Archive for the ‘Live Music’ Category

 The Los Angeles Flamenco Festival launches in the South Bay

Omayra Amaya and her Flamenco Dance Company will be among the performers at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center this weekend during the 1st Annual Los Angeles Flamenco Festival.

by Mark McDermott

It began as a wandering song of sorrow. It became music of shared suffering and defiant survival.

Flamenco may be the world’s most mysterious music. It is not so much a musical genre as a wild river of song, one that traces its origins back to India, perhaps as far back as 1,000 years ago. Historians believe that the Roma people – Gypsies, as we would later know them – found their way to Spain around the turn of the 10th century. Some believe they came from the caste of the “untouchables” in India, and by 1492 they were outcasts once again, on the run with the Moors and the Jews as the Inquisition sought to wipe out the non-Christian peoples of Spain.

The music that began to emerge from the hills of southern Spain around that time had elements of Jewish laments and Moorish singing while some of the accompanying dance movements were reminiscent of Hindi dances of South Asia.

 The river that is Flamenco has been meandering ever since.

And so it should come as little surprise that the 1st Annual Los Angeles Flamenco Festival has come to Redondo Beach by way of a Korean from Hawaii and includes a Japanese guitar virtuoso named Jose, a master player from Israel who studied in the ancient caves of Andalusia, and full-blooded gypsy dancer whose name is Flamenco royalty.

Flamenco, after all, is about movement.

The call  

It was 1996, and Mitch Chang was studying classical guitar at the University of Hawaii when his professor, Lisa Smith, asked him if he’d accompany some Flamenco dancers as they practiced.

“I don’t think I even like it,” he told her.

 She insisted. “Knowing your personality, your style, and your temperament, I think it would fit you,” Smith said.

“Huh,” Chang said.

If Chang didn’t know the power and passion of Flamenco yet, he caught a glimpse when he arrived at the rehearsal and discovered the guitar player who preceded him had run off to Vegas to marry with one of the Flamenco dancers. Later, the guitarist he trained to take his place with the Flamenco troupe would do the same.

“So I was kind of the left-out loser,” Chang said. 

But Flamenco gave him flight in another way, perhaps no less romantic: in it, Chang found a new freedom of expression. When he played Flamenco, everything he felt seemed somehow to pour through the strings of his guitar.

“For me, all my happiness, sadness, my anger, it all combines into one and that is how it makes me feel,” Chang said. “Not to sound corny, but I think it just kind of makes me feel, period.”

Chang became one of the better Flamenco players on the islands, and began promoting shows that brought Flamenco performers in from all over the world. Over the next few years, he produced three concerts, culminating in a big show at the revered 1,400 seat Hawaii Theater. He had a revelation as the sold out crowd lined up outside.

“The highlight for me was walking around outside that theater and seeing old people, young people, all kind of races, surfers…It was amazing,” Chang said. “Flamenco really touches people, you know. I think there is something about the mystery and the power of it. Even if you can’t understand the words, it’s very captivating, very intriguing.”

The call of Flamenco eventually took him to the mainland, to San Francisco, where a rich Flamenco community exists. Later, he moved to Southern California. Over the past two years, he began promoting festivals again – in particular, the successful Hawaiian Slack Key Festival at Redondo Beach. This week, he has put together what he considers an historic gathering of Flamenco artists for a three day festival that features workshops, two shows at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, and a meet and greet with the artists and intimate performances at Sangria in Hermosa Beach.

The gunslinger, the master, and royalty  

It has been said that Jose Tanaka has the fastest right hand in the West. But he came from the Far East.

Jose Tanaka is now considered “the fast right hand in the West.” He grew up in a flamenco family in Kyoto Japan

Tanaka grew up Flamenco in Kyoto, Japan. His parents were both Flamenco artists – the reason why he was perhaps the only native born Japanese kid named Jose when he was growing up. His family ran a guitar shop, which they lived above.

“Every day, going to school, I would go through the store to go outside or to come home, and I was always exposed to not only Flamenco but jazz and blues players, and of course all the guys working for my dad,” he said. “They were all showing me things.”

As a teenager, he was drawn to the electric guitar, and after high school he moved to Los Angeles to study at the Musicians Institute and pursue a rock n roll dream. But after a few years, he was drawn back to the music that he’d grown up with. He saw the legendary Paco de Lucia perform and had an epiphany. Flamenco, he realized, was the music that was deep inside him.

“I thought, I should do something with the music that only I can do,” Tanaka recalled.

He rededicated himself to Flamenco, and as he began immersing itself back in its rhythms, he made a decision. 

“I felt like I was home,” Tanaka said. “That is it. And after that, I quit my teaching job and everything, and I went to Spain.”

In Spain, he took formal lessons, but most crucially, he sought out one some consider the deepest home of Flamenco – the intimate backroom gatherings called “juergas.”

“It wasn’t an easy thing to get into those juergas,” he recalled. “Sometimes it’s something they want to among themselves, so it’s kind of hidden…So you have to make friends and you have to be respectful in the way you do things in order just to be there.”

He watched, and listened, and learned. He returned to the United States as a Flamenco artist. Tanaka has since toured the world as both a soloist and an accompanist and released a critically acclaimed recording called “Gypsy’s Dream.” He is known for his fast, percussive style of playing, and for a somewhat subtle American influence he has brought to the music.

“In my case, I took American music into Flamenco,” he said.

Adam Del Monte is a virtuoso guitarist who has recently recorded a groundbreaking album called Asi Lo Siento Yo that features some of the most illustrious gypsy players in Spain.

Adam Del Monte was born in Israel but spent two years as very young child in Spain where he heard the music that would become his life. He knew it from the beginning.

