The farther Lizz Wright gets from her gospel roots, the more sustenance she seems to draw from the rich red soil of her native Georgia. Her new album Freedom & Surrender is the latest step on a journey that has taken the self-described “country jazz” vocalist with the molasses-steeped sound from her home in Atlanta to Brooklyn’s polyglot scene, where she’s absorbed a myriad of influences. Produced by Larry Klein, who’s responsible for memorable albums by artists such as Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, Madeleine Peyroux, Herbie Hancock, Shawn Colvin, and Melody Gardot, Freedom & Surrender features an array of sensuous songs that promiscuously mingle soul, jazz and pop (including a haunting version of Nick Drake’s “River Man” and a midnight-sultry take on the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody”). Part of what makes Wright such a powerful singer, aside from the sheer jaw-dropping beauty of her voice, is her gift for infusing even the earthiest material with a glint of the sublime. “Gospel music is, thankfully, an inescapable root that informs my approach to most everything,” says Wright, 36, who performs Saturday at Kuumbwa (a concert previously scheduled for the Rio Theatre). “Even more than a heaven-facing kind of blues, it’s about an earnestness that speaks of the tender resilience of the human spirit.” Since the release of her 2003 debut album Salt, Wright has forged creative alliances with a loose confederation of similarly soulful artists, from singer/songwriter Toshi Reagon and bassist/composer Meshell Ndegeocello to violinist Regina Carter and vocalist Gregory Porter (who joins her on Freedom & Surrender on her amorously animated “Right Where You Are”).
Part of what makes Wright such a powerful singer, aside from the sheer jaw-dropping beauty of her voice, is her gift for infusing even the earthiest material with a glint of the sublime.
She’s worked with smart producers before. Drummer Brian Blade and keyboardist Jon Cowherd co-helmed her debut album, and the visionary Craig Street added gorgeous acoustic textures to her 2005 follow-up Dreaming Wide Awake and her sumptuous 2008 masterpiece The Orchard. For her new record, producer Larry Klein revealed a different facet of Wright’s sensibility, a sound sanctified and otherworldly. “As an artist, you feel throughout the process that Larry’s offerings are at your service,” Wright says. “It’s possible to come out of a project with him feeling that you’re more of yourself than you were at the start.” Klein is most effective at framing her original songs, which predominate on the album. In many ways, composing is as foundational to her art as the church. Performing in choirs throughout grade school, she wrote her first song for her high-school graduation, where she was the ceremony’s featured performer. Jazz first caught her ear on the radio, particularly Marian McPartland’s award-winning NPR show Piano Jazz. “The thing that got me about jazz is that I heard a lot of the sounds and ideas I’d heard in church,” she says. “The soulfulness and the interpretation, just little riffs and ideas, it all sounded kind of familiar to me. But people were singing about other things, about secular life, and it really interested me.” Wright spent a year at Georgia State University in Atlanta majoring in music performance, but she wasn’t interested in studying classical music and the school didn’t have a jazz program. After a brief move to Macon, she came back to Atlanta and joined the jazz combo In the Spirit, a band of musicians who played in church on Sunday and worked on the jazz scene during the week. She first gained widespread notice in the summer of 2002 through her appearances at a series of Billie Holiday tribute concerts, making a lasting impression at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall with her soul-inflected versions of Lady Day’s masochistic classic “Don’t Explain” and the tormented standard “I Cover the Waterfront.” A week later, she wowed the Hollywood Bowl. Still a work in progress, Wright continues to extend and deepen her sound via encounters with veteran masters, like a fateful backstage encounter with folk legend Odetta at a Carnegie Hall tribute to Nina Simone. “I’m a very independent spirit,” Wright says. “But I’m beginning to respect and understand the power of lineage.”
INFO: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 16. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $35. 427-2227.
Two notebooks, brimming with secrets, sat for years in a drawer under gift wrap and ribbons. Beside them, a manila envelope stuffed with phone records, hotel bills and receipts. “I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was for me,” says Alison, who asked to withhold her surname for privacy’s sake. “It seemed like God lined up a sequence of events that led me to my mom’s diaries at that moment. I wouldn’t have been able to handle them any sooner.” A few years ago, she continues telling her support group, mid-life soul-searching led her spouse, who was adopted as a baby, to reconnect with his birth parents. Tragedy followed. His mom died; then Alison’s. A year-and-a-half later, while discussing how one of their sons might be gay, her husband of two decades came out of the closet.
As growing acceptance and landmark victories—such as last year’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex unions—embolden more people to claim their true identities, that sometimes means leaving a straight partner behind.
“Several things in a short span of time really rocked my foundation,” Alison tells the six people gathered for a recent Straight Spouse Network meeting in Sunnyvale. “We tried everything.” They went to couples therapy and opened the marriage to other partners. That, too, fell apart. They now take turns staying at the home they once shared to spend time with their three school-age children. That the journals turned up just a week ago seems, to Alison, divinely timed. When her dad asked for help moving steel cabinets from one room to another, she dismantled them drawer-by-drawer to shoulder the weight. One tray held her mother’s handwritten notes and a dossier on her husband—Alison’s father—that marked his comings, goings and phone calls. The diaries echoed Alison’s journey these past few years. Her mom, she realized, had battled the same suspicions, heartbreak and grief a generation before her. In hindsight, the clues stand in sharp relief: the emotional distance between her parents, the inseparability of her dad’s male friends. “When my husband came out, he told me he sensed that my father is gay, too,” she says. “Now I know my mom knew.” As a retired nurse and grief counselor, Joyce Miller knows about loss, though she has never gone through the kind that brings people to the Straight Spouse Network. For 19 years, she has guided jilted spouses through this singular kind of heartbreak. When one of her sons came out in the 1980s, Miller embraced him but wondered how something so inextricably linked to his identity escaped her notice. In his honor, she became a devoted ally to the LGBT community. She marched in a parade with a sign that read, “I love my gay son.” She began volunteering for the nonprofit Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). “That was the beginning of parents sticking up for their gay kids,” says Miller, who is slight and meticulously kempt, her white hair cropped close in a pixie. “But while some people were celebrating the fact that they had gay kids, I began hearing about these straight spouses who weren’t seeing a reason to celebrate.” Social, religious and family pressures have forced men and women into the closet from time immemorial. As growing acceptance and landmark victories—such as last year’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex unions—embolden more people to claim their true identities, that sometimes means leaving a straight partner behind.
