Calendar

Ann Mony and guest artists host a classy dance party straight out of Prohibition days with some of the hottest jazz and swing bands in the Bay Area! Features live jazz and a drop-in taster class in swing dancing.

8:30-9:00 Drop-in Taster Class

9:00-12:00 Social Dance and Live Music

Visit sfbootleggersball.com for more info on musicians and schedule.

Outsound‘s original public event Touch the Gear is a hands-on, family-friendly exposition open to the public. During the evening attendees get to roam among inventors and musicians while experiencing sound producing gear, computers, instruments and inventors with their various different configurations of “gear”–everything from oscillators and electronics, to planks of wood with strings attached. All attendees get to ask questions, make sound and experience how the instruments work, in an environment that demystifies technology while inspiring creativity.

The duo B. Experimental Band (dBxB) is an improvising orchestra co-led by duo B. (Lisa Mezzacappa, bass and Jason Levis, drums). The new endeavor, launched in December 2018 at Temescal Art Center in Oakland, CA. The 13-member ensemble plays compositions by Levis and Mezzacappa that explore the thrilling boundaries between composed and improvised musical worlds; between avant-garde jazz and contemporary chamber music aesthetics; and between inspiring music of the past and a new musical language emerging from our current place and time.

duo B., the San Francisco Bay Area improvising and composing ensemble of drummer Jason Levis and bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, is a musical think tank of grand schemes and impossible scenarios. For more than a dozen years, the ensemble has developed and refined its singular approach to improvisation and composition, through cross disciplinary projects with film, collaborations with improvising instrumentalists at home and abroad, study of repertoire by like-minded composer-improvisers, and immersion in the improvised-composed musical worlds of masters Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, and others. duo B. has released three recordings: the limited edition CD, these things seem natural to us (Evander, 2006); the LP, start this before dawn touches the skyscrapers (Edgetone, 2013); and most recently, No Ins & Outs (Queen Bee, 2017). This year, duo B. is in Ensemble-in- Residence at the Center for New Music in San Francisco, with video artist Charles Woodman.

Social Stutter Quartet:
Social Stutter, a saxophone quartet led by composer/altoist Beth Schenck, blurs the line between strictly written chamber music and soaring free jazz. Solos emerge from the natural order of intricately written lines that, although begin simply in structure, twist and distort themselves into surprisingly complex shapes and forms. Unlike traditional saxophone quartets, some of the pieces are composed for two altos and two tenors, which leads itself to denser harmonic territory and a uniquely homogenous sound. Masters of texture and nuance, the quartet has a keen awareness of how to support and push one another’s creative boundaries.

Q & A at 7:30pm
Concert at 8:15pm

Gentleman Surfer began in 2006 as the solo project of drummer bandleader Jon Bafus, and now exists as a fully functioning band since mid 2010. Difficult to categorize, they draw upon a wide range of influences, anywhere from Captain Beefheart and King Crimson, to film and video game music, Classical, Jazz, Punk, etc. . . The collective sound is both tight and loose simultaneously, and continually growing and shifting into a bigger and stronger vortex of angular, shifting rhythms and timbres. The music is full of energy and sincerity, and time and time again all who behold their performances are made into believers.  Gentleman Surfer has shared the stage with many great bands including Cheer Accident, Mike Watt and the Second Men, Free Salamander Exhibit, The Molecules, Tera Melos, AU, XDS, the Nightingales, Realization Orchestra, Chemical Clock, Heatwarmer, Surplus 1980, Brainstorm, Cash Pony, Inner Ear Brigade, Grex, Pregnant, Planets, Ava Mendoza’s Unnatural Ways,  Zack Nelson, Phil Manley, Modern Man, So Stressed, Poppet, Appetite, Find Yourself, John Niekrasz, Carson Mcwhirter, and many more.  Past (and some still active) projects of the band members include, but are not limited to, Afternoon Brother, Sholi, Mucky the Ducky, Practice, Invasive Species, Pac and Seep, Buff Clout, Good News Bears, Black Holes What? and highq.

Vegan Butcher is led by guitarist John Shiurba assembled to interpret his music and somniloquy. The lyrics are culled from the early-morning, half-asleep ramblings of the composer, while the music employs the signature January Scale. The band includes bassist Wil Hendricks (Califone), drummer Suki O’Kane (Thingamajigs, She Mob) and vocalist Angela Coon (Ninewood, Toychestra) along with Shiurba on guitar.

