Jazz Dog

Jazz in the Neighborhood

ART • EQUITY • ACCESS

ART • EQUITY • ACCESS

Jazz on a Hilltop Fundraiser

The Jazz on a Hilltop benefit party will be an afternoon of jazz, wine and light snacks in a magnificent Fairfax home designed by architect Kenneth Kao. Mimi Fox will present a solo program, and Clairdee will perform with Ken French on piano, Blake Richardson on bass, and Jim Zimmerman on drums. Emerging artists Dan Neville (vibraphone) and Jason Hayashi (saxophone) will join the trio for a short set.

Proceeds will benefit Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artists program and Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund. Tickets at tinyurl.com/jitn-benefit.

Our fundraiser features a Silent Auction. Those not attending can place advance online bids here: jazzintheneighborhood.org/benefit-party

We are very honored to have the renowned guitarist Mimi Fox perform for us in this intimate setting. Here’s what the critics have said about her.

“Guitarist extraordinaire Mimi Fox presented a stunning set of music that kept the audience riveted from the opening blues excursion to her immaculately delivered solo. Fox’s firm control, clarity of concept, and emotional depth made this the most memorable moment of the festival.” — All About Jazz review of Kennedy Center performance

“A prodigious talent who has not only mastered the traditional forms but has managed to reinvigorate them.” — Guitar Player magazine

“To say Mimi Fox’s touch, sound, sensitivity and understanding of the guitar as a solo vehicle of expression is masterful would be an understatement. This is simply some of the best guitar music I have heard.” — Jim Josselyn in Cadence Magazine

“Beyond her passion and virtuosity, Fox plays with a profundity that only comes from a lifetime of devotion to one’s art.” — Guitar Player magazine.

 

Clairdee, who is one of Jazz in the Neighborhood’s strongest supporters, will be gracing us with her presence as well. She is a captivating song stylist who has has an intimate, vulnerable and gentle way with a ballad, yet can swing or shout at will. With her lustrous voice, heartfelt delivery, and scene-stealing charisma, she has honed a repertoire of standards set to state of the art arrangements that are equally smart and entertaining. “In the tradition of all great vocalists, Clairdee infuses her own unique style while always remaining true to the song itself,” says Nancy Wilson. She is unpretentious, charming and charismatic, and her performances convey a welcoming air of hospitality.

Says Clairdee, her “mission is to engage, uplift and build community through music — creating narrative that inspires beyond the stage.” For example, this past February she mentored emerging artist Noa Levy at an inspiring event at Piedmont Center for the Arts. She continues this work by performing at our fundraiser, where proceeds will help support Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artists program.

The host committee for this benefit are:

  • Anne Cullinane and Paul Diamond
  • Howard Gillis and Sacha Bunge
  • Mario Guarneri and Lauraine Rose
  • Jon Herbst and Karla Clement
  • Tyler and Melanie Johnston
  • Monica Scott and Dominique Pelletey
  • Norman and Nan Rosenblatt
  • Suzanne and David Warner

 

tbd Quartet

Friday, September 29, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books | no admission charge |

Jazz in the Neighborhood presents the tbd Quartet, whose name reflects the instrumentation of trumpets, bass and drums. Representing T for trumpets are Mario Guarneri and Erik Jekabson. B for bass will be Lisa Mezzacappa and D for drums is Jason Levis. Together they perform linear jazz created through implied harmonies and stretching of traditional forms.

The original music of the tbd Quartet was written with this ensemble’s particular instrumentation in mind. The band’s compositions often grow from a small idea and are developed by each member of the group. For the tbd Quartet, the line is the most important element as it determines the direction and expresses the emotion and story of the music.

This free concert is a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books, which provides use of their space. Though there is no income from ticket sales, Jazz in the Neighborhood pays each musician a guaranteed fair wage. To make these concerts possible, we depend on contributions from our JITN membership, audience members, and sponsors such as Magic Flute and Bananas at Large. We extend our thanks and appreciation for your continuing support, because we couldn’t do it without you!