Santa Cruz Support
For spouses in Santa Cruz, PFLAG’s local chapter provides a network of family members, friends, and anyone who has had similar experiences, says PFLAG Santa Cruz County president, Neal Savage. “It creates a normality around the situation because most of us grew up in a heteronormative society, and when you realize it’s not that homogeneous, you can deal with differences,” says Savage. There are a variety of groups for locals, he says, like LMFT Deb Abbott’s TransLove Support Group Santa Cruz, and Edie Frederic’s Rainbow Speakers and Friends in Carmel. On the cultural front, these relationships between straights, gays, lesbians, and transgender men and women have figured into Netflix shows Frankie and Grace and Orange is the New Black and Caitlin Jenner’s real-life coming-out. Amity Pierce Buxton founded the Straight Spouse Network 30 years ago in Oakland after the father of her two children and husband of 25 years came out as gay. For a time, Miller had PFLAG direct the straight spouse hotline to her personal phone and would send people to Buxton’s support groups. She eventually realized that Silicon Valley needed its own chapter and began hosting meetings in her Sunnyvale home. By Buxton’s count, about 2 million American couples find themselves in Alison’s quandary, though stigma and denial make it tough to get an exact number. People marry mismatched partners for complex reasons that may include discrimination but also real affection, wishful thinking and the shape-shifting ambiguities of sexual attraction. Still, the split can send the abandoned spouse into a crisis of identity and faith in their own judgment. “Before every rainbow, there is a storm,” Miller often says. When Alison reveals her family secret, her support group peers—who asked to use pseudonyms to protect their families from gossip—widen their eyes.
Amity Pierce Buxton founded the Straight Spouse Network 30 years ago in Oakland after the father of her two children and husband of 25 years came out as gay.
“They say children are drawn to men who are similar to their father,” says David, who sits just left of Alison at Miller’s dining room table. “Maybe there was something there that made you feel comfortable with your husband.” Alison nods. “I mean, when I look at a woman now, I’m cautious,” continues David, who lost his pastor wife to another woman in the church choir. “I think, ‘Is she gay or is she straight?’” “Me, too,” says Mary, a British ex-pat whose Orthodox Jewish ex-husband lived a double life, dating similarly closeted husbands for decades before their split. “I mean, what if there’s something about me that’s attracted to gay men?” Evelyn, who warns the group that she can only talk about this with a heavy dose of expletives, shakes her head. “But we had sex all the time,” she says in exasperation, adding that she enjoyed 20-some-odd years of relative bliss before her ex’s jarring pronouncement right before her 50th birthday. “That was never a problem. How do you fake that? I don’t know. I really don’t. When I married my husband I was dating three guys and I picked the fucking asshole.” That may be the most difficult part to understand, Mary says. She often wondered whether her husband willed his erections by thinking of other men. Another attendee—Eric, whose wife left him for her best friend after he uncovered their affair—remarks on the irony of some of their gay spouses being so homophobic. “I think it comes from fear,” Mary says. “Even if they’re living a homosexual life, it’s been suppressed for so long that it sort of deranges the psyche. There’s a lot of anger there. But for the straight spouse, too. Because you gave your life to this person, but didn’t realize that you signed separate contracts.” Eric says he was never angry with his wife. Well, maybe about the deception. “All I know is I can’t watch lesbian porn now,” he says, eliciting laughter from the group. Alison says her focus has shifted from obsessing about her ex to finding her own happiness. “I do believe my mom came to this group,” she says. “That would have been around 2000.” Miller tells Alison to bring a photo of her mom next time. Maybe it will jog her memory.
We can sense when change is in the air. It makes us catch our breath and look around. Excitement blends with fear as we cross over into something new. Who will we be on the other side? That was the mood in New York City in 1980, when artists and writers were squatting in seedy lofts and gentrification was only hinting at its ravenous appetite for real estate. Here you could bump into emerging artists like Keith Haring tagging a subway wall, or Jean-Michel Basquiat morphing from hip-hop and graffiti to shows at the Whitney Museum. In Molly Prentiss’ debut novel, Tuesday Nights in 1980, New York City unfolds in all its gritty glory as we follow the pivotal moments that redefined art itself, along with three main characters: an art critic with synesthesia, an emerging painter escaped from Argentina’s dirty war, and their muse Lucy, a small-town beauty hungry for experience. As their lives connect and collide, we’re struck by the tangled ties between people and places, intellect and commerce, art and life. “The central question in the book is: how do you go on after the thing that defines you has been taken away?” says Prentiss. “I was interested in following the trajectory of what happens when things you’ve learned to rely on to define you personally, artistically and culturally, change.” When Prentiss comes to Bookshop Santa Cruz Thursday, it will be her dream come true—not just to have her debut novel published to glowing reviews or head out on a book tour, but to come to this bookstore, in this town.