“It was incredible,” Del Monte said. “For that very reason, my cultural identity is Flamenco…I completely identify myself through Flamenco – that is my true voice of expression.”

Del Monte returned to Spain as a young man and studied in the famed Sacromonte caves of Granada – a Gypsy district where the old traditions are passed on. Among his teachers was the legendary Pepe Habichuela. He also studied more formally at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. The combination of both his training has enabled him to stride through two worlds that are rarely bridged – he is an accomplished classical guitarist as well as a Flamenco artist.

Omayra Amaya’s name alone sends shivers down the spines of those who live in the Flamenco world.

She is the grandniece of a woman many consider the greatest Flamenco dancer who ever lived, Carmen Amaya. She was an artist who both revolutionized the dance form itself and brought it to the largest audiences it has ever known, starring in Hollywood movies and on Broadway in the 1940s and performing for the likes of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

Carmen Amaya died young in 1963, but her family carried on her tradition. Omayra Amaya was born on the road with her parents, both Flamenco artists, and the first time she was on stage she was literally crawling, interrupting her parent’s performances as a very young child who wanted to join in the movement. 

She doesn’t crawl anymore. Omayra’s dance company is at the forefront of the Flamenco world, and has further broadened it, bringing together strands of jazz and even modern dance while remaining true to the deep Gypsy traditions.

The Boston Globe has called her performances mesmerizing. “I dare anyone to take his or her eyes of Omayra when she is performing the Flamenco she was born to dance,” the Globe wrote. 

Amaya remains deferential to the memory of Carmen Amaya, however, stopping short of indentifying herself as carrying on such a vaunted tradition.

“I am definitely carrying on a tradition, but I wouldn’t dare to put myself in her company,” Amaya said. “She was really a genius, and she really reached a higher level than we can imagine….but I definitely feel a connection to her, because Flamenco is my way of life.” ER

For more information or for tickets, see www.laflamencofestival.com. The festival begins Friday at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center

Toad the Wet Sprocket plays Brixton

Toad the Wet Sprocket, who play at Brixton Thursday night.

by Mark McDermott

In the book of Toad, there are many things.

There are hobbits and Buddha’s, chickens and butterflies, an angry ode to a political prisoner, an upbeat meditation on fleeing nature of happiness and the singularly strange song of a janitor.

“I get around,” said Glen Phillips, the lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket and a prolific songwriter whose body of work continues to spiral into new musical galaxies as a solo artist.

Toad the Wet Sprocket was, and occasionally still is, a rock and roll band. But Toad was also an unusually varied enterprise, an adventure, and a fleeting phenomenon in its own right. The band was formed by Phillips and three high school buddies in Santa Barbara in 1986 and by the mid-1990s had catapulted into national rock stardom, scoring hits with songs such as “All I Want” and “Walk on the Ocean.”

And then in 1998, Toad abruptly went away. The band broke up, somewhat acrimoniously, despite having a large and devoted following and broad critical acclaim. They have reunited sporadically over the years, including tonight, when the band plays at Brixton as a part of a short ten-city tour.

Phillips, who has become a cherished cult figure as a folkish solo performer and collaborator (with members of Nickel Creek) in the band WPA, said he appreciates the opportunity to return to the rock altar.

“It’s cool to come back and play,” he said. “When I really only had the one outlet, I really rebelled against the nature of rock. I didn’t want to be so broad, I didn’t like the idea of doing all these simple gestures – basically, if you told people to get excited, they would get really excited. I wanted to trick people into being really excited, or I wanted to make them think, or get them on all these other emotional levels. Now it’s kind of like, wow, at a rock show you can really push these buttons in a different way. It’s the difference between playing guitar in a parlor and a pipe organ in a cathedral. It’s a different animal.

Phillips was 16 when Toad formed. He essentially came of age in the band. Phillips said he finds it interesting to return to a mode of life he didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

“Unless you really need to be a rock star, it’s an incredibly counterproductive thing to have happen,” he said. “I think there is a fantasy people have that it will somehow feed you and fill you, but the reality of it is a much stranger experience. I mean, there is beautiful access, beautiful experiences and some really wonderful things about it, but it also creates incredibly unconstructive expectations about how the world acts. It’s been great to be out of it for ten years and to be able to step into it again as adults with a little gratitude and a little perspective and appreciation for the bizarre kind of chance to lead a very different life than most people get to lead.”

“We’ve been humbled,” he added. “We have been as humbled as anyone can get. We are working for a living and working very hard, and we have gratitude for how incredibly lucky we were – frankly, how lucky anyone is to even come close at making a living at doing what they love. It’s a really, really rare thing.”

It may be more hip to be an underground star of a sort, but it’s also much more difficult. The bottom line is that indie artists struggle to make ends meet.

“I spent probably a large part of the last 10 years feeling entitled, like I did this thing early on and people really responded well, instead of realizing what a statistically improbable-lottery-winning experience that was,” he said. “I thought that was how life was supposed to work, and I’ve been schooled. We were very lucky, which is not to take away from how hard we worked. And the fact that I think we did some very good work.”

Toad the Wet Sprocket’s biggest hit, “All I Want,” somewhat appropriately, was about the quickly passing nature of happiness itself.

“It sounds like the happiest song in the world, but once again, it’s about how fleeing happiness is,” he said. “I know a couple people who seem to live for the most part in that state, but it’s rare. To me, it’s more of a moment to moment kind of thing…” ER

Toad the Wet Sprocket play Brixton March 11. 8 p.m. See www.brixtonsouthbay.com for tickets and www.toadthewetsprocket.com for more info on the band.

Allen Sanford is a key figure in the beach cities revitalized music scene. Photo by Mark McDermott

Live Music: Saint Rocke

The story goes that once upon a time in a bygone era the South Bay had a happening live music scene. Those were the days of the Strand and Concerts by the Sea and a bunch of other clubs that no longer exist.

