Category Archives: Music
A Berkeley High star-turned-rapper takes tumble
When Nathan Simmons graduated from Berkeley High School in 2003, he was lauded as an example of a student who seemed destined to go far.
Simmons had been a leader at Berkeley High. He played on the varsity basketball and tennis teams, took many AP classes, got mostly As, and served a semester as student body president. Half-white and half-black, Simmons had been selected by the administration to attend a conference in Cleveland Heights on the achievement gap, an appointment that garnered him mentions in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Californian, and the Daily Planet.
And then there was his acceptance to Harvard.
“When I first got there I was on the Harvard trip — like, I’m gonna do this shit, I’m gonna get a great job, and I’m gonna be living my life,” Simmons told the East Bay Express in April. “Somewhere along the way, that changed.” … Continue reading »
Berkeley High sets new world record for Soul Train dance
More than 300 Berkeley High students stayed after school on Monday to try and set a new world record for the longest Soul Train dance line.
The students, along with some faculty, staff, and alumni attempted to enter into the Guinness Book of World Records by having 211 people dance their way through a central courtyard at Berkeley High. And according to a certificate presented to the group, they did it.
“Berkeley High School set a Soul Train Guinness World Record today (November 14, 2011) by having 211 dancers dance down the “Soul Train,” school spokesman Mark Coplan wrote in an email. “I was number 296, and there were three people after me, so the numbers were strong. It was the time it took to herd all of us together (4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.) that made it difficult for everyone to stay for the final count, so a lot more participated. Great job Berkeley High!” … Continue reading »
Black Sabbath (not that one) and Abraham Inc in Berkeley
When it comes to exploring interesting music, this week is good for the Jews.
Tonight, Josh Kun presents “Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black Jewish Relations” at the JCC East Bay, a mind-expanding excursion into little known territory where African-American artists interpreted Jewish liturgical and secular Yiddish material. The director of USC’s Popular Music Project, Kun is an incisive critic and scholar who is a founding member of the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation, which compiled and produced the multimedia presentation “Black Sabbath” that ran last year at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.
On Sunday, Cal Performances presents Abraham Inc., a collaboration spearheaded by clarinetist David Krakauer, trombonist and bandleader Fred Wesley and accordionist and beat architect Socalled. The Montreal-based Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin) grew up grooving to Wesley’s insistently funky riffs on classic James Brown tracks sampled by hip hop artists, and he arranged a meeting in 2006 between Krakauer, a frequent creative partner, and Wesley. … Continue reading »
A love fest in Berkeley for local jazz legend Merrilee Trost
As the mother of seven daughters who started going through high school in the 1960s, Merrilee Trost thought she had hit on a foolproof plan to help keep the kids away from drugs. Born on the eve of the 1929 stock market crash, she herself had grown up in Kansas City, Mo. soaking up the riffing, rollicking blues of the Count Basie Orchestra while nursing a cola.
“I got the crazy notion that if they could hear some really good music, they could get into it without being high,” Trost recalls with a laugh from her home in Alameda. “It never occurred to me that jazz was synonymous with drugs.” … Continue reading »
In Berkeley: Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette
Listen to Keith Jarrett playing Paris Concert while you read our review
Every performance by pianist Keith Jarrett comes freighted with outsized expectations. One of jazz’s most popular and influential pianists and composers since the early 1970s, Jarrett performs at Zellerbach Hall on Saturday with his “Standards Trio” featuring sublime bassist Gary Peacock and ingenious drummer Jack DeJohnette, a prolific ensemble that’s recorded a series of often ravishing live albums for ECM.
As the group’s nickname implies, the trio is a vehicle for exploring American Songbook standards and modern jazz staples, rather than for Jarrett’s original compositions or the extended extemporaneous improvisation captured on his 1975 monster hit album “The Köln Concert.”
At his best, Jarrett can reach astonishing heights of lyricism propelled by DeJohnette’s feathery caress of his cymbals, though recent Bay Area performances have been hit or miss affairs. At some concerts, half a set passed before the trio hit its stride and found its way into a startlingly beautiful place. But much of the drama surrounding a Jarrett performance is temperamental rather than musical. Famously irascible on stage, the pianist has been known to stop playing mid-tune if distracted by an offending cough during a pianissimo passage. He’s also not shy about critiquing his instrument if he finds it unsatisfactory (take note Cal Performances). … Continue reading »
Nell Robinson: A little bit of Berkeley bluegrass
When Hilary Perkins was trying to think of what she could give to her husband as a 5th wedding anniversary present, she was stumped. Her spouse, Skip Battle, was an extremely successful businessman who had almost anything he could want, so no simple trinket would do.
Perkins decided she would sing him a song, even though she was so unsure of her voice she generally only sang out loud in her car. She selected the song “Forever & Ever, Amen,” by Randy Travis and belted it out in front of the group of friends who had gathered for the occasion.
“You have never seen Skip Battle look more shocked and surprised,” said Perkins. “He was floored. He loved it and got up and finished it with me.”
Perkins was even more surprised than Battle. While she had been terrified before her performance began, once she was on stage she found herself having more fun than she had had in years. … Continue reading »
Junius Courtney Big Band: Spirited in the right ways
When an ensemble keeps performing after the death of its namesake leader, it’s known as a ghost band. Though descriptive rather than pejorative, the term often carries a whiff of the dismissive, as if a musical legacy should be interred with its creator (things work differently in the world of dance, where no one seems interested in tossing dirt on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater).
The Junius Courtney Big Band might be a ghost orchestra, but it’s spirited … Continue reading »
Berkeley filmmaker’s movie on Latino legal pioneer to air
Abby Ginzberg gave up the legal profession decades ago, but never left it behind.
A documentary filmmaker in Berkeley, Ginzburg has focused her lens on some of the best legal minds of the past 50 years. Her films have highlighted a prominent civil rights lawyers and a federal judge, as well as examining a crusading legal clinic and other advocates for social justice.
Ginzberg’s latest documentary, Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice, takes a look … Continue reading »
Berkeley High’s Kehlani and PopLyfe fall at final AGT hurdle
Berkeley High junior Kehlani Parrish and her group PopLyfe reached the final four of America’s Got Talent this week. But the six-member group was the first to be voted off on last night’s results show.
Despite that disappointment, PopLyfe had a thrilling performance of “Higher Ground” with Stevie Wonder on the show. When told they would be performing with Wonder, the usually composed Parrish was clearly thrilled. “He’s the reason I started singing,” she said.
Following the performance of … Continue reading »
New Yorker illustrator enlivens Cal Performances programs
When concertgoers attend Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in the Zellerbach Hall tomorrow night, the opening performance of this year’s Cal Performances season, they’ll encounter famed choreographer Mark Morris in the novel role of conductor.
They’ll also catch the first sight of the whimsical caricatures by Tom Bachtell that will be gracing the Cal Performances programs this season.
Bachtell’s style is well known from his illustrations for The New Yorker‘s Talk of the Town, which he has … Continue reading »
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