In Molly Prentiss’ debut novel, Tuesday Nights in 1980, New York City unfolds in all its gritty glory as we follow the pivotal moments that redefined art itself, along with three main characters: an art critic with synesthesia, an emerging painter escaped from Argentina’s dirty war, and their muse Lucy, a small-town beauty hungry for experience.
That’s because Prentiss is from La Selva Beach, and though she now lives in Brooklyn, New York, she will always consider Santa Cruz her true home. She grew up in a communal living situation where six adults and six kids shared a plot of land. Each family had an individual home, but they shared meals. “It was a very arts-focused and creative environment,” she says. “I think that that’s what made me interested in the lives of artists and the varied lifestyles that artists create. It influenced my book in that I think my book is about community. It’s about people finding new ways of living.” She remembers first moving to New York in 2006 and living in a big artists’ loft that was cheap and funky. “It reminded me of the artists’ squats I talk about in the book,” she says. “It wasn’t as violent or intense a time as New York in the ’70s and ’80s, but there was that feeling of possibility and electricity. Artists were still able to live cheaply without working at day jobs the whole time. It’s changed since then.” She talks about the push and pull involved with trying to be an artist or creative type in the big city. “It’s hard, but also interesting. I think that was one of the reasons I was attracted to that moment when things were shifting.” Shift inevitably involves loss, and her characters are forced to wrestle with who they are in the wake of it. “I think an essential part of making art is getting to some core you believe in, touching something inside yourself,” she says. “That varies for everyone, but it’s a driving force, and what makes art successful. If you want it to be that close to you, a part of you, there’s a risk. Where does this thing you made start and where do you begin? Can you find the same sense of yourself or the world without it? It can be tricky.” When Prentiss leaves Santa Cruz, she’ll bring a plastic bag of succulents back to Brooklyn with her and plant them all over her apartment. She’ll have big group dinners with friends and commune around food, which reminds her of home. “I always thought I was growing up in an alternative kind of place where people were doing things differently, in cool and makeshift ways,” she says. She knows her life will change as her book is launched into the world, but she’s game to recreate it, because that’s what artists do.
Molly Prentiss will read from and discuss her new book at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 14, at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Free.
It’s happened again. Another Verve Coffee Roasters—that outlet of enlightened espressos and pastries—has opened on the Westside of Santa Cruz. The location of the tiny chain’s fourth shop is one of the best around—across the street from New Leaf Market and right next door to Bantam. Also, if we can believe a recent article in Sprudge (a website devoted to trends in new-wave coffee), Verve Coffee Roasters will place another one of its stores this month in the world’s busiest train station—in Tokyo! I’d call that thinking big. According to the interview with Verve founder Colby Barr, this will not be a franchise situation, either. More like an embassy, a genuine outpost of Santa Cruz Verve style, only in the largest city in the world. Extremely chill. But let’s get back to our own neck of the woods. The new Westside Verve is, as you would expect, hip to the max. Sleek pale woodwork flatters the long, low front counter of poured and polished concrete. The high ceiling offers ample back wall space upon which perch tiny botanical islands of epiphytes and their friends. Even the industrial hardware here adds visual design appeal. The bank of Nuova Simonelli espresso machines gleams with film noir style. Stacks of logo cups, caps and T-shirts snag the eye from three different angles. And of course, for me, one of the primary draws is that jewel-box case loaded with extravagant pastries, cakes, scones, and wickedness from the folks at Manresa Bread. Here’s the combo to consider: A small Americano—enough octane for three-four hours—plus one of those buttery hazelnut cakes with a rosette of the purest, darkest chocolate ganache in the center. With that $7-duo you can glide through mid-terms, tax forms, or the latest Jonathan Franzen tome with ease. For your seating pleasure, the glass-walled main room offers wrap-around high counters, and a central corridor of long refectory-style tables and chairs just waiting for you, your macchiato and your laptop. Out front, at the edge of the property facing New Leaf Market, there’s a crafty enclosed patio with a wraparound bench for enjoying al fresco coffee klatches and checking of iPhones. Sweet. The latest installment of Verve sits at 1010 Fair Ave., Santa Cruz. Open daily, 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Welcome to the neighborhood!
Personal Pour Taproom
Something new and dramatically different in the way of craft beer tasting will open in May on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, right down the street from O’Neill. Patrons can open a tasting “account” with a credit card and then taste at will. Imagine being able to graze at will over a wall of beer taps, choosing whatever catches your eye and pouring yourself a sample. Pour Taproom is the brainchild of Felton native Chris Reno, who has described this high-tech new venture as a “free-range tasting room.” Stay thirsty, my friends.
Appetizer of the Week
The splendidly unctuous roast asparagus wrapped in prosciutto I enjoyed last Tuesday at Gabriella while listening to sage raconteur Peter Kenez charm a full house of admirers.
Wine of the Week
The amusingly labeled Proper Claret 2013 ($11.99 at Shopper’s Corner) from the feverish mind of wine innovator Randall Grahm proved an able companion for a wide range of foods, from cheeses to grilled trout. An appealing, non-concept-driven blend of Cab, Merlot, Tannat, and Petit Verdot, with a smidge each of Syrah and Petite Sirah, this friendly red wine can romance even leftover pizza with more than a touch of flair. Nice value for the money, and that’s saying a lot.