Bygone, be gone: live music is enjoying a resurgence in the South Bay, and Saint Rocke is leading the charge. The venue, owned by the same group of young local entrepreneurs that operate the Union Cattle Company, opened two years ago in the vastly revamped former Pitcher House locale on PCH in Hermosa Beach. Saint Rocke has since established itself not only as the premiere music venue locally – as recognized by BOB voters – but has also helped put the South Bay music scene back on the map.

Owner Allen Sanford said the reason voters chose Saint Rocke for the BOB award isn’t really about what he and his partners (which include his brother Jed, Robert Bogdonavich, and Brian Macias) have done in these two years.

“The people that deserve the credit are always the artists, man,” Sanford said. “All we try to do is make sure the artists that play here get seen in the best possible light. We give them the tools – the lighting, the sound, the stage – and then it’s all up to them….We definitely really care about the artists, so we built a place they can actually call their own.”

Nationally touring artists such as Julian Marley, Tab Benoit, and Rebelution have graced Saint Rocke’s stage, but perhaps what the venue has become even better known for is a place to catch emerging artists, including leading lights from the LA singer-songwriter scene such as the White Buffalo, Mieko, Jay Nash, and Chris Pierce. Arguably the heart of Saint Rocke is its weekly Wednesday night Sound Box, a jam of local professional musicians headed by Steve Aguilar that never fails to reach spontaneous combustion.

Saint Rocke is also breaking boundaries, broadcasting live, high-definition webcasts of its nightly performances dubbed “iRocke.” The Net venue has attracted 2 million viewers and has become an attraction for artists that normally play far larger venues – upcoming acts include No Effects, Pepper, and Kottonmouth Kings.

“We are breaking down some walls,” Sanford said. “It’s starting to rock ‘n’ roll.”

The future of music in the South Bay, Sanford argues, looks good and sounds even better.

“Long live music, man,” he said. “Long live the art of performance.”

Saint Rocke: 142 PCH, HB. (310) 372-0035. www.saintrocke.com

Runner-up: Brixton. 100 Fisherman’s Wharf, RB. (310) 406-1931. www.brixtonsouthbay.com

Weeds star Kevin Nealon is one of the top commedians who make Comedy & Magic arguably the best comedy club in the world.

 

Best Comedy Club: Comedy & Magic Club

Who’d have guessed that readers found this their favorite place to go for humor and sleight-of-hand? Perhaps it has something to do with all those world famous comedians like Robin Williams and Bill Maher dropping by, not to mention Sunday night regular Jay Leno.

Owner Mike Lacey is well known for hosting local charities in both his main room, and adjacent Live at the Lounge music club. On March 23 the club will host four of the biggest names in comedy, Kevin Nealon, Rosannee Barr, Sarah Silverman and Garry Shandling in a benefit for comedian “Big” Joe Kenny, who was recently diagnosed with skin cancer.

Comedy and Magic Club: 1018 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach. (310) 372-1193, or comedyandmagicclub.com.

Runner-up: Easy Reader. Talk about sleight-of-hand, their writers spin floss into gold every week. You can’t beat that!

Sangria owner Kevin Barry (right) keeps his club jumping.

Best Club to move artistically: Sangria

Sometimes it’s location, location, location, but at Sangria (in addition to location, of course), it’s also ambience, ambience, ambience. Our host Michael Santomieri points out that there are three different atmospheres, separated dance floors and mixed music genres, plus lots of room to spread out, and an indoor/outdoor feel with the remote-controlled roof on the interior (or is that exterior?) patio.

Santomieri also says that every major sports team in Los Angeles has a Sangria DJ at the helm. Jeremy Roueche does the AVP, the Clippers and Dodgers; Troy Doram does the Ducks, and Omar Trujillo did the Kings and has dropped in for the Lakers. In short, this is the place to relax and to try out those new moves on the dance floor.

Sangria: 68 Pier Avenue, HB. (310) 376-4412, or sangriahermosa.com.

Runner-up: Twelfth and Highland, Manhattan Beach, 304 Twelfth St., MB. (310) 545-1881.

Best Juke Box: Shellback Tavern

Other than the food and the companionship, what’s better than walking into a bar or dining establishment and being able to hear your favorite music? A live band won’t always get around to honoring your request, but a juke box is your servant, your personal valet, and always at your beck and call.

“We take great pride in all aspects of the music played at Shellback Tavern,” says owner Bob Beverly. “Our main music system consists of the latest Touch Tunes Juke Box, and this model allows for thousands of song choices.

“Over the years we have learned what titles to offer and which ones to block. Our playlist and music categories were hand-selected by me and L.A. juke box owner Mike Pearlman. Our manager, Rico DeAlba, also collects song requests daily from customers to be added. Maintaining the proper music balance,” Beverly concludes, “is an ongoing effort of the whole staff.”

Shellback Tavern: 116 Manhattan Beach Blvd., MB. (310) 376-7857

Runner-up: Johnny’s Dive, 100 “J” Fisherman’s Wharf (adjacent to Brixton), RB. (310) 406-1931

Jeremey Buck and the Bang return to town March 27 for a show at Zen Lounge.

Best Original Band: Jeremy Buck & The Bang

This is the third year running that Jeremy Buck & The Bang have been acknowledged as our favorite live band, and their weekly residences at The Lighthouse Café and Saint Rocke have brought them even more of a following.