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Charged Particles

Friday, October 13, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books | no admission charge |

Charged Particles is a trio that crosses stylistic boundaries and blends diverse traditions to create engaging new sounds. The group is Murray Low, a keyboard wizard with dazzling Latin-jazz technique and imaginative improvisational skills, along with Aaron Germain playing inventive and sophisticated acoustic and electric bassist and fiery drummer Jon Krosnick.

The trio’s repertoire blends jazz with elements of Latin music,funk, classical music, and other genres. The group’s original compositions are mixtures of complex orchestration and elaborate improvised solos. The band brings a similar approach to playing arrangements of tunes by other jazz artists and traditional jazz standards by the composers of America’s most popular songs from decades ago, each played with a new twist. The group’s small size allows for sensitivity and spontaneity among the players, making each performance an enchanting improvisational exploration.

Our Emerging Artist will be pianist Christina Galisatus. Christina began playing classical piano at  age five and has competed at a number of piano competitions throughout California. She also plays French horn and toured throughout England, France, Spain, China, Germany, and the Czech Republic as principal horn of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra. It wasn’t until high school that Christina began to study jazz, largely influenced by her father, Michael Galisatus, a jazz trumpeter and educator. She is currently a student at Stanford University pursuing a double major in Music and Symbolic Systems, and performs with both the Stanford Jazz Orchestra and the Stanford Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble.

This free concert is presented as a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books. We are grateful for the monetary support of  our members, supporters, and advertisers that make these concerts possible.

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Charles Gurke-Marcus Shelby Quintet

Friday, October 20, 8pm at Community Music Center | tickets |

Bassist Marcus Shelby joins with sax player Charlie Gurke to form a quintet for this engagement.

Charlie Gurke is one of the most in-demand baritone sax players in the area. He’s a regular in the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra sax section and has also performed with the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, the Realistic Orchestra, and other Jazz Mafia projects. Gurke teaches Stage Band at Laney College and San Francisco’s School of the Arts and is the music director for We Players theater company.

In addition to being an educator and activist, Marcus Shelby is a bandleader, composer, arranger, and bassist, who has been a supporter of Jazz in the Neighborhood since its inception. Over the past 25 years his work and music has focused on sharing the history, present, and future of African American lives; on social movements in the United States of America; and on early childhood music education. Shelby is currently a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission. His recent work includes Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio, an original composition for big band orchestra commissioned by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which premiered in 2015.

Le Jazz Hot

Thursday, October 26, 7:30pm at Piedmont Center for the Arts | tickets |

Back for their third appearance with Jazz in the Neighborhood is Le Jazz Hot, the quartet version of the Hot Club of San Francisco. Led by guitarist Paul “Pazzo” Mehling, the ensemble includes vocalist and rhythm guitarist Isabelle Fontaine, jazz violinist Evan Price, and star Sam Rocha on bass.

Paul Mehling has been dubbed the godfather of American gypsy jazz. He discovered the music of Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France in grammar school, and decades later the music that took root in his young soul finally bore fruit.

Critics have noted that the music of Mehling and the Hot Club of San Francisco owes as much to 52nd street as gypsy jazz, a characterization Mehling doesn’t dispute. “We have a swing or die approach to the music that’s distinctly American. We’re trying to challenge the tendency to slavishly imitate Django’s style, without watering down the gypsy tradition or diluting the music. We bring out the visceral element of the music that Serge told me is so important. When I talk with gypsy musicians, they say that they love what we do because they can tell we love the music. If people dig our music, when gypsy bands come to America, there will be an audience waiting to hear them.”

Isabelle Fontaine was born and raised in the French countryside with the voices of Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, and Yves Montand ringing in her ears. She originally had no intention of becoming a professional musician but when she started singing with a group of friends for fun, her talent was immediately recognized and her life took an unexpected turn. She spent the next twenty years singing and playing the snare drum to the jumping jive music of the 50’s throughout France, with detours to Spain and over the Alps to Switzerland. During this period, she was eventually drawn to the gypsy swing of Django Reinhardt and The Hot Club of France, and it wasn’t long before she picked up the guitar and applied her impeccable sense of rhythm to the stringed instrument.

