Meklit rehearsals - A Train

In the last four years Meklit released three eclectic albums on Porto Franco Records: a jazz rooted singer-songwriter debut On a Day Like This..., an album of rock cover duets with Oakland-based singer Quinn DeVeaux, Meklit & Quinn, and an Ethiopian sci-fi hip hop space opera Earthbound as member of the trio CopperWire. Her second album We Are Alive is out this month on Six Degrees Records. In the past few weeks I got a chance to document two rehearsals, this video is the first of these documents. The others will follow soon.

Meklit's San Francisco CD release show is on April 2nd at The Great American Music Hall. More information and tickets are here.

Darren Johnston Quintet live at the Red Poppy

Another release from the vaults. BayTaper and I recorded this Darren Johnston Quintet show at the Red Poppy Art House on 23rd and Folsom in San Francisco in November 2011, but I didn't get around to editing it until a few weeks ago. Infinity's one of my favorite songs by Darren, and I still remember being floored by the written and improvised horn harmonies of this chordless (no piano or guitar) lineup. I later heard that this was one of the last SF gigs of this group as Darren focused on The Nice Guy Trio with accordionist Rob Reich and bassist Daniel Fabricant and then pivoted to his current projects, The Trans-Global People's Chorus, Letters to Home, and The Broken Shadows Family Band.

Personnel:
Darren Johnston - tr, Sheldon Brown - b. cl, Ben Goldberg - cl, David Ewell - b, Hamir Atwal - d.
Sound by BayTaper. Video by BayTaper and myself.

For more like this:

BayTaper's been documenting Bay Area musicians for almost 10 years. 
Darren's superb album Edge of the Forest on Clean Feed Records also featuring Ben Goldberg and Sheldon Brown.
Ben Goldberg School has the same rhythm section + Rob Reich on piano and accordion. Saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and trombonist Jeff Cressman round out the horn line.
The Nice Guy Trio recorded a version of this song on their album with strings: Sidewalks and Alleys / Waking Music .

And the stringless Nice Guy Trio video I produced with Adam Willumsen a couple of years back.