During the past year the group received a great deal of attention after their single, “Just For One Night,” was picked up by radio station 100.3 FM The Sound. A music video for the song showcases a classic parody of “Rock of Love” with Bret Michaels and “The Dating Game” of the late 1960s. Right now the band is touring, playing the Midwest for the Men’s Basketball Big Ten Championships and the NCAA Final Four Championships in Indianapolis. Their next local gig is Saturday, March 27, at Zen Lounge in Hermosa Beach. For visuals and other information, Jeremeybuck.com.

Runner up: The Darlings

“The time has come” for the Imposters

Best Underage Band: The Imposters

“We’ve been going at it for a bit more than four years now,” says Nickolai Preiss, “and things just always seem to be improving.” Since this time last year, when they were first voted Best Underage Band, The Imposters have released a vinyl LP, “The Time Has Come,” and toured on both sides of the country. Next month they’ll release “Bus Stop Blues,” a 45 rpm, and plans are afoot to record a new album this summer. The group has already written most of the material, and Preiss says, “It has a broad reach across the genre spectrum… It is definitely going to be our most expansive and elaborate album to date.”

Runner-up: Local Hate

DJ Dik got his start underage, sneaking in the back door of Sangria.

It’s a perfect resumé for the job: born and raised in the South Bay, high school in Redondo, college in Hawaii, and he currently resides a block from the Hermosa Beach Pier. What more could we want from our favorite spinmaster?

Best DJ: DJ Dik

DJ Dik – or Richard Podgurski if he gets pulled over – seems to be everywhere at once. He currently deejays at Waterman’s (formerly Dragon) and Sharkeez, and occasionally he’ll pop up at Sangria, Twelfth and Highland, and Brixton. That’s just locally. You may find him coming or going from San Diego to Hollywood, Portland to New Orleans to Hawaii, with a few stops in between for private events and fashion shows. And when he’s not in the clubs? Just look outside and you’ll see him surfing, skating, or playing volleyball.

He says the music he plays is diverse and can accommodate any venue, but what makes him stand out, in his opinion, is that he’s not afraid to play something you’ve never heard, or to rescue an oldie that packs a punch marked “2010.” His selections depend on the atmosphere more than they do on music charts or radio. Plus he’s racked up 10 years of experience, beginning when he was 17 and was sneaked through the back door of Sangria and into the DJ booth. In a sense, he’s never left. More at DJDIK.com.

Runner up: DJ Megs

The Rescues play Saint Rocke Tuesday night

Indie supergroup The Rescues play Saint Rocke

by Mark McDermott

The plight of the solo singer songwriter is stark. Alone on a stage, night after night, accompanied by a guitar or a piano, one voice raised in song. It is a soulful but sometimes lonely musical endeavor.

Thus The Rescues gathered: four singer songwriters, all successful in their own right, came together to form a band. Over the past year, the buzz around The Rescues has slowly built – they signed a record deal with Universal Republic, scored song placement on Grey’s Anatomy, and performed a series of sold-out shows in Hollywood (one which had scalpers selling $10 tickets for $300).  A self-titled four-song EP released this week gives a small but tantalizing sample of what the buzz is about, demonstrating what happens when four adventurous, seriously skilled songwriters raise their voices together in song.

Beauty happens. The four voices of The Rescues – Kyler England, Rob Giles, Gabriel Mann, and Adrianne Gonzalez – soar together in swirling harmonies serving well-crafted songs that somehow both use pop conventions and simultaneously transcend them. The Rescues are the antidote to the manufactured pop band now in prevalence: all four are highly trained musicians, and it shows, but together, they also have a rare musical chemistry that can’t be taught or trained.

The Rescues, quite simply, fit.

“It’s pretty amazing and powerful,” said England in an interview last week. “It’s really cool to be a part of, because you just play your position, you just contribute your part, and then it comes together to make this thing that is way bigger than yourself. I think because all of us had been solo artists for a while, writing by ourselves, touring by ourselves and that kind of thing, this group is really special.”

The roots of The Rescues go back to the Berklee College of Music. England and Gonzalez met each other the vaunted school – one of the finest musical academies in the country – and Giles attended there a few years earlier. Each eventually made their way to LA and became staples of the local music scene. Along with Mann – who attended the University of Pennsylvania – they were part of a loosely affiliated group of musicians that sometimes shared billings and even occasionally contributed parts on each other’s records.

Mann, England, and Gonzalez formed an early version of The Rescues a few years ago, but it wasn’t until Giles joined a year-and-a-half ago that the group really began to cohere.

“It sounds cheesy but he kind of completed the group,” England said. “When the four of us were finally together, there was a balance in a way that wasn’t there before that allowed us to take it to a new level, where it is now.”

Certain patterns have seemingly become set in stone in the formation of pop bands. Basically, it goes like this: you have a drummer, a bass player, and either one or two guitar players and/or a keyboard player (horns are highly optional). There is one lead singer, maybe two occasionally.

This might explain why audiences may be somewhat disconcerted at what happens at The Rescues’ shows. All four band members sing lead. Instruments are shared. Giles frequently plays bass while at the same time kicking a foot drum. Sometimes an accordion makes an appearance in Mann’s hands, while England has taken to the ukulele with a gusto rarely seen in anyone with hit song aspirations (in this century).

“When all four of first started writing, three out of four of us when we played solo played acoustic guitar, and you just can’t have three jangly acoustic guitars all the time,” England said. “So I decided to pick up the ukulele because I felt like it was a good compliment. It’s in a much higher range and can kind of fill out a different sonic spectrum than the acoustic guitar. We are all striving to learn more instruments, so we can pass things around.”

“I debuted on drums at a gig at the Troubadour [last week],” she added. “I can’t even believe how fun it is to play drums – that is one of the things I’m trying to learn as well as bass. I highly recommend hitting stuff. It’s amazing.”

