Jazz at the Peralta benefits scholarship students
By B. K. Lake, March 2, 2007

Some of San Miguel’s top international musicians are helping to make more college scholarships available to local, young people by donating their musical skills to a benefit concert, “Jazz and More at the Peralta,” on March 6. The headliners have played widely in the US, Europe, Mexico and Latin America. 

All proceeds from the benefit will go the nonprofit group, Jóvenes Adelantes, which is providing full scholarships to students from low-income families in the San Miguel area who, otherwise, could not afford college.

One of the students is Juan Martín Trujillo García, whose divorced mother is a cook’s helper. Juan is working toward his goal “to help the disadvantaged, especially single mothers,” by pursuing a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration at the Autonomous University in Querétaro.

The artists include guitarist Gil Gutiérrez and violinist Pedro Cartas, who played the Kennedy Center last year in Washington, and are preparing for a May and June tour that will take them to the famed Aspen Festival in Aspen, Colorado and to a performance on Cumberland Island, Georgia, sponsored by the Mexican Cultural Institute. In the fall, they will appear in San Francisco and Santa Barbara during a West Coast tour.

Gil and Cartas have won acclaim for their blend of flamenco, blues, Cuban son, bluegrass, gypsy and classical jazz in clubs in New York and California and other cities in the US and Mexico and on five CDs. Oaxacan-born Gil Gutiérrez composed and performed music for the film Frida and Pedro Cartas spent eight years as first chair violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba.

Pianist Ken Bichel’s performance and recording credits include Aretha Franklin, Luciano Pavarotti, Billy Joel, Peggy Lee, Placido Domingo, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Judy Collins, Paul Simon, The Orchestra of the Sorbonne and The American Symphony Orchestra, as well as 12 Hollywood feature films. He has an Emmy award and two gold records to his credit. Bichel, who trained at Julliard, describes his approach as eclectic, neither jazz nor classical but an amalgam of multi-national styles and influences that. allows him to improvise freely.

A cabaret singer in Europe, Morocco and New York, Wendy Bichel began her career performing with such jazz artists as Dexter Gordon, Tony Scott, Kenny Drew and Jon Hendricks. In New York during the late eighties, the Golden Age of Cabaret, she performed a series of her original shows at such well-known New York venues as Reno Sweeney, S.N.A.F.U., La Chansonette, The Copacabana, Green Street and Don’t Tell Mama. Her singing style infuses well-loved standards with invention and a lightness of interpretation that is filled with surprises.

She is backed by her musical director, the guitar virtuoso Ken Basman, known for his lightning technique and experience in all musical idioms, and the highly-regarded cellist, Vishnu Wood, of New York.

Tickets for the March 6 event are available in the Jardín; the Biblioteca Pública; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57, and La Conexion, Aldama 3.

Tickets for the March 10 and 11 events are available at La Tienda at the Biblioteca; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexion, Aldama 3; the Sierra Nevada Hotel, Hospicio 46, and at the St. Paul’s church office, Cardo 6, weekdays 11–2pm. Tickets may be reserved by calling 152-0387 during those hours and purchased at the door one hour before concert time.

Some pertinent perspectives on American Blues
By Venae Warner

Bob & Joe’s Blues Show A tribe of two—a special duo concert Fri, Mar 9, 8pm El Viejo Topo Stirling Dickinson

By now everyone knows that the legendary Rolling Stones were so impressed with American Blues that they tried in their very own, distinctively British, way it emulate it. But what most people don’t know is how the “blues” influenced and spilled over to other parts of contemporary music.

What we mostly picture when we picture the blues musician is the solitary guitarist lamenting his lost love. But, this is only a small faction of what makes up the blues. 

Jump Music

Ask the average guy to describe Bing Crosby and they will think crooner and conservative movie actor. But Bing Crosby had his moment of rebelliousness; in fact he lost his first singing movie role when he ended up in a Los Angeles jail. He went on to record with Duke Ellington. That was the beginning of ‘Jump Music.’ During the war, people were more volatile and they seemed to want what was hot and made you want to move. In 1942, Lionel Hampton was playing this specific kind of jumping music that inspired his bassist Vernon Alley to jump off the boat where they were playing, just to cool off. Before this time, the very polished Benny Goodman with guitarist Charlie Christian’s timeless influence, were the hot ones. Louis Jordan and his combo replaced them as the hot favorites by the end of the war. He moved the music around to manipulate dancing and encourage rambunctious behavior. He was the forerunner of the humorous perspective of the blues and initiated the trend to sell records to the white middle class. 