In January 2012, John Shiurba began composing music that he would premier that July at the Outsound New Music Summit. Writing for the commissioned 9:9 ensemble, he invented a 9-note scale dubbed The January Scale. While the 9:9 music magnetized the more atonal aspects of the scale, Shiurba felt there was more to be discovered in it. He set out composing music focused on the tonal qualities of the scale, and exploiting the unusual harmonies that resulted. These alternate compositions came together with the contributions of drummer Suki O’Kane (Thingamjigs Performance Group, She Mob) and bassist Wil Hendricks (Califone), wrapped around Shiurba’s sweet, narcotic melodies on electric guitar. Shiurba knew his emerging power trio required a lead vocal, and he invited his wife Val Esway (Loretta Lynch) to recreate his melodies using lyrics drawn from her notebooks filled with documentation of Shiurba’s own early morning somniloqy: short phrases he has for years been uttering when half asleep. The quartet now performs the enigmatically-titled compositions as a song-cycle, blending conceptual art concerns with thundering rock-show aesthetics. Last year Shiurba was back at the drawing board, writing a new set of material for the band. When it became clear that the new book of music called for a different voice, veteran rock goddess Angela Coon (Ninewood, Toychestra) was brought into the band to sing the part.

Q & A at 7:30pm
Concert at 8:15pm

Francis Wong & Lenora Lee:
Saxophonist/composer Francis Wong and dancer/choreographer Lenora Lee have been working together for over 20 years creating both fully improvised works as well as works that integrate composition, choreography, and improvisation. They have collaborated on small to large scale works involving ensembles of dancers and musicians, oftentimes working with projection mapping, and text. The themes that they are particularly known for are the immigration experience of Chinese Americans during the era of Chinese Exclusion, as well as contemporary social justice issues such as human trafficking, and the impacts of war in Asian American communities.

For over 35 years, Francis Wong has performed his innovative brand of jazz and creative music for audiences in North America, Asia, and Europe with such with such luminaries as Jon Jang, Tatsu Aoki, Genny Lim, William Roper, Bobby Bradford, and the late Glenn Horiuchi, John Tchicai, and Fred Anderson. Wong’s imaginative career straddles roles as varied as performing artist, youth mentor, composer, artistic director, community activist, non-profit organization manager, consultant, music producer, and academic lecturer.

Lenora Lee, a United States Artists 2019 Fellow, has been a dancer, choreographer, and artistic director in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. She has been an Artist Fellow at the de Young Museum, a Djerassi Resident Artist, and a Visiting Scholar at New York University through the Asian/Pacific/American Institute. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Dance Mission Theater. The mission of Lenora Lee Dance (LLD) is to create and present large-scale multimedia performance works integrating dance, music, video projection, and text that connect various styles of movement and music to culture, history, and human rights issues. LLD is weaving together multiple artistic disciplines and socially conscious work, pushing the relevance of arts in various communities throughout the country.

Andrea Centazzo – Percussion/electronics:
Andrea Centazzo, blends his percussion playing on a set of over 200 instruments, with electronics, computer sequencing and digital sampling, bringing to the listener the emotion of a new sonic adventure in jazz, world and contemporary avant-garde music. His quirky playing along with his ostinato patterns and his mastery of percussion improvising create a music beyond any expectation. Improvisations are presented in a spectacular way where the sound is also supported by a great visual of the multitude of gongs, drums, keyboard, cymbals and much more.

During his artistic career that spans over 40 years, percussionist, composer, author, conductor, multimedia artist Andrea Centazzo has given more than 1000 concerts and live performances in Europe, Asia and the United States, as well as appeared and performed on numerous radio and television broadcasts worldwide. In 2011, his alma mater, the University of Bologna (Italy) honored him by establishing the “Fondo Centazzo” section of the University Library, where all his musical works are housed and made available to students, scholars and musicians.In 2012 he presented 24 concerts in N.Y. for the 35th anniversary of Ictus label performing as percussionist with top US improvisers including John Zorn. In 2009 he conducted the John Cage Concerto for Piano and Orchestra featuring Stephen Drury at the Williamsburg Center in NY City in a triple bill featuring also John Zorn and Philip Glass. He has recorded over 160 LP’s, CD’s and DVD’s, and he has authored 400 compositions mostly published by Warner Chappell (ranging from opera and symphony to solo works), 2 drum methods and four musicology books. He is also the author of his operas’ librettos and he is the director of more than 20 video films presented in all the festivals and venues around the world based on his percussion music. He has performed at festivals, concert seasons, and theaters as percussion soloist and conductor of his compositions, conducting members of the American Youth Symphonic Orchestra, the TINA Contemporary Orchestra, the Mitteleuropa Orchestra, the ER Youth Symphonic Orchestra and many other ensembles. His opera Tina was highly acclaimed in Italy (1996) as well in California (1998) where it was staged with an English libretto translation by Paul Vangelisti. In 2002 Centazzo composed Sacred Shadows, a multimediawork scored for Balinese Gamelan and Western Ensemble.Centazzo was one of the “game changers” (Drum Magazine, 2013) that started the soloimprovised percussion concert movement back in the 70s. In 1972 he performed the first solo concert followed in the years by performances all over the world.For 20 years now, Centazzo has been working to create multi-media experiences, combining live music with video images, blending traditional instrumentation with the latest music digital technology.