England said that the band’s openness to different instrumentation, as well as the many possibilities available in arranging two male and two female vocal lines, has allowed them to delve deeper into songwriting craft. All of their considerable musical resources are bent towards a single purpose. Everything is for the sake of the song.

“The cool thing is in most bands everyone has a very defined role,” she said. “There is a lead singer, there is a guitarist, and there is a bass player. For us, not as much…We blur the lines, and I think that brings the focus more on the song. It’s about the song and the vocals more so than so-and-so is wailing on the guitar solo, you know what I mean? It’s always about the song in our band, which I think is fun.”

Appropriately enough – given the band’s unusual musical freedom – the first song they wrote together is called “Let Loose the Horses.” On the very day the band first formally gathered to write, England received a phone call that inspired this song. Her brother, who lives in Colorado, had been forced to evacuate his home north of Boulder because of a fast-spreading brush fire. He called to tell her that he and his wife and their home had survived the fire unscathed. One image stuck with England, however – a neighboring rancher had been forced to let his horses run wild.

“The neighbor didn’t know if the horses were going to get burned up in the flames if they left them in the barn or in the fields, so they had to let the horses completely loose,” England said. “They opened up the gate and let them run, which is where that lyric comes from – they had to set them free to save them.”

“So I told my story when I got [to the band] because my brother had just called to tell me he was okay, and I was really emotional about it…The song just poured out after that because it got us thinking, what really matters in this world if everything you had did burn up? If you lose everything, what really matters? It is the people that you love, and that is the most important thing to focus on.”

It’s a strange thing that more bands haven’t used more voices over the years. When you think about rock history, some formative bands did so – think the Beatles, and later Fleetwood Mac and even Abba. There is a movement afoot towards a more vocally-based music – the Icelandic group Sugar Ros, for example, and Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear both have strong choral elements.  The Rescues both harmonize and also exchange verses, such as the lovely “You’re not Listening” and it gives the music a more theatrical storytelling aspect. And then there is the haunting, a cappella “My Heart With You,” a choral song which somehow sounds both contemporary and ancient.

“We wanted to write something that was a cappella so we could focus on the voice, because several of us are former a cappella geeks,” England said. “We wanted it to feel kind of timeless but also from another time, so that is why the lyrics have the tone of being kind of a period piece, and some of the lyrics the way they are phrased don’t sound completely modern. But we just sat in a room and wrote the melody and all the harmonies together as we went and it just kind of flew out of us and we just kept singing it together until it felt right. It’s an unusual song because it doesn’t have a meter to it – all the phrases are kind of rubato, so we have to really pay attention to each other…”

“It really is an exercise in listening to each other and coming together, as one voice.” ER

The Rescues play Saint Rocke March 9 with Honey Honey. 8 p.m. $10. For more information and song samples, see www.myspace.com/therescues.

Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers play Brixton Sunday night.

Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers play Brixton

by Mark McDermott

That damned harmonica kept following him around.

Rod Piazza was eleven years old. It was 1958, and his big brother took him to a club to see the legendary bluesman Jimmy Reed. The brothers ended up backstage, and Piazza’s brother introduced the little boy to Reed.

“This young man is trying to play guitar,” his brother told the bluesman.

Reed looked at the young Piazza and somehow saw that the boy needed something more than a guitar.
“He looks like he needs something to go with it,” Reed said.

He handed the boy one of his old harmonicas. Piazza kept the harp and messed around with it from time to time, but he still focused his energies on guitar. Then, when Piazza was a teenager, the Rolling Stones happened, and all of a sudden everyone was looking back into those old blues sources. A blues scene popped up around Piazza’s hometown, Riverside, but most of the kids were hellbent on starting up rock and roll bands.
Piazza was still messing around on guitar when he and his buddies were sleeping on a beach one night and someone started playing harmonica. It caught Piazza’s attention, and he took the harp and tried to play a few things. His friend promptly gave him the harmonica. A few months later, he got a call to join a band, but when he showed up for rehearsals, he discovered they already had a guitar player who was better than he was.

“So they said just blow harp and sing,” Piazza said. “And I never did play guitar any more after that.”

The harmonica finally got him, and it would soon blow Piazza into a different world. He formed his own band, the Dirty Blues Band, in the mid-1960s, cut a couple records and generally was considered a young-up-and-comer. But then one night he went to the famed LA venue the Ash Grove to see a man named George “Harmonica” Smith play. Smith never won much renown among the general public, but among musicians he was widely considered the best harmonica player this side of the Little Walter, the revolutionary harp player who reinvented the instrument in part by amplifying it.

Piazza was feeling pretty cocky. He sat at a table right in front of the stage, and before the show, when Smith was setting up, Piazza boldly asked the bluesman if he could play some harp. “Yeah,” Smith said, without even looking up. Then the show started, and Smith came out blowing hot. Piazza had never heard anything sound quite like it, and he immediately regretted his bluster. Sure enough, halfway through the set, Smith leaned down handed the harmonica to Piazza. The kid hesitated. He was scared witless.

“Come on,” Smith said. “You said you could blow, so blow.”

Piazza blew. And he nailed it. Smith was visibly shocked, and his longtime guitar player – Pee Wee Creighton – broke into a huge smile. He asked Piazza his name.

“Rod! You are outta sight!” Pee Wee said, loudly, on stage.

“Him and George were always at odds, one bailing the other out of jail, always at odds over who was running the band, so he wanted to build me up in George’s eyes, acting like, ‘Rod’s great; George, you’re nothing,’” Piazza later told Blues Revue magazine. “So I went and sat down, feelin’really lucky.”

But “Harmonica” Smith wasn’t done with Piazza, not by a long shot. “Let’s see what he can do with Big Mama,” Smith said, and he pulled out a chromatic harmonica and again told Piazza to get on the stage.
The chromatic harmonica is a different beast. It’s bigger and more complicated, using a button-activated slide bar that redirects air. Chromatic harps are used in classical and jazz and by the only the very best players – such as Little Walter and George “Harmonica” Smith.

