The music of Sun Hop Fat is at once strange and soothing. The Oakland-by-way-of-Santa-Cruz jazz and funk ensemble employs Eastern scales that sound familiarly alien—the music you would expect to hear in an old adventure movie when the hero enters a smoky Arabic watering hole. Then again, maybe it is the soundtrack to Scooby and Shaggy skulking around some old haunted mansion: trill, snake-charmer flutes and horns that rise and fall in ominously ornate chords. Sun Hop Fat’s tunes are heavily influenced by Ethiopian jazz and the music of Mulu Astatke, who championed the sound in his native Ethiopia and was instrumental in importing the music to America. Bass player and founding Sun Hop Fat member Jesse Toews (who also plays in Santa Cruz “psychedelic Motown throwdown” outfit, Harry and the Hitmen) says that he and his band were drawn to Ethiopian jazz and other East African sounds because of the “seductive” note choices and interesting polyrhythms. While the music originated from African traditions, Toews explains, “because it is so close to the Middle East, it has all these Eastern scales,” which give the music a “haunting element,” especially to Western ears. The spooky sounds of Ethiopian jazz, combined with the group’s penchant for American funk and soul, make his band the perfect choice for Halloween night at The Crepe Place—or “Creepy Place,” as Sun Hop Fat trombone player and Crepe bartender Nick Gyorkos has been known to call it. “There is a haunting nature to the music that is totally appropriate for Halloween … it’s a get-down, but it’s also this dark and cerebral journey,” Toews says of Sun Hop Fat. “We throw in a lot of elements that stretch just outside the box and add a dark twist.”
INFO: 9 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $8/adv, $10/door. 429-6994.
