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Jazz in the Neighborhood

ART • EQUITY • ACCESS

art • equity • access

Kellye Gray – Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby

Wednesday, June 27, 7:30 pm at Rendon Hall at the California Jazz Conservatory

With her stunning musicality and warm, enveloping voice, Texas native Kellye Gray is one of the most accomplished jazz vocalists on the national scene. Gray has recorded over half a dozen albums as a leader and performed nationally and internationally at world-class venues and festivals including Lincoln Center, the Spoleto Festival, Yoshi’s, SFJAZZ. She has been honored to share the stage with legends Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Etta James, to name a few.

Her first release, Standards In Gray, prompted USA Today to declare “she is simply the most exciting singer to debut.” Kellye’s latest release entitled, Rendering, celebrates her 25th year as a professional and was recorded live in the studio in front of a 30 person audience and has no retakes or overdubs. She is the ‘real deal,’ as KCSM’s Alissa Clancy likes to boast, and there ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby. Performing a collection of standards from blues to bebop, her special guest will be San Francisco’s own tenor saxophone bebop master, Noel Jewkes. Backing her up for this performance will be Adam Shulman (piano), Peter Barshay (bass), and Greg Wyser-Pratt (drums).

To learn more about the artist and see a short film about her work, check her website.

Rendon Hall at the California Jazz Conservatory
$20 general admission / $10 full-time students

Cabanijazz Project

Friday, June 15, 8:00pm at San Francisco Community Music Center

Cabinijazz Project performs soulful original Latin dance music written by its leader, conga player Javier Cabanillas, whom Drum Magazine calls “one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most respected and busiest congueros.” In support of their debut album, Infrasonic, Cabanijazz Project will perform the very best of their danceable mambo jazz and retro salsa repertoire, featuring the vocals of Omar Ledezma, Jr. The rest of the line-up includes Jamie Dubberly, trombone; Benny Torres, tenor sax, Aaron Lington, baritone sax; Brian Andres, drum kit; Erick Peralta, keyboard; and Kevin Silveira, bass.

Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Emerging Artist will be Oliver Tuttle, trombone.

Learn more about Cabanijazz Project and the new album here.

Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street, San Francisco
$18 advance / $20 day of show / $10 students & seniors

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.

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

Phone:
415-737-JITN (5486)

Email:
info@jazzintheneighborhood.org