist down.
The 8:00 show at Yoshi’s will feature Roger Glenn, John Santos, Narada Michael Walden, Kai Eckhardt, Zoe Ellis, Keith Terry, Tina Glenn, Rafael Manriquez, Matt Herskowitz, Alvenson, the Baguette Quartette, Oakland Jazz Choir, Fluteville, and members of the Bay Area Chamber Symphony (including Carol Alban, who organized the benefit).
A second show at 10:00 features George Brooks, Kai Eckhardt, Frank Martin, Narada Michael Walden, Jose Neto, Anton Schwartz, Dan Feiszli, John Santos, Roger Glenn, Alvenson, Tina Glenn, Matt Herskowitz, Suellen Primost and Carol Alban. KCSM-FM DJ Jesse “Chuy” Varela will emcee both shows.
For more information about this event, visit www.myspace.com/benefitconcertinfo or christopherrodriguez.blogspot.com.
Tickets are available now.
March 3rd, 2008
12th Annual Jazz on 4th Street Festival Announced
Hot off the wire…
John Santos, Khalil Shaheed and E.C. Scott will headline the 12th annual Jazz on 4th Street Festival in Berkeley, Sunday, May 18. The party starts at noon and runs until 5:00 p.m. on Fourth Street between Hearst and Virginia in Berkeley [map] Presented by 4th Street Merchants and KCSM/Jazz 91, the festival is a benefit for the renowned Berkeley High School jazz program, which has turned out star players for decades.
Here’s the music lineup:
KHALIL SHAHEED QUINTET (1:15pm – 2:00pm)
Trumpeter and educator Khalil Shaheed will lead a quintet performing classic jazz standards and modern originals. Founder of the Oaktown jazz Workshop, Khalil has enjoyed performing and teaching jazz music and recording hybrids of jazz, funk, R&B and blues for over thirty years.
E.C. SCOTT (2:15pm – 3:00pm)
Originally from Oakland, Blues and R&B diva E.C. Scott possesses a warm, inviting voice and a delivery that can be smooth and sultry one minute and sassy and sexy the next. Masterpiece, Scott’s most recent release and her third on the Blind Pig label brilliantly showcases her special blend of R&B and soul-inflected blues.
JOHN SANTOS QUARTET (3:00pm – 3:45pm)
Two-time Grammy nominated percussionist, educator and historian John Santos is one of the foremost exponents of Afro-Latin music in the world today. His music, documented on the recent release, Papa Mambo, is known and respected for the innovative use of traditional forms and instruments in combination with contemporary music.
Further details will be made available at www.fourthstreet.com
Review from a Listener
Every week on “No Cover, No Minimum,” I give away tickets to concerts. Usually these are for shows at Yoshi’s (either in Oakland or SF), and often for great artists. And you know what? Hardly anybody calls. I don’t know if people don’t think they can win, don’t know what they’re missing or just aren’t awake yet, but I’m usually lucky to get one or two calls for a ticket giveaway. It’s a shame, really.
Anyway, one loyal listener who did call a couple of shows ago got to go see Claudia Villela at Yoshi’s Oakland, free of charge, and he had such a good time that he emailed the following review, which I’d like to share…
I went to see Claudia Villela at Yoshi’s last night; a Brazilian Jazz Diva in the most understated of terms. She was backed by the Iago Weber trio. What a show!
The live recording date was complete with ballads, heavy fusion, musical poetry, and that esoteric component that is one truly defining characteristic of Brazilian music - the sounds of nature. Last evening’s venture included the tribute Claudia and pianist Weber Iago collaborated on ten years ago, in honor of the passing of Brazilian jazz legend Antonio Carlos Jobim. There were other equally inspiring moments throughout the set. The intertwining of Claudia’s haunting free-form vocal passages with the soprano saxophone created a hybrid fusion of sounds in which neither voice was distinct, but a unique instrument unto itself. Bass guru Gary Brown laid down some fine classic grooves and did a few blistering solos that would humble even the giants. Drummer extraordinaire Celso Alberti rounded out this powerhouse rhythm section.
One of the musical objectives of this genre is to animate the soundscape of the Rain Forest and jungles of the Amazon basin. So there is vocal and percussive emulation of birds chirping, monkeys cackling and other fauna rustling in the canopy; as well as water and wind inspired components present in the tone palette. When you are fortunate enough to have a master musical sherpa like Claudia guiding you along the sonic venture into this space, a multi-dimensional, colorful transformation from jazz to nature takes place. The metamorphosis becomes total, all encompassing and blissful. All you need to do is close your eyes and you are shuttled to a far away and exotic place complete with a new dimension of sound, rhythm, light, space, and time. Not to worry, when the sojourn to the rain forest comes to an end, Claudia reels you back in to reality with a subtle and ever tasteful reversal of musical polarity.
This outing is one that I will cherish for years to come. I hope you make time to experience her music.
Pretty nifty, huh?
Next time you’re listening to the show and I give away a pair of tickets, do yourself a favor and call me. KZSU’s studio line is (650) 723-9010.
January 21st, 2008
And now for a commercial…
January 4th, 2008
“This Was the Moment…”
Below are some excerpts from Barack Obama’s victory speech last night following the Iowa Democratic Caucus. I will have more to say in the next few days, but for now I think this will suffice:
[T]he time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that’s consumed Washington; to end the political strategy that’s been all about division and instead make it about addition - to build a coalition for change that stretches through Red States and Blue States. Because that’s how we’ll win in November, and that’s how we’ll finally meet the challenges that we face as a nation.
We are choosing hope over fear. We’re choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.
[...]
The time has come for a President who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face; who will listen to you and learn from you even when we disagree; who won’t just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know. And in New Hampshire, if you give me the same chance that Iowa did tonight, I will be that president for America.
[...]
I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay, and a lot of sacrifice. There are days of disappointment, but sometimes, just sometimes, there are nights like this—a night that, years from now, when we’ve made the changes we believe in; when more families can afford to see a doctor; when our children inherit a planet that’s a little cleaner and safer; when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united; you’ll be able look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.
This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always said was inevitable.
This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long—when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who’d never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.
This was the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism; the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up.
This was the moment.
Years from now, you’ll look back and you’ll say that this was the moment—this was the place—where America remembered what it means to hope.
For many months, we’ve been teased, even derided for talking about hope.
But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.
[...]
Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause.
Hope is what led me here today—with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
That is what we started here in Iowa, and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can change this country brick by brick, block by block, calloused hand by calloused hand—that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things; because we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States, we are the United States of America; and at this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again.
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