Kaweh Sextet, Carlos Reyes & More Set for Yoshi's San Francisco, Beg. Today, 11/7

Yoshi's Jazz Club & Japanese Restaurant on Fillmore Street just added the following concerts at its world-renowned San Francisco venue: Flamenco Rumba Salsa band: Kaweh Sextet with Edgardo Cambon, Danilo Paiz, David Belove, Alex Specht & Willie Garza (tonight, 11/7, 8pm), World-renowned Paraguayan harpist & violinist: Carlos Reyes (Tue, 11/20, 8pm), Jazz Fusion Pioneers: Jeff Lorber with Jimmy Haslip, Eric Marienthal & Gary Novak (Wed, 11/21, 8pm), Cuba's Finest: Havana D'Primera (Sat, 11/24, 8 & 10pm) and Comedian Don Reed's East 14th - A Benefit for 51Oakland (Sun, 12/2, 7pm).

For more information on these shows, go to www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco.

JUST ADDED:

KAWEH SEXTET with Edgardo Cambon, Danilo Paiz, David Belove, Alex Specht & Willie Garza
Flamenco Rumba Salsa
Wednesday, November 7
8pm $15

Raised in Germany and Iran by German and Iranian parents, Kaweh came to the US in 1984. After studying Audio Engineering at Full Sail University in Florida, he recorded his first albumin 2000. Kaweh has been the only ensemble in California since Sol Y Luna that combines Flamenco Rumba with Salsa, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Latin & Brazilian Jazz. Now three members from that ensemble perform with Kaweh. Kaweh's solo performance and aerial accompaniment at Burning Man earned him two awards (2010 & 2012).

David Belove has been a part of the Bay Area music scene for over 30 years. He relocated to San Francisco in 1973 and soon became the Bay Area’s most prominent Latin and Brazilian bassist. He has performed and recorded with such jazz greats as Danilo Perez, Tito Puente, Eddie Harris, Pat Metheny, Mark Levine and Larry Coryell, and also serves on the faculty of UC Berkeley's School of Jazz.

Edgadro Cambon is leader and founder of San Francisco's premier and oldest Salsa band "Candela". Edgardo arrived in San Francisco in 1986 and recorded with Chucho Valdés, Joan Baez, Claudia Gomez, Omar Sosa and he is also co-founder of the legendary San Francisco group Sol Y Luna. Edgardo taught percussion for five years at Folsom State Prison as part of the rehabilitation program.

Roger Danilo Páiz, originally from Nicaragua, is founder of another premier SF based group Orquesta Universal. In his extensive musical career, Danilo has played with extraordinary internationally known musicians such as Ray Baretto, Ruben Blades, Mary Wilson of The Supremes, Benny Velarde and his Super Combo, Dizzy Gillespie, and Cal Tjader. He demonstrates some of his best work on bongo and vocals.

Willie Garza is the fire behind many Bay Area based groups. On percussion, Willie provides the flavor, the spice and the sparkle that a band needs. A gifted musician not only on Latin percussion, Willie has been known to hold down keyboard and trumpet positions for various musical shows as well as playing a mean Son, Montuno or Guaguanco on the piano. Willie is endorsed by Sonor drums; Latin Percussion line.

Alex Specht is a professional and very gifted musician who performs with numerous Salsa bands in the Bay Area. His musical talents stretch from Latin and Brazilian styles to Blues, Jazz and electronic compositions. Alex is also the regular sound technician at the Yerba Buena Gardens in SF year-round.

CARLOS REYES
World-Renowned Paraguayan Harpist & Violinist
Tuesday, November 20
8pm $18

Carlos Reyes recording artist, producer, engineer, harpist and violinist-- has been breaking musical barriers since his first public performance at the age of five. Born in Paraguay South America. He began his musical education at the age of three and a half on the violin. A few years later, his father, a musical and national hero in Paraguay, dared young Carlos to learn the complicated 36 string native Paraguayan harp. Being called a child prodigy at an early age he took his fathers challenge seriously, Carlos purchased his first harp for $50.00 when he was just ten years old. Two weeks later, he earned a double encore and $250.00 at his first professional harp concert. Since then he has taken the Harp and it’s music to new and ground breaking levels.

Recently returning from tours in Asia and South America he keeps sharing his brand of music to more and more parts of the world with great reviews. Carlos has been invited by the Ministry of Education in Paraguay to come back and give concerts. Out off his last tour to homeland, he has started a program to bring back musical instruments for the children. He is planning to give workshops and get this project/foundation running this year.

Carlos currently has new CD’s soon to be released. A group effort featuring Carlos’s astonishing mastery of the Violin and Harp and a third solo harp endeavor. Along with an international musical reputation, Mr. Reyes has amassed a large enthusiastic Bay Area following always wondering what new surprise or style of music he’ll bring to the stage. His charismatic personality and outstanding musical talents are a potent combination with which he performs an extensive and entertaining repertoire. The Bay Area is proud to claim Carlos Reyes, as one of its most favorite and talented artists.