He was by far the biggest influence for American rhythm and blues favorite, Ray Charles and early rocker, Chuck Berry.

Cab Calloway, looking deceptively urbane, also conjured up an infectious toe-tapping trend, literally and musically. With his trademark white Zoot suit and his matching shoes, he sang his way into the cinema. Who doesn’t remember “Minnie the Moocher?” At least if you were born before 1950.

Louis Jordan was replaced by Bill Haley, once a Philadelphia Cowboy, with the “Four Aces of Western Swing.” He went on to record “Rock Around The Clock.”

Then there was Nat King Cole who didn’t start out crooning, but began his career earlier with his infectious jump band, The Nat King Cole Trio.

Currently, the movie making business has invested heavily in the crucial influence music has on developing character and mood. Look at T-Bone Burnett , who through much research put together the music for O, Brother Where Art Thou, and Cold Mountain. Without that musical historical input we would not have truly experienced the impact of the rural country sounds of the twenties and thirties. Personally, I will always have a soft spot for the Soggy Bottom Boys who Burnett created to express a musical period of American history on such a sensory and audible level like never before. 

Bob Kaplan and Joe Warner are likewise working to recreate a mood and develop their sound to capture a time in American history where music was lively and entertaining. This year’s installment of Bob and Joe’s Blues Show, “A Tribe Of Two” includes all new songs and instrumentation and features the multitalented Bob Kaplan, not only singing and playing harmonica but also piano and percussion. Joe Warner, who played the blues circuit for many years on the west coast, is pulling out his tenor banjo in addition to playing the guitar and singing to give new flavor to their show. Along with their original songs they are presenting songs from the likes of Cab Calloway, Jimmy Rodgers, Bing Crosby, Charlie Patton and the Memphis Sheiks. 

Bobby Kaplan (harmonica and vocals) studied percussion at the Berklee School of Music, then moved to New York where he was active in the original avant-garde “new music” of the sixties. He has participated in numerous national and international jazz festivals, and has played with many of the great figures of jazz, including Gato Barbieri, Etta James, and David “Fathead” Newman. He has also played drums with Dexter Gordon and Pharoah Sahnders. In 1998, he was a semi-finalist in the Theolonious Monk Vocalist competition. 

Joe Warner (guitars and vocals) lives in San Miguel now, but grew up playing the blues professionally in southern California. He studied with the master of folk blues guitar, Stephan Grossman, and was mentored by California blues guitar legend, the late Buddy Smith. He has backed such blues greats as Snooky Prior, Kim Wilson and Junior Watson and performed at blues and jazz festivals such as the Ojai Bowlful of Blues, Irvine Jazz and Blues Festival and more recently at the International Jazz and Blues Festival of San Miguel de Allende.

Permeation and permutations of Flamenco
By Sergio Basurto

Flamenco guitar conert
Mon & Tues, Mar 5 & 6, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

Sergio Basurto’s musical career started in Mexico City when, at 16, he studied the Andean flute known as Quena. This expertise allowed Sergio to become part of the most prestigious Latin American folklore groups of the ‘70s. While with the group, he learned to play the multiple syncopated rhythms of Latin American folklore such as milongas, baladas, rumba, bossa nova and more. From this experience it wasn’t difficult for him to understand flamenco rhythms couched by maestro Fabricio de Asis and the Andalucian guitarist Tony Rey.

In the early ‘90s Basurto was invited, as a guitarist, to form part of Angela Cuevas’ flamenco group. At the time the group was playing in San Miguel de Allende, and thus Basurto moved from Mexico City to settle as a flamenco guitarist, initiating a new phase in his musical expertise. He has since created his own flamenco group, Caña y Canela.

Flamenco is more than music and dance from southern Spain; it is a way of life which permeates everyday activity. The variety of flamenco rhythms—clearly distinguishable within the culture of southern Spain—are not easily recognizable to the western ear.

On March 5 and 6, Maestro Basurto will interpret the most representative of these rhythms; sevillana, so called to honor the city were it was developed; soleares, derived from the word soledad (loneliness, longing for); alegria, derived from soleares with an intent to counteract sadness with joy; tango, considered one of the oldest gypsy rhythms, is usually melancholic, but highly sensual; bulerias, one of the most flexible rhythms, full of humor and yet intrinsically majestic which starts at a slow tempo building to a sudden accelerating to a machine-gun–like clipped ending; fandango, related to the cante jondo for its lively rhythm; and rumba, borrowed from Latin America, retaining all the sensuality of its source, is flamenco’s sexiest dance.

