Gigs and friends

What a fun week of music! On Thursday and Friday nights, I performed with Kymberly Jackson, and her band, Urban Legends (Mark Daniels, guitar, Charleston Quinn, bass, Brian Braziel, drums). I had a great time playing with them! Kymberly chooses an energetic mix of jazz and R&B that keeps the crowd moving. On Saturday night, I performed my regular piano/singing gig at Marcello’s and tried out a couple of new songs that went over well with the patrons.

Today, I performed with Papa Gianni in Berkeley. Papa Gianni is a near nonagenarian who still sings and puts on a show! I get the chance to play everything from popular Italian love songs to classical arias to polkas to jazz standards. It’s definitely a fun gig, but not for the faint of heart: good luck with anyone providing a score or chord chart, and even if they do, it’s rarely in the right key! But, of course, I’m never one for backing down from a challenge.

After my gig, I went to a house music party thrown by Napata. She had apparently performed earlier, but missed her. The theme of her event was “Cadillac Records”. I caught the performances of Darlene Coleman and Alvon Johnson, in the roles of Etta James and Muddy Waters. Both were amazing! And I got to see my friends Jimmy McKinney, keys, Eddie, drums, and Rusty Allen, bass, backing everyone up.

Next, I went to Yoshi’s San Francisco (They’ve been seeing a lot of me this week!) to see Tony Lindsay perform with Myron Dove, John Burr, Darian Gray and Ken Harrill. They were great! Guitarist Chris Cain made a cameo appearance and playing a WICKED guitar solo on Tony’s song “Shoulda been there” from his self-titled CD “Tony Lindsay”. After the concert, I saw how many of my friends were in attendance. It’s always beautiful to see my super talented friends, especially since, as a performer, I so rarely get to attend concerts.


Photos of me with Janice Maxie-Reid, Myron Dove and Lisa Bautista.



Thanks to all of my friends for coming to my shows this week: Amy, Ken, Bruce, Rodney, Caroline, Lynette, Robert, Jeff and Sophie. I appreciate you all!