I came to love the Jabbawockeez after getting to know the guys in the Bangerz, which is the South Bay production crew that composes the beats for the world-famous hip-hop dance team. The Bangerz are a grounded, happy-go-lucky bunch of guys, but, the Jabbawockeez, with their trademark masks and emphasis on anonymity as a way to eliminate individual ego and elevate collective movement, are an enigma. I certainly didn’t know that one of the central figures in the creation of the group, Gary Kendell, was from Santa Cruz. That’s just one of the things I learned reading Anne-Marie Harrison’s cover story this week, and understanding how the style and philosophy of Kendell and his fellow Jabbawockeez changed hip-hop culture forever is key to unlocking this almost secret history of dance culture in Santa Cruz. Harrison lays out the history, and explains how the En Route Urban Dance Showcase this weekend is a continuation of what Kendell started.
I’m also thinking this week about a conversation I had a year ago with Matthew Swinnerton, who organizes Event Santa Cruz and the NEXTies awards. (You may have seen Swinnerton in these pages last week, when he was named “Best Santa Cruz Cheerleader” in an Editor’s Pick.) At that time, Swinnerton told me that his three-year plan for the NEXTies awards would come to full fruition in 2016: “Next year is my full vision,” he said then. Well, that time has come, as the celebration of Santa Cruz’s entrepreneurial spirit returns April 8 with an awards extravaganza at the Rio Theatre. Check out page 36 for the details.
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Route of the Problem
I am writing in response to your article “Way To Go” (3/30/2016). Business owners have valid issues and a significant stake in how customers access our stores. While I have a fairly new downtown store, I have lived here a long time because I like the “feel” of the town and the people immensely. I was quoted out of context in the article, so want to be very clear.
When issues arise there are meetings, studies, and sometimes consultants are hired. Recommendations or proposals are made, followed by more discussions, meetings, etc., and decisions are made. It is how the process “works.” That some ideas which are not even feasible are proposed, discussed, or studied, and some proposals are made with personal, political or business agendas, are the aspects of the process I find immature and counterproductive.
At the same time, chronic problems are not addressed. Changing the direction of the traffic flow on Pacific Avenue is not worth it unless the discussion includes other relevant and pending issues: sidewalk vending, parking, bike lanes, and loitering, among others. We need to address these issues forthrightly. I am sure they can be solved creatively, making downtown even more vibrant, positive and successful.
The future is not anywhere we are going, it is something we are building.
Jeremy Carlson
A Brighter World Tie Dye Co.
Best of the Best
Re: “Best of Santa Cruz County”: Congratulations on such a beautiful issue. Each page is a feast for the eyes! I’m still looking through it—all 172 pages! Keep up the great work—Wednesday is not Wednesday without getting my copy of GT, such a fitting tribute to an incredible place to live for the past 40 years!
Sandra Cohen
Santa Cruz
Best Of Santa Cruz Corrections
With thousands of details on hundreds of listings in our Best of Santa Cruz County issue, each year brings a list of corrections to the issue after. Here are this year’s fixes; we regret the errors.
Greenspace was omitted from the runners-up list in Green Business category.
The following addresses were incomplete or incorrect:
Best Carpet Cleaners: Connoisseur Carpet, 1521 Seabright Ave., Santa Cruz
Best Doctor (MD): Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD, 740 Front St., Suite 130, Santa Cruz
Best Donuts: Ferrell’s Donuts, 1761 17th Ave., Santa Cruz; 5520 Scotts Valley Drive, Scotts Valley; 7765 Soquel Drive, Aptos; 2227 Mission St., Santa Cruz; 1403 Ocean St., Santa Cruz.
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
TV SET
James Durbin’s 2011 elimination from American Idol was the biggest upset in reality TV show history. Not just because it was a surprise—it was really upsetting! The Santa Cruz native came in fourth in season 10. He has both Asperger’s and Tourette syndrome and was one of the greatest people ever to grace Idol’s stage. You can see Durbin perform with other contestants on the show’s finale at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 7 on Fox.
GOOD WORK
RADIO SAGA
Jim Hightower, a longtime opinion contributor to KPIG radio, said in a recent dispatch that he has been “radioactive†for 25 years. The insightful political commentator—who sounds off brilliantly on corrupt politicians, selfish corporations and lobbyists alike—appears on about 200 stations. He announced on Monday, April 4 that the “Jim Hightower Report†will be reduced to just two days a week. It wasn’t our all-time favorite report from him, but we salute all his hard work.
After more than two decades of hardcore punk with intelligent messages, the boys in Bane are finally hanging it up. Originally intended to only be a side project for Converge’s Aaron Dalbec in 1994, the band quickly gained a life of its own, earning love and respect from fans and fellow musicians alike. While never quite being a “straight edge” band, Bane has never been one to cower away from a message of sober positivity while keeping their tough as $#!% attitude. Anyone who was a teenager in the 1980s and 1990s will be there, but even for those who never got into punk, this is one show that will leave everyone asking, “Can we start again? Go back to what it meant back then?” MAT WEIR INFO: 8:30 p.m. Catalyst Club, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $18/adv, $20/door. 429-4315.
FRIDAY 4/8
HARD ROCK
THE DARKNESS
The U.K.’s the Darkness were a surprising hit in 2003 with five hit singles off their debut record, most notably the hard-rocking earworm “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.” The band rode a weird line of homage and ’70s rock parody. They had all the ingredients: the sweet licks, feathered hair, flamboyant clothes, and operatic falsetto. They’re not quite the hitmakers they were 13 years ago, but their newest album is packed with just as much power-rocking riffage, and singer Justin Hawkins belts out all of those unbelievably high notes that old-school Darkness fans will be sure to love. AARON CARNES INFO: 9 p.m. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $25/adv, $30/door, 429-4135.