Evan Price is a ten-year veteran of the world-renowned, paradigm-shifting, jazz ensemble the Turtle Island Quartet. During his tenure in Turtle Island, he gave over five hundred performances in concert venues from Latvia to Australia and had the opportunity to collaborate with many musical luminaries, such as Cuban clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera and pianists Dr. Billy Taylor and Kenny Barron.

In addition to his in-depth study of classic bass playing, Sam Rocha has absorbed the nuances of classic jazz tuba, cornet, and guitar playing, and he regularly performs on those instruments as well. Quickly becoming one of the rising stars of the traditional jazz and gypsy swing circuit, Rocha is known for his innate musicality and rhythm and for his inventive, melodic solos.

801 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont
$20 advance / $25 day of show / $5 student rush

Jazz Caliente

Friday, October 27, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books | no admission charge |

Join with us as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Jazz Caliente. Founded by Lee Waterman and Tommy Kesecker in 1997, the band performs Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz featuring original compositions by Waterman as well as arrangements of jazz and Latin masters such as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Tito Puente, and Sergio Mendes. Joining Waterman on guitar and Kesecker on vibes will be Alex Murzyn on flute and reeds along with bassist Bill Lanphier, percussionist Michaelle Goerlitz, and drummer Bill Belasco.

Trademarks of the Jazz Caliente style are tight arrangements and infectious grooves. Basing its chordal foundation on vibes and guitar produces a brighter tonality and allows more space inside the music than with a traditional piano-based format. Their latest CD release is Olhos Verdes.

This free concert is presented as a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books. We are grateful for the monetary support of  our members, supporters, and advertisers that make these concerts possible.

FivePlay Jazz Quintet

Thursday, November 30, 7:30pm at Piedmont Center for the Arts | tickets |

FivePlay creates original music that nourishes mind and heart. Their unique style speaks to a wide audience, from savvy listeners to those hearing jazz for the first time. The repertoire ranges from burning post-bop, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian grooves to music set to poetry, atmospheric ballads, and extended, unusual compositions. Their three recordings have received extensive airplay both in the United States and abroad.

Co-led by husband and wife team guitarist/composer Tony Corman and pianist/composer Laura Klein, the members of FivePlay are long-time musical associates who have played together in numerous and varied settings. Dave Tidball plays reeds with Paul Smith on bass, joined by Jason Lewis on drums. Their guest artist will be vocalist Celia Malheiros. The resulting on-stage alchemy generates adventurous, interactive and exciting performances.

801 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont
$20 advance / $25 day of show / $5 student rush

Ray Obiedo Group

Friday, September 8, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books  |no admission charge|

Jazz in the Neighborhood presents the Ray Obiedo Group. Led by contemporary jazz composer and guitarist Ray Obiedo with Peter Horvath, piano; Phil Hawkins, steel pans; Marc van Wageningen, bass; and Colin Douglas, drums. The group plays a combination of contemporary jazz, Latin and Brazilian grooves.

As a youth in the San Francisco Bay Area, Obiedo’s musical development was informed by Miles Davis, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Henry Mancini, and the popular sounds of Motown Records. Probably the greatest influence, though, was the James Brown revue, whose funky, percussive guitar sounds was the platform on which Obiedo built his technique. Many years and successful albums later, he has steadily emerged as an original, expressive, and exciting contemporary jazz standout with a delightfully distinctive Bay Area flavor.

This free concert is a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books, which provides use of their space. Though there is no income from ticket sales, Jazz in the Neighborhood pays each musician a guaranteed fair wage. To make these concerts possible, we depend on contributions from our JITN membership, audience members, and sponsors such as Magic Flute and Bananas at Large. We extend our thanks and appreciation for your continuing support, because we couldn’t do it without you!

Admission-free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Mary Fettig quartet

Friday, August 25, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books | RSVP for free event |

Led by Mary Fettig on sax, her quartet will include guitarist Chico Pinheiro,  bassist Scott Thompson, and Brian Rice, percussion.

A multi-instrumentalist in both jazz and classical spheres, Mary Fettig is a performer, teacher, and clinician who has played at festivals and toured with celebrity acts around the country. She was the first woman to join the Stan Kenton Orchestra and is currently on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Akira Tana & Secret Agent

Friday, August 11, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books | RSVP for free event |

Bond like you’ve never heard it before!