Piazza couldn’t say no, but he could barely play the thing. He flailed around a bit, and Smith was satisfied. He asked the crowd to give the young man a round of applause and ushered him back to his seat. School was out.

Piazza thought that was the end of his “Harmonica” Smith experience. But a few months later, he had his own gig at the Ash Grove, opening up for Howlin’ Wolf. He had his eyes closed during a solo when he heard the crowd erupt, and he opened his eyes to find Smith on the stage, staring at him balefully. It was his turn to do the upstaging, which he promptly did, but the two also played together so well that backstage Howlin’ Wolf got mightily pissed off – the two harp players were an opening act that was a tough thing to follow.
After the show, Smith told Piazza they should start a band.

“Two harps?” Piazza said.

“Yeah, man,” Smith said. “I’ll call you when I get off the road with Wolf.”

Piazza didn’t really believe him, but sure enough he got a call a few months later, and thus was born Bacon Fat, the band he and Smith formed. Piazza was all of 18 years old. Smith took him to the “black clubs” where few white kids dared to tread. This was when giants still walked the Earth, and suddenly Piazza was in their midst.

“Down in Watts, I met everyone else,” Piazza said. “Pee Wee Creighton, Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Big Mama Thornton, Eddie Vinson, Lowell Fulsom – everybody that was in LA, and we would either back them up or be in their band. And then I ended up going on that first five week road trip with Big Mama and George Smith when I was 18 or 19 years old, seeing everybody back there – Muddy Waters, Wolf, Albert King…Everybody was still around then, man, and you could get on these shows opening up for them. That is really what sculpted my future.”

He and Smith would play together only a few years, and Piazza may not have realized it at the time, but a torch was being handed to him.

“It was tough, I tell you having to follow him up there with the same harp, same amp,” Piazza recalled. “You know, and I’d sit there and go, ‘Man what is different when he’s playing than when I am playing?’”

And so Piazza learned. Smith and his entire generation are almost all gone, but their sound, their legacy, is very much alive. Piazza is now one of the blues elders, and through him and a handful of other players, Little Walter and “Harmonica” Smith are on stage every night.

“When you are a kid, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, you know…I just figured they would be around, which was obviously not the case,” Piazza said. “I just thought it was normal, like this is how everybody does it. Now, looking back, all these guys that come and see me play, shit, they never saw George ‘Harmonica’ Smith, they never saw Wolf, never saw Muddy…”

Piazza and his wife, Honey, are among the current standard bearers of the blues. Honey is a boogie-woogie piano player, and their band, the Mighty Flyers, is one of the tightest, most swinging units in any genre of music. Between Rod and Honey, the band has been nominated for more of the prestigious W.C. Handy Awards – the Oscars of the blues – than any other act in history. Their sound encompasses a broad swath of blues territory – Honey’s striding piano runs bring to mind blues legend Otis Spann, while Piazza’s powerhouse sound takes what he learned from the old harp masters and injects it with a modern edge.

“I think what I’ve tried to do was take what I could play of Little Walter and what I learned from George and then what I felt and take it somewhere from there,” Piazza said.

Piazza said his sound was shaped in part by playing with those damned loud guitar players.

“It was shaped by playing all those festivals in the ‘80s and ‘90s with bands that had a loud guitar player that would come out there and be really strong, man, and it was easy to get that guitar up loud and you had to compete with that,” he said. “If you came out sounding kind of weak or not very forceful, you were soon forgotten.”

The result is a big sound that leads a band the way few harmonicas ever have.

“That is what I wanted to be able to do with the harp,” Piazza said. “I did not want to be hampered by the instrument I chose.”

Fellow blues harp player Mark Hummel has noted that harmonica playing has been underestimated for four decades. Once upon a time, during the Age of Little Walter, it was a respected instrument. But then Bob Dylan came along and used the harmonica in his haphazard way – more as a sound effect than an instrument – and suddenly every guitar strummer was blowing on a harp.

The fate of genuine harmonica players has been in decline ever since. Among those still blowing, Piazza is an acknowledged master, someone who has stylistically taken the instrument places it has never gone before.

“People don’t really know how hard it is to do what you do on that thing,” Piazza said. “People are always amazed when they hear that horn sound coming out of a harmonica. They don’t believe it. Maybe, like Hummel says, they are used to hearing just Bob Dylan.”

“That damned harp, man,” Piazza said. “I stuck with it. Because they think it’s the easiest to do, when in reality it’s probably the hardest instrument to make something good happen with. You are not only making it do what it is designed to do, but you are making it do what it isn’t designed to do. So you are not only a musician, but a magician, too – just to get out that damned sound…all the things you have to do to make that thing do what you want.”

Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers play Brixton Feb. 28. $10. See brixtonsouthbay.com or themightyflyers.com for more info.

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by Tom Fitt
Belgium is a cute little country with a population a few head above 10 million. About the size of Maryland, the terrain varies from coastal plains to rolling hills to the mountains of the Ardennes Forest in the south. When I say “coast,” I’m talking 40 miles along the North Sea – about the same amount of oceanfront as the drive from Marina del Rey to Palos Verdes along PCH.

Culturally and commercially, the Belgians contribute much to the lives of Americans and Western Europeans. What’s good? Exports include Belgian chocolate (mmmm), Belgian waffles (mmmm), Brussels sprouts (mmmm), ecstasy and cannabis (mmmm), plus diamonds and pharmaceuticals. (All this according to The World Factbook published by the CIA.)