Q&A at 7:30pm

Concert at 8:15pm

Polly Moller Springhorn’s Tomography Fortunae:
Tomography Fortunae is a three-movement graphic score for seven musicians named Tom, by Polly Moller Springhorn. The intention of this piece is to combine the Fortunate Numbers with ritual movement and improvisation to bring all the musicians and the audience good fortune. Musicians must go by the name Tom, either officially on their birth certificate, informally as a nickname, or temporarily for the duration of the performance. Toms may play any instrument or sing. Each of the three movements – “Velet luna”, “Cornu Unum de Manu Gestaret Reposuisse de Amalthea”, and “Manus in Gubernaculo” – takes the musicians through ever-greater complexity in ritual movement and graphical cues. The piece is performed “in the round” to create a close connection between musicians and audience and to share the good fortune engendered by the music.

Polly Moller Springhorn is an Oakland-based composer, performer, and improviser equally at home in the worlds of contemporary classical music, rock, and free improvisation. Her compositions for solo instruments, and small and large ensembles, explore the Western occult tradition, scientific mysteries, literary icons, and biological processes. Genesis for 12 Improvisers is her most-performed work, last heard at Intersection for the Arts in the 2012 Soundwave Biennial. Other works include The Flip Quartet, an elemental harmony ritual for four improvisers; Remove Before Flight for flute quartet, Alcyone for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass, and percussion; and Duo No. 1 for Gino Robair. Her works for flute choir and piccolo are available from ALRY Publications. As a performer, Polly is a member of Usufruct, Reconnaissance Fly, Ghost in the House, and the duo B Experimental Band.’

The William Winant / Zachary James Watkins Duo create improvised landscapes playing percussion and electronics. Interested in the sensitive relationships between their respective instrumental colors, the two explore radical form, dynamics and timbre in real time.

William Winant is an avant-garde percussionist who has performed and collaborated with musicians musical acts as diverse as Sonic Youth, Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, and Oingo Boingo. He has studied with James Tenney, Steve Reich, and John Bergamo, played music with The Kronos String Quartet, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Roscoe Mitchell, Keith Jarrett, and Yo-Yo Ma, and has recorded music with Christian Wolff and Danny Elfman. In 2016, Winant was awarded a large unrestricted grant from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts in recognition for his groundbreaking work as a contemporary percussionist.

In 2014 he received a Grammy nomination for his recording of John Cage’s historic solo work, 27′ 10.554″ for a percussionist, on Micro Fest Records. Winant has made more than 200 recordings in a variety of genres, including music by Han Bennink, Earle Brown, Luc Ferrari, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Patton, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Ex, and White Out with Jim O’Rourke. Winant took part in the 1976 American premiere of John Cage’s “Lecture on the Weather” at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Winant also performed in the 1992 premiere of Cage’s “Four6,” a piece dedicated to Winant, Pauline Oliveros, Joan La Barbara, and Leonard Stein. Winant’s notable works include his recording of Lou Harrison’s La koro sutro (1988) and SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century (1999), on which he collaborated closely with Sonic Youth and avant-garde classical composers. In 2016, Winant performed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York as part of John Zorn’s Praise, a new work for harp, electronics, and percussion to accompany the exhibition Agnes Martin.

Zachary James Watkins studied composition with Janice Giteck, Jarrad Powell, Robin Holcomb and Jovino Santos Neto at Cornish College. In 2006, Zachary received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied with Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros. Zachary has received commissions from Cornish College of The Arts, The Microscores Project, the Beam Foundation, Somnubutone Radio Series free103point9.org, sfsound and the Seattle Chamber Players. His 2006 composition Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has subsequently been performed at the Labs 25th Anniversary Celebration, the Labor Sonor Series at Kule in Berlin Germany and in Seattle Wa, as part of the 2nd Annual Town Hall New Music Marathon featuring violist Eyvind Kang. Zachary has performed in numerous festivals across the United States, Mexico and Europe and his band Black Spirituals opened for pionering Drone Metal bandEarth during their 2015 European tour. In 2008, Zachary premiered a new multi-media work entitled Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery’s Composers in Performance Series that received grants from the The American Music Center and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on a compilation album entitled “The Harmonic Series” along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Theresa Wong Charles Curtis and Duane Pitre among others. Zachary designed the sound and composed music for the plays “I have loved Strangers” produced by Just Theatre, which listed “top ten of 2007” in the East Bay Express and the 8th Annual ReOrient Theatre Festival. His sound art work entitled Third Floor::Designed Obsolescence, “spoke as a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society’s permanence,” review by Susan Noyes Platt in the Summer 05 issue of ARTLIES. Zachary releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront (UK), The Tapeworm and Touch (UK). Novembre Magazine (DE), ITCH (ZA), Walrus Press and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his writings and scores. Zachary has been an artist in resident at the Espy Foundation, Djerassi and the Headlands Center for The Arts.