The Secret Agent Band plays the music of Bond (James Bond), shaken and stirred. Led by drummer Akira Tana, his team includes Nashville-based vocalist Annie Sellick with James Mahone on sax, Jeff Massanari on guitar, and Midori Ono, organ.

The Emerging Artists will be guitarist Harry Gold and drummer Michael Wang.

Says Tana, “The music from the films of James Bond are a perfect vehicle for jazz interpretation. The tunes are globally recognized and are very accessible to listeners not familiar with the jazz idiom.”

As Andrew Gilbert explains in the Mercury News (6/24/16):

Tana traces the origins of the Bond project back more than two decades to when he was in Japan recording the album Secret Agent Men, featuring Hammond B-3 legend Dr. Lonnie Smith (just named a 2017 NEA Jazz Master). Interpreting TV and film themes such as “Mission: Impossible,” “In The Heat of the Night” and “Charade” as soul jazz, the project whetted Tana’s appetite for other overlooked material in the same vein.

[Later he] plunged into the world of Bond songs with his 2011 album Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Sons of Sound) — which features lush arrangements by Larry Dunlap that reimagine “Nobody Does It Better,” “Live and Let Die” and “Goldfinger” with Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean grooves. For a couple of years after its release, Tana performed with a seven-piece version of the Secret Agent Band. But when the time felt right to revisit the material, he created a sleek, soulful new version of the group with a smaller, more flexible lineup.

“What strikes me about this music is that it’s timeless,” Tana says. “The band is smaller now. Without the bass and percussion, it makes us more of a straight-ahead jazz organ quintet, as opposed to the more elaborate production of the album. I love Larry’s arrangements, but with less orchestrating, the whole band feels looser to me.”

Secret Agent bios

Annie Sellick, who grew up in Nashville, became a singer almost by accident. Cajoled into sitting in with a band at college, she sang the only jazz song she knew at the time, Peggy Lee’s “Fever”. As she recalls, “I just got up there and gave it all I had. To my surprise, the crowd went bezerk and the band hired me on the spot.” While performing gigs at night, she studied her craft at the Nashville Jazz Workshop and was offered their first work/study opportunity. Today, she is a mainstay at the major jazz venues in Nashville and performs nationally and around the world. Sellick runs her own label, Chalice Music, and has recorded five CDs of her music, one featuring Joey DeFrancesco on the Hammond B-3.

Born and raised in Japan, Midori Ono started playing various keyboards at a very young age. She progressed to the Hammond organ when just eleven years old. Six years later, she won first prize in the Japan Hammond Organ Competition, Senior Division. As part of her prize, she went to Los Angeles for the first time and listened to performances by local organ players. She was so amazed and moved that she then wanted to become a jazz organ player. After graduating from Doshisha University, she started performing on the organ in Japan and played with Dr. Lonnie Smith, Jack McDuff, and others when they came to town. Making a name for herself, Ono began performing in the US at the jazz festivals in San Francisco, San Jose, and Stanford among other. She released her first album Green’s Blues in 1999, and in 2014, released In My Own Way with Akira Tana. Ono currently lives in Nara prefecture, Japan, and performs in Jazz Organ Live concerts for children all over Japan.

Saxophonist James Mahone is an active performer and instructor. He began his musical journey almost thirty years ago in Monterey, California, soaking in the influence of its rich music scene. He went on to California State University Northridge to study classical and jazz saxophone under Bill Caulkins and participated in the university’s award-winning wind ensembles and jazz big bands under Ladd Macintosh, Joel Leach, and Gary Pratt. After graduating, Mahone became a fixture on the Los Angeles music scene. He was a founding member of the acclaimed jazz quintet Black Note and spent several years touring with the them nationally and internationally. He later spent time in New York at The New School studying saxophone and composition under Garry Dial, Billy Harper, Benny Powell and Charles Tolliver.