AFRO-LATIN FUNK
JUNGLE FIRE
The loose, genre-tinkering grooves that define the 11-piece Jungle Fire really begins to make sense once you learn that the L.A.-based group started out as a single jam session in 2011. They’ve kept that feel alive five years later, and produce some of the most innovative, infectious, high-energy dance music going. It’s got elements of funk, Latin, African, hip-hop, and soul, but doesn’t focus too much on any one style. It’s highly percussive (they have five percussionists) and horn-driven (four horn players!) and are currently signed to Nacional—arguably the hippest, most cutting-edge Latin music record label around. Jungle Fire should please anyone itching to dance to some fresh beats. AC INFO: 9 p.m. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $9/adv, $12/door. 479-1854.
SATURDAY 4/9
ROCK/TRIBUTE
HOUSE OF FLOYD
For years, House of Floyd has been the Bay Area’s premiere Pink Floyd tribute band, covering their namesake’s entire discography from the early Syd Barrett years through Division Bell. Unlike other Pink cover bands, House of Floyd not only carries the sound, but also the style and atmosphere of the original, evolving long jams and spaced-out silences to their trippiest completion. MW INFO: 8 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $25/gen, $40/gold. 423-8209.
INDIE
FEED ME JACK
Mixing complex technical chops and catchy melodies is a delicate balancing act, one that Oakland’s Feed Me Jack has gotten quite skilled at. The five-piece formed here in Santa Cruz in 2011, and since relocating has earned an even bigger audience. Their latest CD, Ultra Ego, is a superbly produced collection of songs that uses jazz as the glue that connects their math-rock and indie-pop leanings. The blend creates a lot of haunting and gorgeous sections—they never stick around on any one for too long, but still keep the songs progressing in a logical and emotionally satisfying manor. AC INFO: 9 p.m. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $8. 429-6994.
SUNDAY 4/10
TRIBUTE
LYNETTE SKYNYRD
Hailed as the world’s only all-female Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band, Lynette Skynyrd may be one of the few bands that doesn’t mind requests for “Freebird” hollered out during their shows. But this Southern California-based outfit stomps on the notion of being just another tribute band, with blistering performances driven by the ace musicians and a return to the epic nature of ’70s rock concerts. Described by one reviewer as “badass rockchick authority that stands the test of time,” Lynette Skynyrd drags the spirit and power of rock ’n’ roll back to its rightful place: the stage. CJ INFO: 2 p.m. Don Quixote’s, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. $10/adv, $12/door. 335-2800.
FINGERSTYLE GUITAR
RICHARD SMITH
A National Fingerstyle Champion, British guitarist Richard Smith was just 5 years old when he first picked up the guitar, and he’s been at it ever since. Playing in the country swing and acoustic fingerpicking styles made popular by Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed, Smith has, in the eyes of at least one of his influences, eclipsed his teachers. As Atkins said, Smith is “[t]he most amazing guy I know on the guitar. He can play anything I know, only better.” On Sunday, Smith brings his guitar wizardry to Felton. CJ INFO: 7 p.m. Don Quixote’s, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. $15. 335-2800.
IN THE QUEUE
BOLIVIA CLÁSICA
World-renowned classical pianist Ana-Maria Vera and friends. Wednesday at Kuumbwa
MAKING MOVES
Psychedelic/Afro/Cumbia/Rock out of Santiago, Panama by way of Kansas City. Thursday at Moe’s Alley
MILITIA OF LOVE
Veteran reggae group from Monterey County. Thursday at Don Quixote’s
BROTHERS COMATOSE
Americana back-to-back with Painted Horses and the McCoy Tyler Band. Thursday and Friday at Crepe Place
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
Celebrated group comprising American and New Zealand pop-rockers. Tuesday at Cocoanut Grove
Stephane Wrembel plays Kuumbwa jazz on Apr 21 A French-born gypsy jazz guitarist, Stephane Wrembel is a standout in the contemporary jazz scene, with his brilliant musicianship and lively, soulful style. Well-known among gypsy jazz enthusiasts, Wrembel is a veteran of the spotlight, including a performance at the 2012 Academy Awards and work on the scores for the Woody Allen films Midnight In Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. A student of tradition, Wrembel also thrives on moving sounds and styles forward and is influenced by world music of all styles.
INFO: 7 p.m. Thursday, April 21. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $22/adv, $27/door. 427-2227. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Friday, April 8 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the show.
Steve Palazzo plays at Don Quixote’s on Apr 10
Steve Palazzo has been involved with music his entire life.
A couple of decades ago he was making instruments. And since the early ’90s, he’s been a full-time guitar teacher. However, a lot of folks might know Palazzo for the bluegrass band Homefire, which was together for a quarter-century before calling it quits just a few years ago. That hasn’t stopped Palazzo from playing music. Now he plays shows under his own name, drawing from similar roots music influences but with a more intimate feel. “Part of it was I wanted to do some different stuff besides straight-ahead traditional bluegrass. I wanted to do smaller ensemble stuff,” Palazzo says. “It’s been fun working on these tunes with a smaller group. There’s certain things we couldn’t do with a bigger ensemble. We put a little more emphasis on the vocals.” There’s also an album in the works, one that Palazzo has been working on for the better part of a year. Part of the reason it’s taken so long is that he’s been bringing in different local and touring musician friends to record on various tracks. He’s hoping to have his solo record out this spring, and believes Americana music lovers will truly appreciate it. “I’m attracted to those roots styles. There’s traditional fiddle tunes, one track is a Johnny Cash tune, but we arranged it with fiddle and mandolin, and two guitars. It’s traditional stuff,” Palazzo says. “I’ve played this music long enough where my versions of these tunes are never exactly like anybody else’s at this point. There’s some straight-ahead bluegrass, but then there’s just some fingerpicking stuff.”
