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Avi Salem on June 15, 2016
As Stanford University’s academic year winds down and the frantic buzz of student life peters out, a new sound is poised to emerge on campus. Mellow guitar riffs, staccato drum rhythms and smooth melodies will soon weave through the tall palms of Palm Drive, and waft up and over Hoover Tower. For…
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Mike Huguenor on June 8, 2016
“You’ll never be a winner unless you lose for quite a while,” David Brookings sings on “The Optimist,” the third track on his band’s new self-titled album. The song opens on a stompy, minor-key verse, and in just over 30 seconds bursts into its sunny, horn drenched chorus, like a flower blossoming…
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Mike Huguenor on June 1, 2016
In his mind-bending essay on Marx and Shakespeare, visionary French philosopher Jacques Derrida imagined a future, which comes from the past. “The same question had already sounded,” he writes in Specters of Marx. “The same, to be sure, but in an altogether different way. And the difference in the sound, that is…
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Mike Huguenor on May 11, 2016
Roddy “Radiation” Byers draws a lot of parallels between today’s political climate and the state of global affairs back when he was playing in The Specials. “It’s almost a mirror image now to what it was like in the late ’70s early ’80s,” says the erstwhile guitarist of the English ska and…
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Tad Malone on April 27, 2016
Even though it has been celebrated officially for more than five years, 2016 marks the first time San Jose will participate in International Jazz Day. The UNESCO-Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz-sponsored event is observed all over the world, but now, thanks to a collaboration between the city, San Jose State University and…
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Mike Huguenor on April 27, 2016
Like so many musicians, Emily Kinney began her singing career with an act of rebellion. “We lived in Wayne, Nebraska, at the time, and I think I was 7,” she says. “I saw an ad for a talent show and I told my mom I wanted to sing in it. She didn’t…
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Tad Malone on March 30, 2016
The long running Bay Area radio station KFJC is bringing its celebrated record swap back to Empire Seven Studios for its second year of a reimagined tradition. Since its founding in 1959, KFJC has played an integral part in the underground but vibrant Bay Area music scene. Broadcasting from the Foothill College…
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Mike Huguenor on March 30, 2016
Even if you don’t recognize the name, you’ve probably heard the Stone Foxes. Their music has been used in multiple TV shows, including Showtime’s Shameless, FX’s Sons of Anarchy and a 2013 Jack Daniels TV campaign that prominently featured their cover of Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” (a song once covered by…
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Mike Huguenor on March 30, 2016
Let’s get the word out of the way. Because in many ways, the word itself has become the problem. I’m talking of course about the J word. The big J. Jazz. Arturo Riera has been curating Latin jazz at SJ Jazz for over 10 years, but has only recently been given a formal…
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Anna Bagirov on March 9, 2016
“IF WE COULD make people smell and taste the show, we would,” says Rafael Pereira, one half of Lima, Peru-based tropical bass duo, Dengue Dengue Dengue! He’s referring to his and his partner, Felipe Salmon’s, dance parties, where the rhythms and instruments of divergent musical traditions intersect in exciting ways. Cumbia’s joyful,…
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