Upcoming events
Upcoming events.
Marcus Shelby New Orchestra - Black Ball
Marcus Anthony Shelby is a composer, bassist, bandleader, and educator who currently lives in San Francisco, California. His work focuses on the history, present, and future of African American lives social movements and music education.
In 1990, Marcus Shelby received the Charles Mingus Scholarship to attend Cal Arts and study composition with James Newton and bass with Charlie Haden. Currently, Shelby is the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz, an artist in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and a past resident artist with the San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.
Shelby has composed several oratorios and suites including “Harriet Tubman,” “Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio,” “Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues,” “Green and Blues,” and a children’s opera “Harriet’s Spirit” produced by Opera Parallel in 2018. Shelby also composed the score and performed in Anna Deavere Smith’s Off-Broadway Play and HBO feature film Notes from the Field in 2019. Shelby is also the voice of Ray Gardener in the 2020 Oscar-Winning Disney Pixar film SOUL. Shelby has also worked with a range of artists including Angela Y. Davis’ “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” (2019), Joanna Haigood’s “Dying While Black and Brown” (2014), Margo Hall’s “Bebop Baby” (2013), and “Sonny’s Blues” (2008), the Oakland Ballet’s “Ella,” The SF Girls Choir (2013), the Oakland Youth Chorus (2014), and many other productions over the past 25 years. Shelby has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission since 2013 and has worked with the Equal Justice Society for over 20 years. The Marcus Shelby Orchestra has released five CDs: The Lights Suite, Port Chicago, Harriet Tubman, Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Transitions.
MARCUS SHELBY ORCHESTRA: BLUES AND THE PURSUIT OF FREEDOM
Internationally acclaimed bassist/composer Marcus Shelby occupies his own niche in the Bay Area’s jazz eco-system. As the leader of a powerfully swinging 15-piece big band and Yerba Buena Gardens Festival’s resident composer, he’s used the ensemble as a vehicle for developing epic works exploring the abiding ties between jazz and blues and African-American social and political movements. For this concert, Shelby has gathered pieces from four previous YBG Festival commissions inspired by Harriet Tubman, Black baseball, the Ohlone tribelets and the recent pandemic. Featuring guest artists such as vocalist Tiffany Austin, flutist John Calloway, harpist Destiny Muhammad and vibraphonist Dillon Vado, Blues and the Pursuit of Freedom deploys the power of the blues to speak to the present moment. A cultural force that embodies the tension and release of the pursuit of freedom, the blues provide a communal language that transcends the boundaries of instruments, solos and rhythms. In Shelby’s hands, the blues courses through extended musical suites inspired by freedom movements and important moments in the history of Black Americans that are under threat of elimination by the current administration.
Electric Squeezebox Orchestra
The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra is the Bay Area’s own 17-piece big band, led by trumpeter Erik Jekabson, playing music composed and arranged by its members. The composers and arrangers, some of the very best in the Bay, draw from a wide variety of influences but always come up with powerful music with groove, beauty and subtlety. The band, which started a steady Sunday residency at the California Jazz Conservatory, has collaborated with a number of special guest artists, including John Santos, Kenny Washington, Alan Ferber, Dayna Stephens, Mads Tolling, Sandy Cressman, Kellye Gray, Avotcja, Spok and Ben Goldberg. Learn more by visiting electricsqueezeboxorchestra.com
Social Media Links
facebook.com/Electricsqueezeboxorchestra/
The Dynamic Faye Carol Sextet
The fourth annual Black Music Month Festival will feature the premiere of the commissioned work Black Artists of The Bay: Icons & Unsung, a musical celebration of Black music in the Bay Area and the artists who created it, including departed icons, unsung heroes, and living legends. Faye Carol & the featured festival artists will share an afternoon of unique and original renditions of both hit songs and deep cuts alike by Bay Area artists, icons and unsung, such as The Pointer Sisters, Sylvester, Freddie Hughes, Sly & the Family Stone, Walter Hawkins, Sugar Pie DeSanto, and many more. The evening will also include an oral history of Black music in the Bay Area and a roll call tribute to departed artists from our community. Join us for a powerful, soulful celebration of our music, history, legacy, and culture. Geoffrey's offers a full bar and delectable soul food plates.
"Faye Carol & her dedicated accompanist, pianist Joe Warner, have presented ambitious programs that rival any of the leading jazz festivals." - Andrew Gilbert, San Jose Mercury News
Supported by California Arts Council, East Bay Community Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and InterMusic SF
Youth 18 & Under Attend Free!!
June is Black Music Month! Recognized nationally by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, this month celebrates Black music in all its beautiful colors and flavors.