Maestro Basurto is a well known and highly recognized interpreter of the flamenco guitar, outstanding for his charm and warmth and his charismatic approach to his audiences.

Gaining more acclaim, José White plays here
By B. K. Lake

José White String Quartet
Sat, Mar 10, 8pm
Sun Mar 11, 5pm
St Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
150/50 pesos

The José White String Quartet, growing in popularity on the international concert scene, plays the San Miguel el Grande Pro Musica series. After playing together as scholarship students at the Chamber Music Festival for five years in the ‘90s, the quartet appeared on the program in 1998 and has returned to play at subsequent festivals and Pro Musica concerts.

The quartet presented four concerts in Spain last year and is preparing to make its second US tour in January and February. After their US debut in 2004, a reviewer in Cleveland said “their rhythmic intensity was exhilarating, their emotional involvement electrifying... They stretched phrases to the breaking point and relished the glowing colors of the composer’s impressionist palette.” They also recorded their second CD last December.

Their concerts include pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Ponce and Mario Lavista, a highly-regarded Mexican composer born in 1943.

Based in Aguascalientes, the members are principal players with the Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra. With three of the members having been born in Havana, the group named itself after Cuba’s noted violinist of the 19th and early 20th centuries, José White, who enjoyed an international concert career while based in Europe and who has inspired string players in Latin America for several generations.

Tickets are available at La Tienda at the Biblioteca; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexion, Aldama 3; the Sierra Nevada Hotel, Hospicio 46, and at the St. Paul’s church office, Cardo 6, week days 11–2pm. Tickets may be reserved by calling 152–0387 during those hours and purchased at the door one hour before concert time.

100 ANYÉL kids sing in Jardín

Concert
ANYÉL in the Jardín
Sun, Mar 4, 5pm
Jardín Principal

This Sunday more than 100 children from the ANYÉL music programs will sing in the main square. This is the first music festival to celebrate the wonderful opportunity for the musical experience given to hundreds of children in public preschools and orphanages, free of charge, by ANYÉL, a nonprofit organization directed by Elsmarie Norby. A new CD entitled Canciones para Niños (songs for children) will be available for sale for 60 pesos, to benefit more music for kids in San Miguel.

Upcoming events at Teatro Ángela Peralta

March 8: Piano concert. Alejandro Corona with music from The Beatles and Rhapsody in Blue: Gershwin. 7:30pm

March 9: Opera and piano concert. Guadalupe Colorado and Eleonora Barrales.

March 22: Violin and piano concert. Cecilia and Laura Sosa

The Koerners are coming
By Carol Sherman

Benefit cabaret
Marianne and Richard Koerner
Sat, Mar 10, 7:30pm
Bellas Artes
125 pesos

If you have been going to benefits here in San Miguel for the past fourteen years, then it is likely that you have been fortunate to have heard Marianne Koerner present her acclaimed cabaret act.

This time, Marianne is joined by her husband Richard, presenting a cabaret show—a benefit for ALMA—titled “with a song in my heart and other gems by Rodgers and Hart.”

Marianne earned a master’s degree at Columbia University in music education, but says, “I was sidetracked onto Broadway.” She performed on the Perry Como and Garry Moore show, and appeared in two Bob Fosse productions on Broadway—“Red Head” and “The Conquering Hero.”

Richard, a song writer and world traveler, appeared almost naked with the San Miguel Playreaders production of “You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running.” Gifted with zany wit and stage presence, Richard stole the show, hands down (and pants down for that matter).

Marianne and Richard, who spend half the year in Sag Harbor, New York, have been married for forty-two years. They have a unique chemistry on stage—like Lunt and Fontaine, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, or perhaps the Marx Brothers. She and Richard will perform two duets and Marianne will allow Richard to perform one solo (he promised to behave).

Blessed with a beautiful voice, full heart and a witty and probing intelligence, Marianne helps make these Rodgers and Hart classics shiny and new once again. Don’t miss this opportunity to enjoy Marianne and Richard in this warm and upbeat evening of song and patter.

Tickets are on sale at Border Crossings, La Conexion, and in the Jardín March 5–10.