The Culture Circuit, Sept. 17-22
What to do this week in Albany, Berkeley and around the East Bay.
From environmental storytelling and fall equinox jazz to cartoonists, experimental rock and Black sonic traditions, there’s plenty to explore in this week’s arts roundup.
Please help keep this weekly list lively and well informed by sending details about upcoming concerts, readings, performances and workshops to events@albanyscanner.com.
Writing the world with Earth Island Journal
Earth Island Journal presents environmental activists and writers Annie Leonard and Jason Dove Mark discussing the power of fact-based storytelling to spark hope and drive social change. Earth Island Journal Editor-in-Chief Maureen Nandini Mitra moderates the conversation. A schmooze in the lobby with the authors over vegetarian hors d’oeuvres and drinks follows the salon, and their books will be available for purchase. Leonard led Greenpeace USA as executive director, created The Story of Stuff Project, and co-launched the Jane Fonda Climate PAC. Mark is a veteran environmental journalist who served as editor-in-chief of Sierra magazine and Earth Island Journal. His new book, “The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet,” was published in July. Thursday, Sept. 17, 6 p.m. David Brower Center (Berkeley). $10-$20
Kiss the summer goodbye with Erik Jekabson
El Cerrito trumpeter Erik Jekabson has long been an essential force on the Bay Area music scene as a player, bandleader and educator who runs the Jazzschool’s Young Musicians Program (where, full disclosure, my daughter has played in a combo). He’s also been something of a house arranger and composer at Berkeley’s Wide Hive Records, often teaming up with label owner Gregory Howe to create new material under the collective moniker Daggerboard. Over the past few years they’ve presented a series of ambitious orchestral jazz concerts at the Hillside Club, usually in conjunction with a seasonal shift (a recent one was captured on the live album “The Axes Volume II: Summer Solstice”). Jekabson returns to Hillside with eight world premieres for 12-piece chamber orchestra and jazz quartet in celebration of the fall equinox, the final of the four Axes concerts. The music includes pieces by Daggerboard and solely by Jekabson, and brings together a sensational cast of players, including bassoon master Paul Hanson, flutist Mary Fettig, trombonist Jeff Cressman, and pianist Matt Clark. Classical Revolution violist Charith Premawardhana conducts the string sextet, and Howe and Katiana Vila provide vocals. Jekabson’s past seasonal celebrations have been thrilling events. Saturday, Sept. 19, 7 p.m. Hillside Club (Berkeley). $17.85
Pearls before Pegasus
I must confess that I’m a longtime fan of Stephan Pastis’s comic strip “Pearls Before Swine,” often chuckling and groaning at his elaborate puns and shamelessly labored wordplay. The paragon of dad humor, a longtime resident of Santa Rosa, alights on Solano Avenue for an event with award-winning cartoonist Will Henry (“Wallace the Brave” and “Ordinary Bill”), celebrating the release of the first book in the new “Adventures of He-Man (and Porter)!” series, “Skeletor Ate My Homework.” The event includes a reading from the illustrated middle-grade adventure set in the world of “Masters of the Universe,” as well as a book signing and talk on the cartooning process. Saturday, Sept. 19, 2 p.m. Pegasus Books on Solano (Berkeley). Free
The Ivy Room gets loud, x 4
A quadruple bill, even on a Saturday night, is a serious endeavor. This Ivy Room program brings together a wooly menagerie of ensembles, starting with Surplus 1980, an avant-rock-jazz combo led by always-entertaining percussionist Moe Staiano, who has announced this is the band’s final performance. Pateka is a four-piece experimental rock group from Richmond featuring Elihu Knowles on keyboard and vocals, guitarist Dylan Ransley, bassist Quinn Girard, and drummer Ryan Higley. Knowles was deeply involved with the music program at El Cerrito’s Little Hill Lounge until a management change last month. Clarinetist Paul Costuros’s Murder Murder has included many leading lights from the Bay Area art-punk-free-jazz-noise scene, and Strawberry Panic is an electro-thrash duo of Wylie Buzzard and Darcy Dinner. There will be noise. Saturday, Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m. The Ivy Room (Albany). $18.33
Not too Dirty, Cello, that is…
Sometimes you just have to respect a musician’s hustle. San Francisco cellist Rebecca Roudman is best known as the vocalist and titular instrumentalist in the rock band Dirty Cello, a group that plays something like 100 gigs a year in a wide variety of venues. She also leads San Francisco Yiddish Combo, a klezmer combo that pops up around the region. Last year she launched Not Loud Concerts, a double-bill project that pairs Dirty Cello with another band for stylistically thematic programs. Looking to attract new audiences, she bills the events as mini-festivals that are “not too long, not too expensive, and of course, not too loud,” which is not a bad pitch. Roudman concludes the summer with a vintage rock night held in the commodious courtyard behind Gilman Brewing. With Dirty Cello sharing the stage with 1980s cover band Rockbusters, the two bands will trade off songs, a rock-off for bragging rights. Sunday, Sept. 20, 7-9 p.m. Gilman Brewing (Berkeley). $20
Black sonic transmissions in the stacks
The Berkeley Public Library's In the Stax program, which partners with artists and organization to bring performances into the library, kicks off an installation with Derwin Deon Brown II, founder of the Black American Sound System (B.A.S.S.). library. Opening with a reception for Brown, the partnership features the sound exhibit “The People's Sonic Park,” which will be on display through the end of December. The centerpiece is a preview of his forthcoming album “John Henry.” Brown describes his work as “part installation, part mobile theater, and part public ritual…reimagined from deep-rooted Black sonic traditions (from the Caribbean to the South) and repurposed for today’s movements in art, technology, education, and resistance.” Tuesday, Sept. 22, 4 p.m. Central Library Mystery Room (Berkeley). Free
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