INFO: 7 p.m. Sunday, April 10. Don Quixote’s, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. $15. 335-2800
In the dance world, the Jabbawockeez are iconic: the men in the white masks who revolutionized hip-hop. They made performance about the body, about the beauty of the whole, and about the power of one small isolated movement that, when it ripples through an entire migrating bird formation, knocks the breath right out of you. “If you ask any mainstream choreographers under the age of 35, the Jabbawockeez were a huge influence to all of them,” says Pacific Arts Complex (PAC) co-founder David Bortnick. “One of the members, Jeff ‘Phi’ Nguyen, said they can ‘kill it without killing it,’ meaning you can be really soft and together and that synchronization takes the place of the power of the move.” Their name is synonymous with a kind of egalitarian hip-hop that negated the need for a “lead dancer” and elevated the art form to new heights. What most people don’t know, even locally, is that at the core of the Jabbawockeez revolution was a Santa Cruz dance legend, the late Gary Kendell. “Gary Kendell is who I would credit with bringing real street dance, hip-hop and hip-hop culture into Santa Cruz, into the studio and onto the stage scene,” says Carmela Woll, a local employment law attorney who co-founded the dance studio Motion Pacific in 1998. “I won’t say no one else came to Santa Cruz and did hip-hop, but he seeded a generation of kids who grew up to be teachers and performers.” He was magnetic, says Woll. Kendell, known as “Gee” to his students, was raised in Seaside, and at the time he led Santa Cruz’s small but powerful hip-hop scene, says Woll. It was around 1990, when Woll was a math teacher at Santa Cruz High School with no formal dance training, that she took one of Kendell’s dance classes at the local studio All the Right Moves. “He was hip-hop, one hundred percent,” Woll remembers, adding that he was born to an African-American father and Korean mother. “It wasn’t something he put on for class, it was how he dressed, the music he listened to, the people he hung out with, it was the whole culture. It wasn’t just a dance form.” When All the Right Moves closed, Woll and a handful of Kendell’s other dedicated followers decided a space was needed to continue his work. Woll left her teaching job to become Motion Pacific’s director, opening the studio with fellow dancers Greg Favor andMolly Heaster. Kendell began teaching at Motion Pacific, amassing a following and cultivating new talent while he continued to perform around the Bay Area. In the early 2000s, Kendell and Randy Bernal, who were a part of the San Jose group MindTricks, joined forces with the Sacramento trio Three Musky (who performed with the trademark white masks and gloves). In 2003, what started out as an attempt to form a San Diego-based chapter, turned into the Jabbawockeez. Kendell died at the age of 37 in December 2007. In March 2008, the Jabbawockeez won the $100,000 grand prize on the MTV show, “America’s Best Dance Crew” with six members instead of the intended seven. “From my perspective the scene really deflated,” says Woll, of how the Santa Cruz hip-hop dance culture changed after Kendell died. There are plenty of classes for kids, she says, and people like Harold McCord and Bortnick are inspiring young dancers today, but it’s sparser for adults. “Even those he taught as kids who’ve gone on to teach—and I’m so grateful that they’re keeping it alive and teaching what they learned—but to me, he was the heart and soul of hip-hop dance in this community,” Woll says. “I’m obviously biased, people might debate with me.”
Living the Legacy
There’s a moment in their dance piece when the UCSC competitive hip-hop dance team Haluan drops into a V-formation: the outside line sinks to a crouch, the inside group stays upright. They bend in the knees, shoulders follow their heads to the left, with their right arms straight in front of them, ridin’. This is the moment when you see the music, it’s the moment you see the power of the whole and how innovators like Kendell made this kind of dance possible. The kind of hip-hop network that thrived here during Kendell’s day doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why Haluan’s members are rehearsing at midday on the top floor of the only real parking structure on campus, in preparation for the En Route Urban Dance Showcase on April 30. Sweating in the first sunlight of spring, and with all 40-something bodies moving in unison to 50 Cent’s “Disco Inferno,” it’s a fierce kind of energy. Lauren Korth rehearsing with UCSC’s Haluan Hip-Hop Dance Troupe, which hosts the En Route Urban Dance Showcase. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER That kind of energy is a crucial ingredient to creating your own hip-hop showcase, especially in a town where the enthusiasm has dwindled, says Ray Chung, one of En Route’s first coordinators. “We wanted to connect Haluan and the larger Santa Cruz community and the rest of the Bay Area, hopefully, even the rest of California,” says Chung, who has since graduated and now unofficially helps from the sidelines. “We wanted it in town so that outside communities could see what’s happening here.” Showcasing 16 groups from up and down the Golden State’s coast—some collegiate, some medleys of teenagers and adults—strutting their finest moves, En Route returns to Santa Cruz on April 30 for its second coming. It was an effort of labor and love, says Lauren Korth, 21, a senior at UCSC and a Haluan director, and although the dance team operates under the umbrella of the Filipino Student Association, it requires not only self-motivation, but also a lot of self-funding. “Something that people don’t always realize is that people are paying to perform for you,” says Korth. “There are very few ways that dancers make money now unless you’re in a professional ballet company or want to do it commercially in Los Angeles, or by chance are good enough to be in Jabbawockeez and win ‘America’s Best Dance Crew.’” Haluan creates choreography as a collective, with all of its members pitching moves that may or may not make it into the final piece. It’s fitting, says Korth, because Haluan translates into “mixed” in Tagalog, and every dancer brings a little of their own flavor to the final production. “It’s just passion and drive to be better dancers and make your dance group better, being the best you can—there’s nothing else behind it,” Korth says. “We do it because we love it and we want to put on a good show.” Being geographically cut off