Aaron Parks just released his first album titled “Invisible Cinema” on Blue Note in Aug 2008. Aaron plays piano and comoposed several of the cuts. Parks explains: “The title has different meanings. For one thing, invisible cinema is what music is, in a sense. You can’t see it. But there’s all this drama between the musicians, all these stories that can be told. Also, this album has a story line that I wouldn’t spell out to anybody, because I want to leave it open to interpretation. But for me there’s a narration in the sequence and song titles and everything.” Previously Aaron played with Terrence Blanchard for five years and appears on three of Blanchard’s Blue Note releases.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was at the San Jose Jazz Fest on 15 August 2010 as a guest of San Jose Jazz Fest. I spent a wonderful afternoon listening to many artists and roaming the grounds. The weather was beautiful and it warmed up nicely in the afternoon. I really enjoyed Car Parra and Nneena Freelon. Tower of Power was fun even if it was a bit loud.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guitarist and composer Will Bernard play jazz guitar with a nice funky sound. A Berkeley, CA native and recent Brooklyn transplant, guitarist Will Bernard began playing and recording on an international level as a member of Peter Apfelbaum’s Hieroglyphics Ensemble. Will broke out as a bandleader in 1998 with the release of MEDICINE HAT (Antilles/Polygram), showcasing his expert chops and flair for funky, bottomheavy soul-jazz.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kathleen Grace is working to fuse the musical language of jazz with the storytelling of American folk tales. Kathleen and her band, the Kathleen Grace Band, have produced a recording “Mirror” where each track is based on a modern day fable. For instance the track “Mirror” draws from the Grimm fairy tale Snow White.

You can hear her live for free on Aug 28 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art(LACMA) from 6-8pm. This concert series is one of the best I have been to. It it outdoors in the couryard and the museum is open too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Javon Jackson is a superb tenor saxaphone player. A graduate of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers he is currently working on a score for the silent Alfred Hitchcock file “The Lodger”. This will be played live in October at the Syracuse Film Festival. In between he is touring with soul jazz piano player Les McCann. His own group, Javon Jackson Band, played with Les McCann at the recent Playboy Jazz Festival. He will be back out on the west coast for Monterey Jazz Festival with Les McCann. They will be performing the “Swiss Movement Revisited”. Don’t miss it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Zak is a pianist, composer and leader of the Peter Zak Trio currently based in New York. As a graduate of UC Berkeley he played a lot in Oakland and still comes back here to play. He is at the ATT San Jose Jazz Fest with Sylvia Cuenca Latin Jazz Project later this month.

Peter leads is own groups at various venues in and around New York, as well as making national and international appearances as a leader, including recent gigs at the Copenhagen, Denmark, jazz festival and the Zacatecas jazz festival in Mexico. At the same time, he performs and records as a sideman with various other artists, including Jim Snidero, Ryan Kisor, Walt Weiskopf, and others, both in the U.S and internationally.

Read the rest of this entry »

Global Guitars, a benefit fundraising concert for KCSM FM 91, the Bay Area’s Jazz Stationfeaturing The V-Note Ensemble, led by Donna Viscuso and featuring Venezuelan Cuatro guitar virtuoso, Jackeline Rago; Le Jazz Hot Quartet (pictured) of the Hot Club of SF, led by Django Reinhardt disciple Paul Mehling; and the Organized Guitars of Terrence Brewer and Calvin Keys with Hammond B3 wiz, Wayne De La Cruz.

Tickets are available at Yoshi’s web site:

Global Guitars: A Benefit for KCSM JAZZ 91.1

Come join us at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland!

Chris Cortez will be chatting with jazz percussionist Airto Moreira.Airto has been singing and playing percussion since he was a child in southern Brazil. In 1965 he came to New York and played with all the jazz greats like Reggie Workman, JJ Johnson, Cedar Walton, Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan, Paul Desmond and Joe Zawinul, Airto was referred to Miles Davis and played on the Bitches Brew album and joined Miles’s group for two years. His next gig was with Joe Zawinul where they formed Weather Report. Airto and singer Flora Purim are closely associated with Brazilian music. They have recorded numerous albums together.

Currently he divides his time between recording studios, workshops and clinics, creating new projects including DVD Surround Sound, as well as researching new materials for future releases, and live performances in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Read the rest of this entry »

Erik is a Bay Area Musician, currently living in North Berkeley. He is now working as a freelance composer, arranger and trumpeter, leading his own bands as well as playing with bands like the Realistic Orchestra, Mitch Marcus Quintet +13 and the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. Erik also teaches at The Jazzschool, Berkeley City College, Los Medanos Junior College, Chabot College, Cal-State East Bay and the Waldorf Middle School in San Francisco, and has given clinics at Santa Rosa Junior College and Loyola College of New Orleans. Currently he is on the faculty at Stanford Jazz Workshop and Jazzcamp West.

Read the rest of this entry »

Carol Robbins has played with a who’s who list of jazz and pop artists. Her specialty is the jazz harp. Carol has been studying harp since the age of ten. She eventually became a student of the pioneering harpist Dorthy Ashby. Carol has release three CDs and her latest “Jazz Play” is a CD of original compositions. Robbins is play with her group, Billy Childs’ Jazz Chamber Ensemble and with Bitter:Sweet. Here her talk about the jazz harp with host Melanie Berzon.

Read the rest of this entry »