It’s all about the music

Posted on July 5, 2012 by editors

Jai Uttal is world music artist in residence at the Fillmore Jazz Festival.

THE LINEUP | Jason Olaine

It’s that time of year again, when San Francisco’s swingingest, bluesiest and funkiest street party comes alive. The 2012 Fillmore Jazz Festival is July 7 and 8.

This is the 28th year of the festival, which was created in 1984 to celebrate Fillmore’s jazz heritage at a time when much of the music had stopped. I had the honor of programming the music on the Sutter and California Street stages again this year and I can honestly say: If you had fun and were turned on by the eclectic and energetic music last year, then you’ll surely want to get to the Fillmore early this year. We have some amazing talent lined up. [Schedule of entertainment]

And if the diversity of music isn’t enough to get you up and out, the myriad food and arts vendors and the participating restaurants and merchants up and down the strip should be. The more than 200,000 people who attended last year can’t be wrong.

For the second year in a row we have both an artist-in-residence for the California Street stage (a jazz artist) and the Sutter Street stage (a world music artist), both of whom will be performing Saturday and Sunday.
(more…)

Filed under: Music | Leave a Comment »

Crackdown on booze at jazz fest

Posted on July 5, 2012 by editors

By Barbara Kate Repa

FOR THE FIRST TIME in its 28-year history, those who wish to drink beer or wine at the Fillmore Jazz Festival this year must buy and consume it within the confines of one of seven “beverage gardens” — designated areas within the festival carpeted in artificial turf and enclosed by white picket fences.

In the past, police suspended the laws against public liquor consumption during the festival. As long as drinks were in plastic, festivalgoers were allowed to walk around with them, wherever purchased.

Northern Station Captain Ann Mannix tightened the rules on bars and restaurants last year, no longer allowing them to sell outside. This year, she barred alcohol at the festival, except when consumed in beer gardens or inside bars and restaurants.
(more…)

Filed under: Civics, Music | 3 Comments »

The St. Dominic’s connection

Posted on June 3, 2012 by editors

MUSIC | James DeKoven

Considering that my favorite bands in high school were the likes of Black Sabbath, Mountain and Thin Lizzy, it made little sense that I was also buying Van Morrison records.

His songs didn’t include blistering guitar solos or prophesies of nuclear Armageddon. Yet as a music-obsessed teen, I recognized that he deserved investigation. First I tried Astral Weeks, then His Band and the Street Choir, then Saint Dominic’s Preview, which became my favorite of the bunch.

Years later, when I moved to San Francisco, I ended up living a few blocks from St. Dominic’s Church. And I began to wonder whether there was a connection between the album and the imposing Gothic church at Bush and Steiner Streets.
(more…)

Filed under: Music | Leave a Comment »

Etta in the Fillmore

Posted on January 20, 2012 by editors

Photograph of Etta James by Anthony Montes de Oca

EXCERPT | By Etta James

Uncle Frank showed up in his car and whisked us up to San Francisco when I was 12. We dropped [my mother] Dorothy off in the Fillmore District, which looked like a hell-hole to me. L.A. was a vine-covered cottage compared to these slums. After the sunny skies of southern California, the Bay Area looked seedy and sad — the fog-covered sky, the bums on the street. Maybe it was my mood or just the neighborhood where Dorothy lived, but my first impression was grime and crime.

I wound up in a couple of gangs — one in the Fillmore, where my mother lived, and one in the projects by Uncle Frank. We wore baggy jeans, just like today, with the legs dragging on the ground. A white shirt was also part of our uniform — an oversize man’s shirt worn tails-out to cover your ass. Then you had your white socks rolled all the way down below your ankles and beat-up tennis shoes. I let my hair grow long and put it in a ponytail. I thought I was bad. I guess I was the classic case of a kid who, lacking a real family, was looking for a family feeling in gangs.