from the Bay Area makes it difficult to connect to the thriving scene over the hill, says Chung. Granted, Santa Cruz is not exactly an urban hub. With the African American population at barely above one percent, it’s no wonder that a dance form that historically came out of black urban street culture didn’t have the cultural clout to establish itself in a sleepy beach town. It’s something that Bortnick, whose advanced hip-hop team, Kinetik, will perform at En Route, felt first-hand when he performed with Kendell. Bortnick was 8 years old when Kendell did a lunchtime show in the cafeteria of Branciforte Elementary School. Kendell took Bortnick on as a mentee and toured with him and another student. “I was the only white person in the room in a huge majority of the classes I took—not in Santa Cruz, but when I would follow Gary around the Bay. For a long time, the Asian presence was underrepresented in the media, but they were a huge driving force in hip-hop in the Bay,” says Bortnick of the period when he’d perform with Kendell as a child in the ’90s. “But what was really awesome is that [ethnicity] really doesn’t matter. If you have it, you have it. Your dancing is going to speak louder volumes about your authenticity than your race or your socioeconomic background. It’s one of the things that I love most of the hip-hop culture. Your image as a dancer is so much less important than your ability. Ability just reigns supreme.”
Sound and Vision
“Randy Bernal, one of the founding members of the Jabbawockeez said, ‘Be the music, so I can see the music,’” remembers Bortnick, who also puts on the Gee Fam Dance Convention every summer in honor of Kendell. Hip-hop in the early ’90s was an altogether different art form from what it is now, says Bortnick, who toured with Kendell in his early 20s with a patchwork of dancers who would later form the Jabbawockeez. “At the time there was a tendency to not ignore the music, but to ignore the subtleties in the music—so the music might go boom, boom, kah, but the choreography would go boom, boom, boom—it would be on beat, but not exactly match,” Bortnick says. The late Gary Kendell inspired a generation of local dancers and was one of the founding members of the iconic Jabbawockeez hip-hop crew. PHOTO: COURTESY OF CARMELA WOLL “[Kendell] was a breaker, and he had tricks, but what he was really known for was the ability to make you see the music in visuals,” says Bortnick.“You listen to this music and you would hear it once but you would never hear the little cowbell in the background, but then you’d see the dance to it and he would accent it and you would see the things you’d never heard.” Bortnick doesn’t claim that Kendell was necessarily the only one doing that kind of movement, because hip-hop was destined to go in that direction. But at the time, he says, it was mind-blowing. Those kind of small, subtle isolations of the body gave rise to a new kind of competition style, one focused on musicality and nuance rather than keeping things at a maximum energy level throughout an entire performance, says Haluan’s Korth. Korth grew up doing competition dance in various genres, where the goal was ultimately to make it to Los Angeles. She says that since she competed as a child and teenager, hip-hop has moved away from the individual to the group. “It’s less about how much fun you look like you’re having, and more about the movement itself,” Korth says. There’s been a rapid transformation over the past decade, Korth and Bortnick agree. Groups like Haluan aren’t competing to be on MTV, says Korth—although Justin Bieber featuring YouTube breakouts Keone and Mariel Madrid in his music videos was a huge thing for the community—in general, they just want to be YouTube famous. “YouTube is a game changer because someone can put something that is really emotional and raw and it’ll get 20 million views and suddenly it’s not a fringe thing anymore,” says Bortnick. “When I was growing up, you compared your crew to the crew down the street or the studio down the road. Now everybody is compared to the best dancers in the world because it’s all at the tip of your fingers and that can be really, really hard.”
Getting Schooled
It’s the rapid dissemination that has new styles popping up almost every day and academia hasn’t caught up. “I dont think there’s a rubric for it,” says Micha Hogan, 27, who was born and raised in Santa Cruz and remembers the days of local hip-hop troupes like BoomSquad in the early 2000s. “There are styles to teach, but with ballet it’s a style and there are critiques and techniques that have been handed down for hundreds of years since it started. If you want to do hip-hop, it’s now in gyms.” Hogan went all over to pursue a dance education, including to Columbia College in Chicago, but no matter where he went, he would only see hip-hop outside of the curriculum—unless it was a “dance appreciation” day in class, he says. Hogan is now a dance teacher at PAC and Motion Pacific, but like Bortnick he didn’t finish school because it just didn’t make sense to. “One of theproblems is that there is a lack of affluent, well-educated degreed people in the [hip-hop] community. And you can’t teach at a college unless you have a master’s or a Ph.D. You’re really not going to find a hip-hop choreographer with a Ph.D.,” says Bortnick. “There’s no justification for spending all that money, be spat out of school, and be behind all the people who didn’t go to school and spent all that time auditioning.” It’s weirder still, because hip-hop is everywhere, says Hogan: “Hip-hop is pop culture.” “Everyone wants to learn hip-hop, few people are like ‘I want to be a ballerina for the clubs, I want to go to clubs in San Francisco and kick people in the face!’ What do you do at the club? Hip-hop,” says Hogan. It’s the perfect time, then, says Bortnick, for an event like En Route to bring Santa Cruz back to its roots. “Hip-hop classes on college campuses now leave much to be desired, but hip-hop crews on campuses, like Haluan, are flourishing. They’re phenomenal,” he says. “It’s something that Santa Cruz really needs right now.” Hip-hop is chipping away at the walls of academia, says Hogan, and it’ll get there because at its core, it’s a dance form that allows redefinition. “It’s body rolls, it’s isolations, it’s hip movements. When you’re by yourself and you’re grooving, you’re moving to the beat—that can be classified as hip-hop,” says Hogan. ‘It’s hard, it’s edgy, it’s emotionally driven. Hip-hop is embedded in you, it’s an attitude, it’s a style, it’s a sense of being.”