Deciduous is an ongoing multi-regional project originally formed by Columbus Ohio pianist Gerard Cox and curated by SF Bay Area saxophonist Rent Romus based on the mutual bridging of those who share a creative tenacity, history and transitory nature of improvisation. The music travels through free wheeling plots development, enriched with worldly modalities and extended soloing.

“Romus and company fuse diversity with bold ideas and evocative solos to complement the disparate currents and their irrefutable fellowship.” – Glenn Astartia, All About Jazz

Saxophonist and educator Keith Kelly, a San Francisco Bay Area native, holds a BM in Performance (Saxophone) and a BM in Music Education from the Conservatory of Music at University of the Pacific, an MM in Music Education (Jazz Studies) and DMA in Music Education (Jazz Studies) from Arizona State University. Currently, he is the Coordinator of Music Humanities at Paradise Valley Community College and the Director of Education for The Nash, the premier jazz education and performance organization in Phoenix, AZ. As a woodwind specialist, he has toured with the Eels, Darlene Love, The Scorpion Decides, Under The Streetlamp, and his own free-jazz group, Ask Not. Kelly has performed with a wide variety of musical ensembles including: Crossing 32nd St, CONDER/dance company, Boxhead Ensemble,The Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Natalie Cole, Maynard Ferguson, The Temptations, Glen Campbell, Diana Schuur, and numerous tv/radio/music personalities. Kelly has performed in or supervised over 35 different musical theater productions throughout Northern California and the greater Southwest, including “The Unfortunates” – which debuted at ACT’s The Strand Theater in San Francisco in 2016, with his original horn arrangements.

Vinny Golia Quartet: As a composer Vinny Golia fuses the rich heritage of Jazz, contemporary classical and world music into his own unique compositions. Also a bandleader, Golia has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Mr. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, The California Arts Council, Meet the Composer,Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982 he created the on-going 50 piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles. A multi-woodwind performer, Vinny’s recordings have been consistently picked by critics and readers of music journals for their yearly “ten best” lists. In 1990 he was the winner of the Jazz Times TDWR award for Bass Saxophone. In 1998 he ranked 1st in the Cadence Magazine Writers & Readers Poll and has continually placed in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll for Baritone & Soprano Saxophone. In 1999 Vinny won the LA Weekly’s Award for “Best Jazz Musician”. Jazziz Magazine has also named him as one of the 100 people who have influenced the course of Jazz in our Century. In 2006 The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. 2013 Vinny won the Downbeat Critic’s Poll in the “New Star” category for Baritone Saxophone. Golia has also contributed original compositions and scores to Ballet and Modern Dance works, video, theatrical productions, and film. As an educator Vinny has lectured on music & painting composition, improvisation, Jazz History, The History of Music in Film, CD & record manufacturing and self-production throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Canada. He currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts. In 1998 Golia was appointed Regent’s Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego. In 2009 Vinny Golia was appointed the first holder of the Michel Colombier Performer Composer Chair at Cal Arts. Vinny has been a featured performer with Anthony Braxton, Henry Grimes, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Joelle Leandre, Leo Smith, Horace Tapscott, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Bertram Turetzky, George Lewis, Barre Phillips, The Rova Saxophone Quartet, Patti Smith, Harry “the Hipster” Gibson, Eugene Chadburne, Kevin Ayers, Peter Kowald, John Bergamo, George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennick, Lydia Lunch, Harry Sparrney and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others.

Come dance, listen, hang out and experience smoking Cuban charanga music at Community Music Center – it’s free! CMC’s own Cuban Charanga Ensemble will be performing as part of the Mission Arts Performance ​and ​Project (MAPP). There will be two sets of swinging Cuban dance music, from Danzón to Timba

6:30 pm – 7:00pm Salsa Dance Class with Rodrigo Ipince

7:00 pm – 9:30pm CMC Cuban Charanga Ensemble (Afro Cuban Dance Music)