SF Jazz Calender, Lots of great stuff in here!

October 15, 2009 by events2
Filed under San Francisco Salsa Clubs

27th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival Presents

Omara Portuondo
Tuesday, October 20, 8PM
Palace of Fine Arts Theatre
$35/$55/$80 Premium

3301 Lyon (at Bay), San Francisco, 94123

A living legend for decades in her native Cuba, Omara Portuondo finally gained international fame as part of Buena Vista Social Club. Born in Havana in 1930, Portuondo first entered show business as a dancer at the city’s famous cabaret Tropicana. Soon afterwards, she embarked on a singing career that earned her the sobriquet “la novia del filin” (literally, the “fiancée of feeling”). Portuondo’s reputation only increased during the ‘50s through the ‘70s, singing with some of the most important and beloved Cuban bands of the time such as Cuarteto d’Aida and Orquesta Aragon. But it was her 1996 duet with vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer on “Veinte Años” for Buena Vista Social Club that introduced her to U.S. audiences. Two critically-acclaimed solo albums for World Circuit and sold-out international tours followed. Her latest release, 2008’s Gracias, celebrates her sixth decade as an entertainer. For her first U.S. tour since 2004, she revisits the romantic Afro-Cuban boleros and Brazilian-inspired jazz that first made her a star.

27th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival Presents

Omar Sosa Quartet featuring Tim Eriksen;
John Santos Sextet

Thursday, October 22, 7:30PM
Herbst Theatre
$25/$45/$65 Premium
Pre-Concert Talk with John Santos

401 Van Ness Avenue (at McAllister), San Francisco, 94102

(866) 920 – 5299, www.sfjazz.org

A double dose of Afro-Caribbean soul pairs two of the most high profile bandleaders in Latin American music. Born in the city of Camagüey, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa arrived in the Bay Area in 1995 after two years in Ecuador, providing a jolt of creative energy to the local scene while honing an unprecedented blend of sacred Afro-Cuban chants, Ecuadoran rhythms, hip-hop and post-bop improvisation. Based in Barcelona for the past decade, Sosa expands his musical travelogue on his latest album Across the Divide, incorporating old-time American sounds from Appalachia. Tim Eriksen, the leading proponent of “northern roots,” joins Sosa on fiddle, banjo, guitar and vocals for a unique global gumbo. Sosa shares the bill with percussionist John Santos, a frequent collaborator who has been a galvanizing force on the Bay Area Latin music scene since the mid-1970s.

A visionary bandleader, producer and educator, Santos is a four-time Grammy® Award-nominee who is always looking to make new connections between Afro-Caribbean musical forms. Over the past three decades, he’s performed and recorded with many of the giants in jazz and Latin music, including Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Bebo Valdés, Eddie Palmieri, Francisco Aguabella, Max Roach and Chocolate Armenteros. Lately Santos has focused on his beautifully calibrated sextet, which showcases some of the region’s finest Latin jazz musicians.

27th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival Presents

Gonzalo Rubalcaba Quintet

Friday, October 23, 8:00PM
Herbst Theatre
$30/$50/$70 Premium

401 Van Ness Avenue (at McAllister), San Francisco, 94102

(866) 920 – 5299, www.sfjazz.org

From awe-inspiring percussive excursions to intricately constructed rhapsodic flights, piano virtuoso Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s music travels on an extraordinary arc. The scion of an illustrious Cuban musical family, Rubalcaba gained fame on the American jazz scene in the early 1990s with his relentlessly syncopated performances. But in recent years, he’s developed an intensely lyrical body of compositions marked by his rigorous attention to structure and exquisite dynamic control. He still delivers dazzling passages that seem to span the entire history of Cuban music, but now he also slows down to savor the melodies. After nearly a dozen stellar albums for Blue Note, Rubalcaba released his most captivating CD yet last year with Avatar, a quintet session that marks his first foray with a cast of younger musicians. He brings the same amazing band to San Francisco, featuring Cuban saxophonist Yosvany Terry, a groundbreaking bandleader in his own right, and rising trumpet star Michael Rodriguez, who made his SFJAZZ debut last year with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra.

27th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival Presents

Poncho Sanchez

Saturday, October 24, 8:00PM
Herbst Theatre

Non-Members: $30/$50/$70 Premium
Members: $22/$37/$52 Premium

401 Van Ness Avenue (at McAllister), San Francisco, 94102

(866) 920 – 5299, www.sfjazz.org

Conga king Poncho Sanchez leads one of the most high-profile Latin jazz bands from his home in Los Angeles, but his ties to Northern California run deep. Sanchez recorded two memorable live albums at Kimball’s East in Emeryville, and spent eight formative years with pioneering Bay Area vibraphonist Cal Tjader. Since taking up Tjader’s mantle 30 years ago, Sanchez has become a Latin jazz icon, a crowd-pleasing bandleader whose formidable combo alternates between dance–inducing mambo beats, scorching salsa soul and tightly arranged jazz numbers. His latest CD, Raise Your Hand, continues a brilliant run at the Concord label group, where they have released 22 albums by the burly conguero.

27th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival Presents

Alfredo Rodríguez

Sunday, October 25, 7:00PM
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
$25 GA

50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

(866) 920 – 5299, www.sfjazz.org

Alfredo Rodríguez, 24, is the latest piano sensation from Cuba, and his career is taking off with a little help from music mogul Quincy Jones. A major force as a player and producer in Havana by his late teens, Rodríguez got his big break in 2006 when he landed a gig at the Montreux Jazz Festival and unexpectedly received permission to attend. Determined to seek greater opportunity, he made the painful decision to defect to the U.S. last January. Like earlier Cuban keyboard maestros Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Chucho Valdes, Rodríguez is steeped in the European classical tradition, Cuban popular music and modern jazz. His Bay Area debut tops off an auspicious year including a recording session produced by Jones and riveting performances at SXSW and the Playboy Jazz Festival.

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