Jeff Massanari was born in the small town of Goshen, Indiana, but moved to Washington DC at age nine. Exposed to the vibrant music scene there, he sought out the guitar and began playing rock and blues as a young teen. But after a friend brought over a recording of John McLaughlin’s Inner Mounting Flame, he was hooked on jazz from the very first note. He went on to study at Boston’s Berklee School of Music and later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he quickly became one of the most in-demand guitarists. Massanari wears many stylistic hats including straight-ahead jazz, fusion, blues, rock and even has some serious country chops. He is at home playing complex jazz solo guitar arrangements as well as tearing up a plate full of blues on his Strat! In addition to his busy performance schedule, Jeff has a waiting list for private instruction through UC Berkeley, the California Jazz Conservatory, and private referrals.

A self-taught drummer/percussionist, Akira Tana started playing semi-professionally while still in college. Born and raised in California, he headed East to earn degrees from Harvard and the New England Conservatory of Music. Since then, Tana has worked with Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Zoot Sims, Milt Jackson, Jim Hall, Art Farmer, and other notables and has appeared on over 150 recordings. With bassist Rufus Reid he formed the band TanaReid and also the Asian American Jazz Trio. He has four recordings as a leader on Sons of Sound recordings: Secret Agent Men, Moon Over the World, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and most recently Otonowa, which features jazz interpretations of Japanese folk and pop melodies that date back decades and even centuries.

About our Emerging Artists

Michael Wang, who will be a senior this fall at Los Altos High School, has been playing music his whole life and is an accomplished violist who has performed with various all-youth orchestras on the Peninsula. Three years ago, though, he began studying the drums with Akira Tana, which has led to performances with the Stanford Jazz Workshop’s high school big band and the Stanford University Jazz Orchestra. Wang intends to pursue his jazz education further.

Harry Gold is a blues and jazz guitarist, pianist, and singer who has performed all over the United States as well as in several countries in Europe. For the last six years Harry has developed and directed the music program at Holden High School. Besides performing, he has been a working as a luthier, repairing and building guitars for the better part of the last ten years. Harry holds a Bachelor of Music from the California Jazz Conservatory and gives private lessons on guitar and piano to students of all experience levels.

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Electric Squeezebox Orchestra with Alan Ferber

Sunday, August 6, 5:30pm at Doc’s Lab | Tickets |

Trombonist Alan Ferber returns to Doc’s Lab as guest artist with Electric Squeezebox Orchestra. Under the direction of Erik Jekabson, the program will feature compositions by Alan Ferber and opens with a student group from the Lafayette Summer Jazz Workshop Combo.

Recognized as one of the leading trombonists of his generation by Downbeat magazine, Alan Ferber hails from Oakland but has made New York his home since 1999. There he has built a solid reputation both as an ensemble player and an improviser, performing with artists ranging from Esperanza Spalding, Charlie Hunter, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler, John Hollenbeck, and Don Byron to Sufjan Stevens, Peter Gabriel, The National, Harry Connick Jr, They Might Be Giants, and Dr. Dre.

Ferber’s discography lists over 100 CDs, and he’s released seven albums of his own, including Roots + Transitions. He was Grammy-nominated in 2014 for his March Sublime, featuring original compositions and big-band arrangements, and his Music For Nonet & Strings was named one of the best CDs of the year by Downbeat. Jazz Times magazine describes Ferber’s compositions as “inspired and meticulous” and the L.A. Weekly deems him “one of the premier modern jazz arrangers of our time.”

His teaching credits include adjunct professor of jazz trombone and composition at New York University’s Steinhardt School, Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory, and Montclair State University’s John J. Cali School of Music.

The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, led by Erik Jekabson, is a 17-piece big band based in San Francisco that plays music composed and arranged by its members. Once a month, Jazz in the Neighborhood sponsors their Sunday performance at Doc’s Lab.

124 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco

Ken Cook trio

Friday, July 28, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books | RSVP for free event |

Pianist Ken Cook is accompanied by Jeff Denson, bass, and Kendrick Freeman, drums. Balancing the traditions of jazz, blues, and contemporary music, this trio paints sonic landscapes with structure, freedom, dialogue and chance. The music of Monk, Keith Jarrett, and the modern masters provide the starting point.

Ken Cook is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston and been on the Bay Area scene playing jazz, blues, Latin and Brazilian Music for over ten years. He leads this trio in addition to playing with Bay Area favorites, John Calloway, Terrie Odabi, and Mark Summer (Turtle Island Quartet) among others. Cook holds the Jazz piano chair on the music faculty at Sonoma State University.

