diggrz: SF JAZZ festival gets underway with a BANG!

By - September 24, 2006

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -

 By Sara Kremer for Silicon Valley Watcher

Kicking off the SFJazz Fall Festival Season with a bang, Planet Drum played a pre-festival concert at the Nob Hill Masonic Center Saturday night.

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Planet Drum, made up of the world's most accomplished percussionists representing five continents, has been a successful world music fusion project of Mickey Hart (best known as the innovative drummer for the Grateful Dead) and became the first world music group to ever win a grammy in 1991. Fifteen years later, featuring far-flung percussion virtuosos like Indian tabla phenomenon Zakir Hussain, conga maestro Giovanni Hidalgo, talking drum master Sikiru Adepoju, Brazillian drummer/impromptu singer Airto Moreira, and electronic musician/drummer Mickey Hart, this latest incarnation of Planet Drum is still at the forefront of the world's top percussionists.

Upon entering the theater, I was awe struck by the five elaborate percussion setups that impressively filled the stage. Quickly into the show, I realized that the drums, representing the sounds and heartbeats of indigenous cultures, were giving me visions of the world's jungles and far off natural environments. The rhythms transported me from an African Safari to the beaches of Brazil within one measure of body shaking beats. The flow of the show spanned from melodic floaty jams to hard hitting solos and call-and response sessions that made the audience laugh out loud in delight.

I was especially impressed by the interplay between Hidalgo, the conga player (whose fingers moved faster than my eyes could focus) and Hussein, the tabla player. Each banged out rhythms and matched each other in a way that inspired shouts and cries from the audience.

Mickey hart has been experimenting with electronic sounds over the years, and between his synth and electronic samples, live percussion, congas, talking drum, tabla, and vocals, the sound was fresh and exciting. In tibute to Grateful Dead philosophy, both recording devices and audience interaction were both allowed and encouraged. It was difficult to keep still, and the crowd was brimming with people grooving in their seats and even some in the aisles.

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This is just the beginning of SFJazz's Fall season, and there are a slew of great shows to come. Here is the schedule for the fall season. Tickets for shows can be bought here. Be sure to get tickets early as shows are bound to fill up quickly.

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found  kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating  commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

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