Angelique Kidjo

I've always said that next to New York, the Bay Area has the most diverse and deep live music programming.  Cal Performances often rivals SF Jazz for improvised and world music performers.  The other week Angelique Kidjo came to Zellerbach.  I've seen her many times, and she is always inspirational.  Born in Benin, and forced into exile, like her mentor Miriam Makeba, she is a symbol of freedom and emancipation.  Influenced deeply by Benin culture, and pop, rock, Latin, and jazz, she is a cross cultural icon who overtly calls her audience to liberation, enlightenment, and unity.  I've often described her as an African Female James Brown, but that doesn't really do her justice.  With just Dominic James on guitar, Magatte Sow on percussion, the Brazilian Itaiguara Brandao on bass, and New Yorker Daniel Freedman on drums, she creates a huge, beautiful world music orchestra that is impossible not to dance to.  And dance the audience does, including the ritual packing of the stage for the last few numbers.  And as commanding a stage presence as she is, it is her voice that has made her world famous.  She has a huge range, and can sail over a band like Santana's guitar (with whom she has recorded and performed).  She is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and has founded the Batonga Foundation to provide African girls with secondary and higher education.  To see her in performance is to become, if only for an evening, a true citizen of the world.   

Marcus Miller at SF Jazz

I've been very busy lately, and haven't been posting about a lot of great music.  In mid October the great Marcus Miller played SF Jazz at Herbst Theater.  Playing songs from his latest recording, Renaissance, with the same band members: Alex Han on sax, Lee Hogan on trumpet, Adam Agati on guitar, Kris Bowers on keys, and Louis Kato on drums.  Marcus will always, and rightly, be best known for his work with Miles: Tutu, Amandla, and Siesta.  Probably the most recorded bass player of his generation, ala Ron Carter, another Miles alum, Marcus has also put out 16 recordings as a leader.  Milliseconds define a great bass player, and Marcus is amazing.  Han and Hogan, while young men, know the whole history of the music, and can slide from funk to bebop in a heartbeat.
Only Marcus can transition from the lovely ballad  "S'Wonderful" on bass clarinet to straight ahead, to slamming funk, in one seamless meditation on Afro American music.  (As Christian Scott says, "You can describe me as jazz, just don't define me."  More on that important point, next time.