Bassist, educator, composer and band leader Jeff Denson is known for his critically acclaimed work with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. He’s toured throughout Europe and the U.S. with Konitz both as a sideman and a leader. He is a full professor at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley and leads three of his own groups.

Kendrick Freeman is a Bay Area drummer, percussionist, and teacher with a background in both drum set and hand drums. His drum set and traditional studies inform each other, and he has been flexible enough to work with wide range of artists in a number of styles and settings, among them national dobro ace Rob Ickes, string wizard Joe Craven, banjoist Alison Brown, Pakistani singer Sukhawat Ali Khan, the flamenco group Rumba Tribe, and blues artists lke Soul Fuse and guitarist Michael Barclay.

Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artist will be alto sax player Gio Mendez. A student at Casa Grande High, he recently performed at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival as a member of the Big House Quintet.

This free concert is presented as a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books. We are grateful for the monetary support of our members, supporters, and advertisers that make these concerts possible. Thanks also to Bananas At Large for providing our new concert sound system.

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

 

John Hoy trio

Friday, July 14, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books  | RSVP for free event |

John Hoy will lead on guitar with Richard Lieter, keyboard, and Cliff Hugo, bass. The trio will play a mix of light-hearted music including TV show themes interpreted in a jazz context. They’ll also perform some unique arrangements of songs that aren’t normally thought of as jazz. John espouses the philosophy that jazz should be fun for both the musician and the listener.

Our Emerging Artists will be Patrick Kelley, guitar, with Cole Bailey on bass and Matt Paquette, drums.

John Hoy, a sought after guitarist and bassist in the Bay Area, combines the styles of jazz, blues, and pop. He studied at Berklee College of Music and went on to make a name for himself in Los Angeles by doing club work, studio sessions, and arranging and performing on film soundtracks. After moving to the Bay Area, he opened his own recording studio becoming a producer and player on many independent CD projects.

Many will have heard Richard Leiter playing the jazz piano tracks on various Charlie Brown Peanuts specials and commercials. His playing and singing have also been featured in projects for the Sheraton Hotels, Tropicana, Paramount Pictures as well as projects for NBC and CBS. He performs regularly at Bay Area venues like Martuni’s, Castagnola’s, and the Claremont, where his style is a unique jazz-R&B spin on Gershwin, Jobim, Motown, and the Beatles. As a composer, Leiter has created and produced music for hundreds of TV & Radio projects You can view his work at www.richjingles.com. His production company, Words & Music, is located in Marin County.

Cliff Hugo is best known as the bassist for the legendary group Supertramp, and he’s also performed with luminaries like Ray Charles, Melissa Manchester, and Manhattan Transfer. Over the years Hugo has lent his talents in over 1,000 commercial jingles and hundreds of film and TV scores, too.

Patrick Kelley and his bandmates met at Marin School of the Arts a few years ago and have been playing and writing various styles of music together ever since. All three have played in the big band and in small combos at MSA. Currently, the three are working on an alternative/rock band called Relevancy, using their musical skills and ideas to write and record original music.

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Ila Cantor trio

Friday, June 30, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books, San Rafael | Free event! |

Ila Cantor performs original music featuring her latest love, the charango. The charango is a 10-string Peruvian instrument used in traditional Andean and folk music. It has practically no presence in jazz or chamber music, but Cantor has been inspired to change that. Accompanied by John Wiitala on upright bass and Hamir Atwal on drums, she is thrilled to be presenting a new approach that blends the sounds of traditional South American folk music with jazz instrumentation and composition. Her student, guitarist Spencer Handley, will be the Emerging Artist for this concert.

Excerpted below is an article by Lily O’Brien that appeared in the June 28 issue of the Pacific Sun.

Ila Cantor goes beyond jazz

“I have this commitment right now to just follow my heart when it comes to music,” says jazz guitarist Ila Cantor by telephone from her home in Oakland. A serious jazz guitar student in New York at age 15, she began a successful career that included performing, recording and teaching in New York and Barcelona. But at 25, everything changed.

