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GOT BRASS: Trombone Shorty goes Big Easy on the Catalyst Friday.
Music Calendar
March 10 - 17, 2010
Wednesday | 3/10
JOE BONAMASSA
Twenty years ago, so the story goes, 12-year-old Joe Bonamassa opened a show for blues legend B.B. King, prompting the blues legend to remark afterward that the young guitarist's potential was "unbelievable" and that he "hadn't even scratched the surface." Truer words, it seems, have seldom been spoken, as the now man-size Bonamassa is considered among the most gifted and accomplished studio and touring guitarists around. Known mostly for his howling rock and blues style, Bonamassa is just as much at home playing funk and country. Bottom line: if someone can play it on guitar, Joe Bonamassa can probably play it better. Rio Theatre; $33.50–$44.50; 8pm. (Curtis Cartier)
Thursday | 3/11
KICKASS GUITAR GIRLS
Guitarists spend their entire lives dreaming of an endorsement by the likes of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. It's an honor that guitarist Vicki Genfan can claim, having won first place in Guitar Player magazine's 2008 Guitar Superstar Competition, for which Vai and Satriani served as judges. Genfan's nimble acoustic guitar stylings are joined by the songwriting of Jill Knight and the Caribbean-inflected playing of Erika Luckett, who together form the mighty Kickass Guitar Girls trio. Don Quixote's; $10; 7:30pm. (Paul M. Davis)
JOHN GORKA & PATTY LARKIN
Revered for the clarity of his lyricism and unique melodic gifts, John Gorka has won attention from a handful of folk luminaries since his rise to prominence during the '80s new folk movement. Among them is confirmed guitar wizard Patty Larkin, who celebrates a quarter-century in the music business with 25, a collection of love songs and collaborations with the leading lights of folk, including Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Gorka himself. Of her tour mate, Larkin says: "With a voice like John's, he could sing the newspaper and it'd sound good." We invite him to do just that when the two take the stage tonight. Rio Theater; $25; 7:30pm. (PMD)
Friday | 3/12
TROMBONE SHORTY/
Troy Andrews, a.k.a. Trombone Shorty, enjoys an unusually high profile for a contemporary jazz player. That may be partially because of his story: Andrews dropped out of the same music school that brought us Branford Marsalis and released his debut album roughly around the same time he became legal to drive. Andrews' original genre description, "Supafunkrock," gives you a sense of what he's getting at: a high-energy amalgam of funk, jazz and rock. It's a sensibility that has earned him respect in jazz circles even as he hits the stage with the likes of U2, Green Day and Lenny Kravitz. Purists might recoil in horror, but there's no denying that Andrews is passionate about blazing a path for jazz in the new millennium. Catalyst; $15 adv/ $19 door; 9pm. (PMD)
J-BOOGIE'S DUBTRONIC SCIENCE
Over radio waves and through dance halls across the globe, soulful mix master J-Boogie has been innovating music as we know it for the past 15 years. No stranger to the Bay Area's music scene, and with a reputation as today's hardest working DJ and producer, he was among the first to fuse live vocals and instrumentals with electronic dubs, creating a style that defies categorizing and showcases multilingual talents. His band "Dubtronic Science" features a horn section, MC's and Latin percussionists that mix funky dub vibes with hip-hop, reggae, bhangra and disco to create a soul music of the future. Moe's Alley; $10. 9pm. (Maria Grusauskas)
Saturday | 3/13
AN-TEN-NAE
Urbandictionary.com defines the term "acid crunk" as mixing "SyFy channel and BET channel sound effects ... by a drunk white dude while playing Xbox Live." Though San Francisco DJ/producer Adam Ohana, a.k.a. An-Ten-Nae, is a Caucasian male known to put away the cocktails, he has his own definition of acid crunk and uses a lot more equipment than an Xbox to deliver its bass-heavy dubstep and breakbeat bliss. But whether you get your literary designations from an online pop culture dictionary or not, when it comes to booty-shaking electro goodness, Ohana comes correct. Catalyst; $12 adv/$16 door; 8pm. (CC)
SOURGRASS
Having been away from Santa Cruz for the last several months, the homespun four-piece Sourgrass is set to get Moe's Alley rocking with its mashup of rock, dirty funk and "slow-as-molasses blues." The band's new set, which includes a handful of brand new songs, is guaranteed to leave you "drenched in sweat and tears and begging for more," or so we're told, and we have no reason to doubt it. Sharing the bill are the Brothers Comatose, the old-timey, shout-along, drink-along foot-stompers from San Francisco. Moe's Alley; $10 adv/$13 door; 9pm. (Cat Johnson)
Monday | 3/15
JOHN SCOFIELD NEW JAZZ QUARTET
John Scofield's collaboration résumé reads like a pamphlet for the Jazz Hall of Fame. Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Medeski Martin & Wood and George Duke are just a few of the folks who have shared a stage or a recording studio with the Ohioan guitar whiz most fans know simply as "Sco.'" To Kuumbwa, Scofield brings Mulgrew Miller, Ben Street and Kendrick Scott to form the New Jazz Quartet, promising one of the most polished lineups he's ever attached to his bill. Jumping from cool, experimental jazz to funky blues, back to rock and on to gospel and bebop, Sco's rep is that of an artist with each finger in a different and delicious musical pie. Kuumbwa; 7 and 9pm; 7pm: $25 adv/$28 door, 9pm: $20 adv/$23 door. (CC)
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