News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SF Weekly reviews local rapper DaVinci’s debut album: The song “What You Finna Do?,” released earlier this month by Fillmore District rapper DaVinci, opens with a vocal sample from the 2001 PBS documentary The Fillmore. It condenses the gentrification process the area underwent from the 1960s into one slogan, lamenting, “Basically, after the urban renewal,…
A neighborhood party today from 1 to 5 p.m. will celebrate the grand opening of the newly renovated Hamilton Recreation Center. There’s a new and improved playground, tennis courts and basketball courts — plus a new swimming pool with water slides. The celebration will include food, entertainment and arts and crafts. Hamilton Rec Center is…
KQED reports on a new dance theater production about San Francisco’s Fillmore District being created by choreographer Jacinta Vlach and saxophonist Howard Wiley.
By Jerome Tarshis By way of calling public attention to its 75th anniversary this year, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is making a major advertising push all over town. The lion’s share of advertising mentions “The Anniversary Show,” a survey of seven and a half decades of painting, sculpture, and photography in the…
Q & A | RUTHE STEIN From February 4 to 11, the Mostly British Film Festival comes to the Vogue Theater on Sacramento Street. It’s the brainchild of longtime Chronicle movie writer and editor Ruthe Stein, who’s just back in town from the Sundance Film Festival. Tell us about this new film festival coming to…
By James DeKoven Without hestitation, the Rev. Wanika King-Stephens can name her favorite John Coltrane song: “What’s New?” Then, true to form for any music obsessive, she provides additional knowledge: The song was originally on the album Ballads, released by the Impulse! label. Jazz records and churches are not usually an easy fit. But this…
“What should I see?” It’s the question the eminent film critic and historian David Thomson is asked most often — sometimes even as he walks his dog in Alta Plaza Park or runs errands on Fillmore Street. Now, more than three decades after he published his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson has responded to…
By Anthony Torres Esperanza means hope in Spanish. After seeing bassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding — who comes to Yoshi’s this month on October 14 and 15 — one cannot help but be hopeful for the future of women in jazz. Spalding is blessed with the ability to fuse instrumental licks and a multilingual…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS Sultry, soulful, swinging singer Kim Nalley remembers when she got her first big break in San Francisco. It was the early ’90s, and the manager of Harry’s on Fillmore called to see if she might fill a slot for a band that had cancelled. But Nalley was otherwise engaged. She had a…
FILLMORE HAS ALWAYS had a claim on guitarist Carlos Santana, and not only because of his many appearances at the Fillmore Auditorium. For a number of years his studio was on Fillmore Street next door to the Clay Theater. Now he’s back as part of the first special exhibition at the Fillmore Heritage Center. “A…