“I had a little bit of an existential crisis,” she says with a laugh. “It was a feeling that I couldn’t find meaning in what I was doing.” Cantor says that she suddenly realized that the career she had been striving for was one that her parents, teachers and mentors had chosen for her. “It was heartbreaking.”

So she decided to take a break. “I quit playing and moved to Hawaii and completely changed my life,” Cantor says. “It was a dramatic time.”

But while in Hawaii, she began playing again, on the beach, just for fun. And then she discovered songwriting. “It was a beautiful way for me to express and explore what I really love about music,” Cantor says. After a couple of years, she decided to move to California to pursue music again, but more freely.

Recently, Cantor, 32, fell in love with the charango, a 10-string Peruvian instrument, and has been composing melodies and chord changes for it inspired by her jazz guitar music. “It just sounds so cool and different because this instrument has never been played in this way,” she says. “I’m going for a sort of hypnotic quality that’s not about lines and licks, but more about the shifting of harmonies and grooves—something a little more subtle.”

Ila Cantor’s new EP, As You Are, features original songs with reflective lyrics and dreamy vocals accompanied by the charango.

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This free concert is presented as a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books. We are grateful to our members, supporters, and advertisers for making these concerts possible. Thanks also to Bananas At Large for providing our new PA system.

Free event at Copperfield’s Books, 850 Fourth Street, San Rafael

Michael O’Neill quartet

Saturday, June 10, 6pm at Copperfield’s Books, San Rafael

Saxophonist Michael O’Neill performs with Peter Horvath, piano; Jeff Chambers, bass; and Jason Lewis, drums. Ari Silberman, saxophone, and David Lechuga, guitar, will be Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artists.

This free concert is presented as a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and Copperfield’s Books. We are grateful to our members, supporters, and sponsors such as the Magic Flute making these concerts possible. Thanks also to Bananas At Large for providing our new PA system.

Montclair Women’s Big Band

Saturday, May 27, 8pm at Community Music Center | Get tickets |

Jazz in the Neighborhood presents the Montclair Women’s Big Band, a Bay Area treasure, as they celebrate their 20th anniversary. Founded in 1997 by veteran trumpeter Ellen Seeling and saxophonist Jean Fineberg, the group is an alliance of some of the region’s most formidable jazz women, who range in age from their twenties to their seventies. Forging a singular blues-drenched sound with a deep Latin pocket and captivating original material, audiences are electrified by the band’s powerhouse ensemble, addictive grooves, and inspired solos.

Ellen Seeling is a pioneering trumpeter who was the first woman to graduate from Indiana University’s prestigious Jazz Studies Program in 1975. By the late 1970s she was well established on the New York scene as an eminently versatile player who moved seamlessly among gigs with top jazz, salsa, R&B, rock and disco acts. After relocating to the Bay Area in 1989 and founding the Montclair Women’s Big Band with Jean Fineberg, Seeling created the Jazzschool Girls Jazz and Blues Camp, and the Jazzschool Women’s Jazz and Blues Camp. These are still the only camps of their kind: specifically for girls and women with an all-woman faculty. She also founded the first nonprofit advocacy group in jazz for women and girls, JazzWomen and Girls Advocates. In 2016 the group successfully collaborated with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to assist in their adoption of blind auditions as a hiring procedure. This is the first time any jazz organization will use blind auditions.

As for the other Montclair Women’s Big Band players, every musician is a professional performer. Many are leaders of their own groups as well as being recording artists and in-demand players. They are also middle and high school jazz band directors, private-lesson teachers, on university or college faculties, have their own music-related businesses, or work as composers or sound engineers.

The line up includes Kasey Knudsen, Mad Duran, Jean Fineberg, Eli Maliwan, Carolyn Walter, Ellen Seeling, Tiffany Carrico, Marina Garza, Sarah Wilson, Mara Fox, Emily Sanchez, Bonnie Maddox, Becca Burrington, Erika Oba, Michaelle Goerlitz, and Alan Hall.

For this event they’ll be performing an eclectic set list of big band classics, Latin styles, new arrangements, and original compositions by women composers, some of whom are in the band. Their forthcoming CD, Women’s Work, is an album of ten originals by different women composer/arrangers. Other CDs will be available for sale at this event along with band T-shirts, and a new book which includes a chapter on Ellen Seeling, Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz, by Chris Becker.

544 Capp Street, San Francisco
$15 general admission. $10 students & seniors.

New American Songbook Project

 

Friday, May 13, 6 pm at Copperfield’s Books, Novato | Free event! |

The New American Songbook Project features daring arrangements and re-constructions of jazz, pop, and folk standards made famous by vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Astrud Gilberto, Graham Nash, Mick Jagger, and Cat Stevens. The performers will be vocalist Rocio Guitard; Michael Smolens, pianist and arranger; Alex Murzyn, sax; Fred Randolph, bass; and Greg Wyser-Pratte, drums.

The band has developed near telepathic communication between players, allowing for unpredictable excursions and vivid storytelling by their vocalist. Each tune drawing its own color as the sax (soprano/alto/tenor), bass (acoustic/fretless & fretted electric), and keyboard (piano/electric piano) are heard in a myriad of different combinations. Rarely do audiences experience the bass, drums, and voice as equally featured soloists. And still rarer to hear a vocalist improvise lyrics on-the-spot, doubling blistering saxophone lines, and singing floating bi-tonal melodies. The band’s few original songs appear fully disguised as impostors from another era.

Says Smolens, “The idea behind this group is to see how far I can take well-known jazz, pop, and traditional folk songs from their original source while keeping them vibrant and emotionally relevant to listeners. It’s my only group that doesn’t feature my writing exclusively, but each song becomes in a sense a ‘song within a song’. By the time they’ve heard “Girl With The Whole Step” (a complete re-telling of ‘Girl From Ipanema’ clothed as a study in whole-steps) or Mick Jagger’s “Satisfaction” (skating along in three different grooves), they’ve taken quite a ride. When people hear what we do to songs that they are very familiar with, they are universally excited and really trust us.”

Peter Horvath trio

Thursday, May 11, 7:30 pm at Piedmont Center for the Arts | Get tickets |

Pianist Peter Horvath is joined by Jeff Chambers, bass, and Jason Lewis, drums.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area since the mid-1980s, the classically trained Horvath has thrived in the region’s highly diverse environment where various music scenes often overlap. He’s played post-bop with Bobby Hutcherson and Joe Henderson, Latin jazz with Arturo Sandoval and Ray Obiedo as well as funk, R&B, and funk fusion in numerous bands. His latest album, Absolute Reality, is a highly personal and supremely engaging album by an artist eager to celebrate the musical riches he’s experienced in the Bay Area.

801 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont
Tickets: $20 advance. $25 day of show. $5 student rush/sliding scale.

Experimental/Free Jazz with the Lisa Mezzacappa Group

Tuesday, May 9, 7pm at The Back Room | Get tickets |

Jazz in the Neighborhood presents an experimental/free jazz concert and jam with the Lisa Mezzacappa Group. Led by bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, the band will be Cory Wright, reeds; John Finkbeiner, guitar, and Jason Levis, drums.

The evening will be a workshop for musicians who want to learn more about free improvisation and how to structure free improvisation as a group. Anyone who is competent on their instrument, whether in a jazz context or even in classical music or other genres like rock or folk music, is welcome to join in.

After a short set by her ensemble, Lisa Mezzacappa will lead a free improv training session with members of her band. Then those who have signed in for the jam will be invited to sit in for the session part of the evening. Some ad hoc ensembles will also be formed to play short improv pieces. A few simple tunes will be on hand that people can read and arrange on the spot together.

If you’re competent on your instrument and open to exploring new sounds and ways of interacting, this will be a great opportunity to learn from and play with some of the best improvisers in the Bay Area.

This is event is part the Neighborhood Sessions series, a collaboration between Jazz in the Neighborhood and the California Jazz Conservatory with partial funding from the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

The Back Room, 1984 Bonita Avnue, Berkeley
Tickets: $10 general admission. CJC-degree-program students, free.

BYO if you’re over 21.

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Address:
P.O. Box 629, Fairfax, CA 94978

Phone:
415-737-JITN (5486)

Email:
info@jazzintheneighborhood.org