JEFF LORBER with JIMMY HASLIP, ERIC MARIENTHAL & GARY NOVAK
Jazz Fusion Pioneers
Wednesday, November 21
8pm $22

By the late 1970s, trailblazing keyboardist/composer/producer Jeff Lorber had become a prominent figure in the new movement known as jazz fusion – a marriage of traditional jazz with elements of rock, R&B, funk and other electrified sounds. Lorber and his band, the Jeff Lorber Fusion, first honed their craft in the Portland, Oregon, club scene and rapidly expanded their reach to a national and international audience via a combination of complex harmonies, unconventional time signatures and compelling rhythms.

In subsequent years, Lorber dropped the term “fusion” from his billing as the movement evolved into what is currently known as contemporary jazz. Still, he continued to explore the innovative, improvisational potential of grafting other musical forms to the jazz idiom.

More than three decades after his earliest recordings, Lorber has come full circle. His new recording, Galaxy, released January 2012, on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group, revisits a sound he helped pioneer. The album takes the experiment that he started with his last GRAMMY®-nominated CD, Now is the Time, up a notch with 11 exciting and energetic new compositions performed by some of the biggest names in jazz today. Core members Lorber, bassist Jimmy Haslip and saxophonist Eric Marienthal are in rare form, aided by the explosive playing of drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and guest appearances by trumpeter Randy Brecker, percussionist Lenny Castro, guitarists Paul Jackson Jr. and Larry Koonse, and drummer Dave Weckl.

Lorber’s music reaches a new level by crystallizing jazz, funk, and Latin rhythms with some killer melodies that will certainly translate to live performance. The first track, “Live Wire,” blends a blistering house beat with extended solos by Lorber and Koonse and some amazing drum fills from Colaiuta. “Big Brother” moves into hip hop territory, similar to Jeff's grooving “Rain Dance,” which became a huge hit for Notorious Big and Lil' Kim as “Crush on You.” “Montserrat” sounds like a mixture of Sly Stone and Tower of Power, with super funky horn arrangements by Dave Mann. Obviously, a year spent touring together has made Lorber, Haslip and Marienthal into a tight unit, which is evident from this recording.

HAVANA D'PRIMERA
Saturday, November 24
8 & 10pm $30 each show
Open dance floor

There were a good 20 excellent albums in the first 8 years of the 21st Century, but very few people would deny that the amazing creative momentum of the 1990s ran into a brick wall in early 2001. Attesting to the decline in the Havana scene is the staggering list of brilliant musicians who have left the island: Manolín, Issac Delgado, Danny Lozada, Yoel Páez, Joel Domínguez, Juan Carlos González, etc. etc.

Havana d'Primera was formed by a collective of the best musicians of the 1990s -- those who refused to throw in the towel -- in an attempt to rekindle the magic of timba and create a better working environment for musicians. Their debut album, Haciendo historia, and a string of riveting performances, have caused more buzz than any new band since Pupy y Los Que Son Son.

The band is directed by Alexander Abreu, widely recognized as the greatest trumpeter of his generation -- a key part of Paulito FG's Élite during its glory years and the first call studio trumpeter for everyone from Juan Ceruto to Juan Formell to Issac Delgado. There had always been rumors of Alexander's behind-the-scenes creative contributions in the form of coros and mambos, but he's now come front and center as a dominating lead vocalist and songwriter. His voice is reminiscent of Robertón but with the added melodic sophistication of a skilled instrumentalist. His writing and arranging are brilliant.

Every musician is an all-star -- from pianist Antonio Rodriguez to conguero "El Toro" Castillo to corista Enrique "El Gordo" Pérez to trombonist Carlos Álvarez.??To put it simply, if I were arriving at Havana Airport tonight, this would be the first band I'd be searching for. ~Kevin Moore

Don Reed'S East 14th - A Benefit for 51Oakland
Organized and operated solely to promote educational, artistic and musical opportunities for youth in the Oakland community.
Sunday, December 2
7pm $25 17+

Comedian Don Reed (HBO, Cosby Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno) EAST 14TH chronicles the true tale of a young man raised in Oakland by his mother and ultra-strict stepfather as a middle class, straight A, God-fearing church boy. The boy, however, wanted to be just like his dear old Dad. Too bad he didn't know dear old Dad was a pimp. And yet we find even the outlaws in our community have a moral compass that leads our most promising to higher ground and higher education. Very funny, definitely poignant — a ride down a street you won't soon forget. The New Yorker - "Hilarious! The audience can't stop laughing." The San Francisco Chronicle described Reed as an "Irresistible presence," and the East Bay Express declared the show ‘...Nothing short of amazing." The show is a Double NAACP Theatre Award Nominee - Best Actor & Best Playwright --Best Bay Area Critics Circle Award Solo Performance nominee and was the longest running one man show in East Bay Area History. Visit east14th.com for backstory or themarsh.org to view his new '80's show The Kipling Hotel.

51Oakland was established in 2011 by Yoshie Akiba, co-owner of the renowned musical venues, Yoshi’s Oakland and Yoshi’s San Francisco, and Jason Hofmann, an Oakland-based entrepreneur and former educator who, since 2001, has been involved in philanthropic activities benefiting youth.

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