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Getting around with Cylinder and Lisa Mezzacappa

Cylinder, a “rambunctious collective quartet,” plays Saturday in Berkeley Cylinder, a “rambunctious collective quartet,” plays Saturday in Berkeley There’s simply no point playing Six Degrees of Lisa Mezzacappa. A prolific performer who collaborates with a vast array of filmmakers, poets and fellow musicians, the San Francisco jazz bassist is probably no more than three steps […]

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Sameer Gupta: North meets South

Percussionist Sameer Gupta brings classical Indian music into unlikely collaborations Sameer Gupta is on a mission to bring classical Indian music into places where it rarely ventures. A percussionist who plays tabla and trap drums, Gupta was a mainstay in Bay Area creative music circles until his 2008 move to Brooklyn, where he’s helped kindle […]

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Musical Art Quintet: Blowing up the chamber music scene

Musical Art Quintet: playing tonight in Berkeley at the Subterranean Art House Sascha Jacobsen wasn’t trying to foment a string insurrection. The conservatory-trained bassist just wanted to play some music. As a regular participant in Classical Revolution, the organization that launched a national movement of chamber music jam sessions from San Francisco’s Café Revolution in […]

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Tonight at the Subterranean: A saxophone sisterhood

The Tiptons Saxophone Quartet in action. Photo: Markus Lackinger/www.jazzfoto.at On the bandstand at least, sisterhood still packs a punch. For more than two decades, the all-female Tiptons Saxophone Quartet has delivered fiercely grooving music and vocals complete with synchronized stage moves and kinetic arrangements drawing on a daunting array of rhythmic traditions, from post-bop jazz […]