A less controversial import is a smoky-voiced singer/songwriter who performs Friday at Live at the Lounge in Hermosa Beach. Sarah Bettens comes to town for one night, accompanied by her guitar and her trusted piano player, Clayton Senne, a young, accomplished songwriter in his own right. Bettens’ delivery is akin to a polished Bonnie Raitt, but more in tune, displaying a pleasance of tone with better phrasing. Okay, she doesn’t sound like Raitt, although she covers one of her songs. She’ll sing originals from her newest album, “Never Say Goodbye,” plus tunes from the alternative rock band K’s Choice, which she formed with her brother in Europe. Just for fun, Bettens will throw in a couple standards – she sounds wonderfully like Julie London – and some new compositions yet to be released.

This Kapellen, Belgium, native is as erudite in her speech as she is in her songwriting. She speaks with no noticeable accent. Is her singing always in English?

“Yes, except for a few special projects I’ve done in the past that were in Dutch. But English lyrics and music is what we grew up with and listened to in Belgium, so it just makes sense to me to create music in that language.”

Bettens still performs in Europe “quite a bit, actually. The bulk of my career is still based over there.” K’s Choice remains a viable musical entity on the Continent.

Presently, Bettens lives in Tennessee.  “I moved here for love.” What better reason? She didn’t choose the Volunteer State just to be close to Alfred’s on Beale Street.

“I’ve lived in the U.S. for 13 years, first in Santa Cruz, California, then in Atlanta for less than a year, and now here for about eight years,” said Bettens. Brother Gert and the rest of her family still live in Belgium.

Her first real performing gig came “when I was about 17. We (K’s Choice) got signed when I was 19.” Regarding songwriting, Bettens said she started learning during the infant stages of K’s Choice. “By the second record, I wrote about half the songs and I’ve been writing ever since. I love songwriting; I cannot imagine not doing it. Even if the career stops and no one is interested anymore, I will still be writing songs.”

She and brother Gert started K’s Choice in 1993. “Then we took a break [in 2003]. Both my brother and I made solo records, but we got back together and just finished recording a new K’s Choice album.”

On “Never Say Goodbye,” all songs are Bettens’ except for Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” and a cover of Arthur Hamilton’s “Cry Me a River.” The originals tell lyrical stories through comfortably flowing melodies over simple, yet thoughtful, harmonic patterns. Most of the songs are performed with acoustic guitar, piano, bass, drums and sometimes a single vocal harmony. Many ballads.

Onstage, Bettens plays guitar. “I dabble on piano, mostly just to write, but I’m not a piano player – I can barely call myself a guitar player. I’ve had no formal training on anything.”

What’s life’s balance between writing and performance?

“I get out and perform a lot, and we do the recording, too,” said Bettens. “To give you an idea, the last six months of 2009, I was home about one week every month.

“I write when I’m on the road, too, but I have a little studio downstairs at home with minimal equipment. It’s really fun to just go downstairs to write and experiment. It’s nice to be able to both perform and write. I love the writing, but I also appreciate the chance to play live and see how the music affects people. It’s good to have the chance to do both.”

The “Never Say Goodbye” collection was released in the U.S. “probably about a year ago.” Bettens’ career has also included work scoring films and commercials.

“When stuff comes along, it’s one of those things that you get opportunities to do. I get called and think ‘I might have the perfect thing for that.’ I still have a friend in L.A. that I exchange files with once in awhile… It’s gotten really easy to do things long distance (thanks to the Internet), which is great.”

Live at the Lounge is a new venue for Bettens.

“I’ve never been there, but we toured Europe with sets designed for listening rooms, which is what we hope for in Hermosa. The set we have is just perfect for small venues… It’s like the people are just hanging out and it makes me very relaxed onstage.”

Back home in Tennessee, Bettens is a parent of two stepchildren, ages 12 and 14.

“I am a very active parent. When I’m home I do a lot of stuff with them and contribute to the parenting. And, I’ve been there long enough that they accept me. They were 4 and 6 when I moved in, so they barely remember anything before me. It’s been really normal for them,” she said.

Her partner of eight years is not in the business. “She enjoys the music, but that’s about it. She likes coming to the shows and she’ll join me on the road for a couple days in the middle of a tour, but she has nothing to do with the business, which I think is great.”

After Hermosa, Sarah performs in L.A., San Francisco, Portland and Seattle on this trip.

Sarah Bettens, Live at the Lounge, tomorrow night. Doors open 7:30 p.m., show starts at 8:30. 1014 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach. (310) 372-1193. Visit Sarah’s website at sarahbettens.com. ER