I started bouncing from school to school. I’d been going to Girls High School in the Fillmore, but they threw me out of there. I was a wiseguy and a clown, always cutting up, never minding no one. So they put me in Continuation School, which is your last stop before they kick your ass out of the system altogether.
(more…)

Filed under: Locals, Music | Leave a Comment »

Farewell to a big man with a tiny trumpet

Posted on January 4, 2012 by editors

Mike Pitrie made the Fillmore his home base.

JAZZ | Anthony Torres

Mike “Coffee Picasso” Pitre, a true original local jazz talent and music scene treasure, died of a heart attack on December 18, leaving friends and admirers stunned at the sudden departure of the Bohemian Knuckleboogie lead man. He was 44.

I can still vividly remember that first sighting of Coffee and Bohemian Knuckleboogie a couple of years ago at Sheba Piano Lounge on Fillmore — the sound offering a unique blend of New Orleans jazz, soul and blues. It was difficult not to notice Mike Pitre, a larger than life black man, blowing a tiny pocket trumpet with an electric guitar draped over his torso. He sang with a style and voice that was incredibly hip and uniquely his own.

(more…)

Filed under: Locals, Music | Leave a Comment »

It’s the symphony’s centennial

Posted on December 8, 2011 by editors

NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT Michael Tilson Thomas is one of the best things to happen to the San Francisco Symphony in its first 100 years. Join in this sing-along for the symphony’s centennial — today, December 8.

Filed under: Locals, Music | Leave a Comment »

From Yoshi’s to Lincoln Center

Posted on December 2, 2011 by editors

Photograph of Jason Olaine by Kathi O'Leary

JAZZ | Jason Olaine

It seems like only yesterday that I came back home to the Bay Area after 10 years in New York to become artistic director of Yoshi’s new jazz club on Fillmore. That was May 2009, and here it is soon to be 2012. Now I find myself about to leave Yoshi’s to return to New York to program Jazz at Lincoln Center.
(more…)

Filed under: Locals, Music | 1 Comment »

60 years of making music

Posted on October 22, 2011 by editors

Photograph of Alden Gilchrist and the Calvary Chancel Choir by Alvin Johnson

LOCALS | FRAN MORELAND JOHNS

Alden Gilchrist has been making music at at the corner of Fillmore and Jackson for the past 60 years — and on October 28 he will be honored with a special concert as the longtime music director of Calvary Presbyterian Church.

(more…)

Filed under: Locals, Music | Leave a Comment »

Filipino jazz returns to Fillmore

Posted on October 6, 2011 by editors

The San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival returns to the Fillmore for its fourth annual concert on Sunday, October 9, at 6 p.m. at Yoshi’s. Like last year’s concert, also held at Yoshi’s, this is a homecoming of Filipino jazz artists to the Fillmore, which once had a large Filipino population. Filipinos began settling in the Fillmore in the 1920s, some as war brides of African American Buffalo Soldiers returning from the Philippine-American War. Filipino men also settled in the Fillmore, owning businesses and raising families.

During the time the Fillmore was known as the “Harlem of the West,” a number of Filipino American jazz artists performed regularly in the Fillmore, most notably Joseph “Flip” Nunez, who was one of the house pianists at the legendary Jimbo’s Bop City. A brick marker on Fillmore Street near Yoshi’s honors Nunez. Another brick marker honors Filipino jazz poet Al Robles, an activist who was part of a large Fillmore family. Sugar Pie DeSanto — the internationally known blues singer and songwriter — also grew up in the Fillmore on Buchanan Street in a large Afro-Filipino family.

Filed under: Music | Leave a Comment »

JazzFest reviews are in: ‘It was fun’

Posted on July 9, 2011 by editors

By Jesse Hamlin

A sea of sun-drenched people flowed along Fillmore Street on Saturday, partaking of the musical and gustatory pleasures — not to mention the beer, wine and margaritas — served up by San Francisco’s biggest street bash. Blues and barbecued oysters. Fried catfish and Nigerian folk songs. Those were some of the sounds and scents that wafted through the air at the annual Fillmore Jazz Festival, a swinging two-day affair that stretches from Jackson Street in tony Pacific Heights down to Eddy Street in the gritty heart of the Fillmore District.

Read more

Filed under: Music | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »