Amelia Meath & Nick Sanborn. All photos by Dakin Hardwick.
At first glance, the pairing of jazz experimentalist Kamasi Washington and electro-pop hitmakers Sylvan Esso seemed like a really odd mix. However, when Washington and his band took the stage, it didn’t take long for the audience to warm up to his impressive brand of hard, heavy, funk and hip hop infused jazz. Before the first song was over, a significant percentage of the audience was up and dancing. Hard. Continue reading “Show Review: Sylvan Esso, Kamasi Washington at The Greek Theater — UC Berkeley, 7/12/18”
San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival has been well known for packing hordes of genres and artists into their lineup, but rarely have they picked a collection of artists that are so solidly categorized as jazz musicians before anything else. True to the latter half of its name, the festival tends to want to pick acts that have those hooks and rhythms which you want to sing or dance along to with a common familiarity, or even are comfortable with hearing on the radio. There are, of course, certain acts (like seminal hardcore favorites Drive Like Jehu this year, or Yoko Ono a few years back) that defy such conventions, but you can generally bet on finding the bands to be less on the blatantly esoteric side of things. Thus, it was a bit of a risk throwing some jazz artists into the mix; however, it absolutely paid off, as all four shows (spread across two nights, two artists, and two venues) sold out, weeks in advance, and the two performers — elecronic-wizard-plus-jazz-quartet Kneedelus, and newly-Grammy’d tenor sax master Kamasi Washington — definitely did not disappoint.
Korla Pandit, Godfather of Exotica Music (which you can see on February 20th during this year’s Noise Pop Festival!)
This is a really big year for Noise Pop, one of the most long-standing and widely-genred music festivals in the Bay Area. For the first time ever, the festival is running 10 days — double its usual duration. They’ve expanded the film portion of the event, featuring 22 films in addition to the usual assortment of bands covering the entire gamut of “noise pop,” including hardcore punk, bubblegum pop, hip-hop, jazz, garage, twee — everything, basically! Of course, with such a huge variety of entertainment taking over the town for nearly two weeks, you’ll need some help deciding on what to go to. That’s what we’re here for — letting you know our picks for the best things to see and hear at this year’s Noise Pop Festival! Continue reading “Spinning Platters Guide to Noise Pop 2016”