Bass player Stanley Clarke

by Tom Fitt
This bassist/composer/arranger has been a highly visible and integral contributor to the world’s jazz music scene for decades. He’s performed with everybody, produced albums in several genres, owns his own record label, scores film and TV productions (appears on camera in some), designs and builds electric basses, plays jazz fests in Europe during the summer, and tonight Stanley Clarke brings his quartet to Brixton on the Redondo Beach pier.
He’s gotta be 150 years old just to have compiled the discography on his resume.
“I recently discovered a long lost photo with me, Chick Corea, Airto, Tony Williams and Stan Getz at the London House (Chicago) and we’re all in tuxedoes. It looks like one of those black-and-white shots from the 1930s,” Clarke said, laughing.
Well, neither Clarke nor the picture are as old as mentioned. In fact, he’s a sprightly 58 years old who has no plans of slowing down.
“(Pianist) George Duke and I are going to do something for Haiti next month, in L.A., with a bunch of other people. It might be televised, I don’t know for sure,” said Clarke. “George is a part of my musical life, like a big brother to me. I see him all the time; we’re always talking.”
The two communicate quite beautifully on stage and in the studio, having recorded three all-time great jazz albums.
Clarke now lives in Topanga. “Whenever you see houses floating down the street in devastating rains, I’m in there,” he said.
He has lived on the West Coast for 14 years. Originally from Philadelphia, he started gigging in New York City in 1971 with greats including Horace Silver, Art Blakey, and others. I mentioned to Clarke that my first time hearing him was with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. “That was a long time ago,” Clarke said. Ahhh, probably about 40 years.
In 2004, Los Angeles Magazine named Clarke “one of the 50 most influential people” in the music/entertainment industry. He has won multiple Grammy awards and was voted the first “Jazzman of the Year” by Rolling Stone magazine. He was Playboy’s Best Bassist for 10 straight years. His film scores include “The Transporter” starring Jason Statham. His record company is releasing four albums this year. As for on-camera work, Clarke said, “I was doing a lot of movies for a while… This year I haven’t; I’m kinda taking a break from some of that stuff.”
On the humanitarian side, in 2007, Clarke released the DVD of a 2002 concert entitled “Night School: An Evening with Stanley Clarke and Friends.” It was the 3rd annual Stanley Clarke Scholarship Concert, proceeds of which provide financial aid to students in need who excel in music.
Among the bassist’s solo albums are “Stanley Clark” (1974), “Journey to Love” (1975), “School Days” (1976), and most recently (2007) “The Toys of Men.” The first week of the latest release, it went to #2 on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart. The album featured Clarke playing both acoustic and electric bass. “This is my young band.”
Last year, Clarke did a reunion tour of Return to Forever, the Chick Corea-led fusion jazz trail blazer that recorded 10 albums. There’s also a recent recording in Clarke’s vault of “Trio,” an acoustic ensemble featuring Bela Fleck and Jean Luc Ponte. “We did record the concerts; I just haven’t gotten around to listening to the tapes,” said Clarke.
Clarke brings a quartet to Brixton tonight. He said he has played “mainly acoustic the last couple years, but now I am going back to electric, primarily.”

He probably plays live “half the year,” and does many of the festivals in Europe. “In the summertime, that’s usually where all the musicians go. It’s nice; the weather’s great and it’s fun.”
Stanley Clarke with Steph Johnson, Brixton, Redondo Beach pier, tonight at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7. Tickets, $29.50. Call (310) 406-1931 or go to tickets.brixtonsouthbay.com. ER

Pianist Yana Reznik casts a skeptical eye toward her young violinist Nigel Armstrong while cellist Indira Rahmatulla plays on. Photos by Kevin Cody

by Kevin Cody
Comedy and Magic Club owner Mike Lacey took an unorthodox tact Saturday night to booking Live at the Lounge, his 90-seat music club next door to his comedy club. He scheduled five sets of classical music. 

According to the evening’s emcee, comedian Wayne Cotter, the decision had less to do with commercial calculations than with Lacey’s fond childhood memories of attending music salons with his uncle Franklin Lacey, who co-wrote “The Music Man” with Meredith Wilson. 

The self indulgence paid off with a near capacity crowd of appreciative classical fans who heard about the evening through Manhattan Beach resident Jim Eninger’s “Chamber Music Newsletter.” But the performances would have been equally appreciated by audiences at just about any of the other downtown Hermosa’s music clubs. 

The first set was a soulful performance, by cellists Indira Rahmatulla and Juan Egnacio Emme, of Viotti’s “Duo Concertino” and Glier’s “Three Duets for Cellos.” The two are principal cellists with the American Youth Symphony and students at the Coburn Conservatory. 

Then, violinist Nigel Armstrong picked up the pace with Paganini’s “Caprices for Solo Violin,” which, he warned the audience, “is a bit fast.” It was fast, as in fiddler Byron Berline playing “Orange Blossom Express” fast. 

In a recent interview the 19-year-old with a punk musician’s countenance said classical music’s appeal to him comes from its intensity. “It’s not relaxed music. I’m intense when I play because the emotions are intense,” he said. Armstrong is concertmaster of the American Youth Symphony. 

Pianists Yana Reznik and Anna Von Urbans sustained the intensity with Barber’s “Dance for Two with Piano for Four Hands,” followed by Brahms’ “Dances for Piano for Four Hands.”
An overhead projector allowed the audience to view the four hand “dances.” 

The Russian-born Reznik studied at the Rachmaninoff School of Music and has performed in music halls throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. Locally, she has performed with the USC Symphony Orchestra and the Torrance Symphony Orchestra. 

Von Urbans is a winner of the Maurice Ravel International Piano Competition and is a frequent performer at LACMA’s “Sunday Live” series. 

Irish baritone Sam McElroy, after hearing he would be performing next door to the Comedy and Magic Club, decided to open his set with a shot at stand-up comedy.

Following the piano duets, Reznik accompanied Irish baritone Sam McElroy. Though McElroy more commonly performs in major opera houses, he said he felt at home at Live at the Lounge because it offered the two things the Irish love most – song and drink.
In a nod to Valentine’s Day he began his set with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “A Fellow Needs a Girl.” 

“The lyrics are a little dated,” he acknowledged, “but it’s a beautiful song.” Then he sang Lerner and Lowe’s “How to Handle a Woman,” which he similarly acknowledged “has a dubious title, but is also a beautiful song.” 

The evening ended with Armstrong, Reznik and Rahmatulla jamming together on what can fairly be described as a raucous rendition of Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music. Reznik’s hard driving piano dueled with Armstrong’s furiously fast violin while the cellist held the discordant sounds together. 

Classical music at Live at the Lounge will be presented again this Saturday, Feb. 20; Saturday, March 6, and Saturday, March 13. For more information call (310) 372-1193 or visit www.comedyandmagicclub.com. Live at the Lounge is located at 1018 Hermosa Ave. ER