The Marcus Shelby Orchestra
Warmed up after an acclaimed four-night winter run at the SFJAZZ Center, piano great Jason Moran rejoins forces with the Marcus Shelby Orchestra for a deep dive into Ellingtonia, the supremely sophisticated, wittily sardonic, and unspeakably beautiful body of music created by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
The evening starts with a 30-minute solo performance by Jason Moran, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center, and among the most celebrated pianists of his generation. Afterwards, he’ll be joined by Shelby’s talent-packed orchestra featuring rising vocal star Darynn Dean, a strikingly gifted chanteuse who hails from an illustrious Los Angeles jazz clan. Her February performances with Moran and Shelby announced the arrival of a major new talent, just as the SFJAZZ residency revealed the deep conceptual and sonic affinities between Moran, described by Rolling Stone as “the most provocative thinker in current jazz,” and Shelby, whose deeply informed works revel in the soulful sinew connecting Harlem stride piano, Ellington, Monk and Andrew Hill.
The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra
Join us as we kick off Jazz Appreciation Month with an electrifying performance by the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, led by trumpeter and Jazzschool Young Musicians Program Director Erik Jekabson. This special concert will feature all-star Jazzschool faculty as guest artists, making for an unforgettable night of big band brilliance. The evening opens with a standout ensemble from our Young Musicians Program, showcasing the next generation of jazz talent. Don’t miss this dynamic celebration of jazz!
The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra
The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra is the Bay Area’s own 17-piece big band, led by trumpeter Erik Jekabson, playing music composed and arranged by its members. The composers and arrangers, some of the very best in the Bay, draw from a wide variety of influences but always come up with powerful music with groove, beauty and subtlety. The band, which started a steady Sunday residency at the California Jazz Conservatory, has collaborated with a number of special guest artists, including John Santos, Kenny Washington, Alan Ferber, Dayna Stephens, Mads Tolling, Sandy Cressman, Kellye Gray, Avotcja, Spok and Ben Goldberg. Learn more by visiting electricsqueezeboxorchestra.com
The Marcus Shelby Quintet Presents Harriet Tubman & The Blues
Marcus Anthony Shelby is a composer, bassist, bandleader, and educator who currently lives in San Francisco, California. His work focuses on the history, present, and future of African American lives social movements and music education.
In 1990, Marcus Shelby received the Charles Mingus Scholarship to attend Cal Arts and study composition with James Newton and bass with Charlie Haden. Currently, Shelby is the Artistic Director of Healdsburg Jazz, an artist in residence with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and a past resident artist with the San Francisco Jazz Festival and the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. Shelby has composed several oratorios and suites including “Harriet Tubman”, “Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio”, “Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”, “Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues”, “Green and Blues”, and a children’s opera “Harriet’s Spirit” produced by Opera Parallel 2018.
Christopher Clarke: Trumpet. Phil Vieux: Alto Sax/Flute. Greg Jacobs: Piano. Jemal Ramirez: Drums. Marcus Shelby: Bass
Tickets at Marcus Shelby Quintet
Jason Moran and the Marcus Shelby New Orchestra
Pianist Jason Moran is joined by the New Orchestra of Bay Area jazz great Marcus Shelby & rising vocal star Darynn Dean for concerts dedicated to the big band compositions of the iconic Duke Ellington.
Jason Moran and the Marcus Shelby New Orchestra
Pianist Jason Moran is joined by the New Orchestra of Bay Area jazz great Marcus Shelby & rising vocal star Darynn Dean for concerts dedicated to the big band compositions of the iconic Duke Ellington.
FAMILY MATINEE W/ THE MARCUS SHELBY NEW ORCHESTRA
Bassist, bandleader and educator Marcus Shelby and his fabulous orchestra pay homage to one of the greatest artists in jazz: Duke Ellington! America’s most celebrated jazz composer — with over 3,000 compositions to his credit — Ellington was heralded as “beyond category,” and provided the world with some of the most enduring melodies ever written. Join us as we celebrate Black History Month with the music of Duke Ellington!
Jason Moran and the Marcus Shelby New Orchestra
Pianist Jason Moran is joined by the New Orchestra of Bay Area jazz great Marcus Shelby & rising vocal star Darynn Dean for concerts dedicated to the big band compositions of the iconic Duke Ellington.
Jason Moran and the New Marcus Shelby Orchestra
Pianist Jason Moran is joined by the New Orchestra of Bay Area jazz great Marcus Shelby & rising vocal star Darynn Dean for concerts dedicated to the big band compositions of the iconic Duke Ellington.
Jason Moran and the Marcus Shelby New Orchestra
Pianist Jason Moran is joined by the New Orchestra of Bay Area jazz great Marcus Shelby & rising vocal star Darynn Dean for concerts dedicated to the big band compositions of the iconic Duke Ellington.