En Route From All Over
Hosted by UCSC’s Haluan Hip-Hop Dance Troupe, the second annual En Route Urban Dance Showcase will feature performances by: Barkada Modern (West Covina), Boogie Monstarz (Sacramento), Choreo Supremacy (Salinas), Dynamic Street Rockers (Watsonville), Haluan Hip-Hop Dance Troupe (Santa Cruz), Homebound (Merced), INSA Dance (Irvine), Kinetik Crew (Santa Cruz), Lsf LiveSan Francisco (San Francisco), Main Stacks (Berkeley), Mobility Dance Crew (Davis), reDEFINE (Union City), Str8jacket (San Mateo), Squadratic Formula (Bay Area) Team Velociraptors (Berkeley), the PROJECT co. (Sacramento), Wild Ones Dance Co. (Los Angeles)
It was a terrific 10-year alliance between Love Apple Farm and Manresa Restaurant, but now lycopene queen Cynthia Sandberg and three-star Michelin chef David Kinch have “mutually decided to end a very long relationship,” Sandberg told me last week. During their time together, the duo inspired countless farm/restaurant collaborations—one of the best, and most delicious artisanal examples of “going viral.” But now Sandberg is having a great time re-inventing herself. It seems to happen every 10 years, she confesses. “First I was a purchasing manager in Silicon Valley, then a trial attorney, then a farmer for a Michelin restaurant, now an educator and organizer for tomato freaks worldwide,” she says. Yes, Sandberg is taking Love Apple in new, global directions. “We’ll continue our tomato plant sale, making it even bigger and better. I’m proud to say that it’s the largest tomato plant sale in California. We will also continue our full roster of expanded gardening classes,” she says. “And I’ve started a venture focusing on all things tomato,” Sandberg reveals. “It’s called the World Tomato Society, and basically it’s a global organization that celebrates the world’s most popular fruit. I will be growing lots of tomato plants here at Love Apple in order to focus on seed-saving, trialing new tomato varieties, and preserving old heirloom varieties of tomatoes.” Sounds luscious. Sandberg, ace grower and tomatoista anticipates “a fabulous year of change” for herself, both personally and professionally. We’ll be watching to check out Sandberg’s next move. And wishing her the best of luck! Check worldtomatosociety.com for the juicy details.
Speaking of Tomatoes
We are addicted to tomato chutney. Seriously. We go through about a jar a week of the sensational and sweet/tart Tomato Chutney from Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Foods (available for around $5 at New Leaf, Shopper’s Corner, etc.) Maybe the secret involves the way the raisins and wild onion seeds work with the tomatoes, sugar and vinegar. The flavors go brilliantly with many foods. We’ve slathered it on omelets, whisked it into vinaigrettes for green salads (it loves arugula), and recently discovered how useful it can be in recreating a mini-holiday dinner. You’ve got bread, mayo and sliced turkey, right? Now add a layer of tomato chutney to that sandwich and close your eyes. Thanksgiving dinner, only spicier. Get some.
Almost Here
That would be the incredible expanding Lillian’s Italian Kitchen, still putting the finishing touches on its updated corner of Seabright and Soquel. Housed in the historic Ebert’s building, complete with the signature art deco clock, Lillian’s is being detailed as we speak. Keep your appetite revved up for a May opening. Also being fine-tuned is the new Westside Verve. Joined at the hip with Bantam at 1010 Fair Ave., the newest Verve has a smart little front patio all set to host caffeine lovers. Soon.
Wine of the Week
Byington Alliage 2012 is one of those welcoming red Bordeaux blends that makes friends with almost everything. The handsome blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc offers feisty tannins upon first opening, but by the second day has softened into a procession of satiny flavors. Blackberries give way to cassis and hints of iron. We enjoyed it across two evenings, with spicy foods and with grilled pork. Elegant without being pretentious, this creation of 14.1 percent alcohol errs on the side of perfection. Easy to like, again and again. $32, at the Capitola Whole Foods. And online of course.
Crab Alert
There’s Dungeness crab now coming in at Ocean2Table. The guys from the sustainable seafood fishery are offering delivered shares of local Dungeness crab. Ian and Charlie deliver their fresh catches at locations near you. Check the Ocean2table Facebook page for information about prices and deliveries. Nothing beats fresh.
Steve Palazzo has been involved with music his entire life.
A couple of decades ago he was making instruments. And since the early ’90s, he’s been a full-time guitar teacher. However, a lot of folks might know Palazzo for the bluegrass band Homefire, which was together for a quarter-century before calling it quits just a few years ago.
That hasn’t stopped...
UCSC’s competitive hip-hop dance team Haluan carries on the little-known legacy of Santa Cruz’s revolutionary hip-hop scene with the En Route Urban Dance Showcase
