Advance tickets available from the Ashkenaz front desk on show nights or online from Ticketweb or call 1-866-666-8932.

Show line: (510) 525-5054

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center
1317 San Pablo @ Gilman in Berkeley

Ample parking across the street in the REI parking lot. Wheelchair accessible. All ages all the time.

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center is a non-profit, tax-exempt community organization supported by patrons, donors, staff, musicians and volunteers.

Colored type color denotes events with touring artists.

Sunday, February 1
BANDWORKS RECITAL
Doors at 2:00 p.m.; show at 2:30 p.m.
$4
This is the public performance component of the Bandworks program's amateur workshop-seminars, created in Oakland ten years ago by guitarist Steve Gibson and drummer Jeremy Steinkoler as a way to put their various students into band performance situations to work on group interaction and soloing. While rock is the main format, the groups play blues and pop as well. Because of the expanding number of students, this seasonal showcase now spreads to two concerts (the second is Wednesday, Feb. 4). http://www.bandworks.com

Monday, February 2
No Evening Performance

Tuesday, February 3
ÉDESSA and THE TOIDS
Doors at 7:00 p.m.; Balkan dance lesson with Jerry Duke at 7:30 p.m.; show at 8:30 p.m.
$10
One of the area's premier Balkan bands for more than a decade, with members who have dedicated their lives to the music, Édessa plays music from Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Armenia, and Turkey, and music of the Balkan Roma (Gypsy).
Having devoted decades to the study and performance of the deep and rich cultural expressions of the southern Balkans, the musicians in Édessa play with a deep understanding of the connection between dance and music. Using both traditional and modern instruments, they perform in a variety of styles, featuring long sets that interweave melodies and improvisation and a beat with dancers in mind. The sounds of the ensemble include the ancient and mesmerizing music of the zurna and davul; the lyrical and sweet music of the Greek islands; the haunting, trance-like pentatonic music of Epirus; and-at the other end of the acoustic spectrum-the sizzling, contemporary Bulgarian fusion known simply as "wedding music."
Édessa is Dan Auvil on davul (double-headed drum), darabuka (hand drum), and defi (frame drum); Paul Brown on acoustic and electric bass; George Chittenden on clarinet, saxophone, gaida (bagpipe), zurna (shawm) and guitar; violinist Ari Langer; and Lise Liepman on santouri (hammered dulcimer) and accordion.
The Toids are a recent and exciting arrival on the Bay Area scene, young Balkanized musicians who take an almost punk approach to Balkan traditions (they did go to Balkan camp, so at least they know the traditions), with mostly original tunes, lots of energy, and at heart the right rhythms. What the Toids have done so naturally (in concert and on their debut CD) is apply generations-old music to their own lives in the new millennium, without losing or disrespecting their elders. As the band explains, "Our music contains its own evolution...while the color draws from Rom, Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian and Hungarian sources, the body and composition of the music come from our own lives and experiences." The musicians have been on the scene for years in other groupings: accordionist and saw player Dan Cantrell, violinist Lila Sklar, guitarist and bouzouki player Ryan Francesconi, bassist Bill Lanphier, and percussionist Jerry Summers.
http:// www.toids.org

Wednesday, February 4
BANDWORKS
Doors at 7:00 p.m.; show at 7:30 p.m.
$4
This is the public performance component of the Bandworks program's amateur workshop-seminars, created in Oakland ten years ago by guitarist Steve Gibson and drummer Jeremy Steinkoler as a way to put their various students into band performance situations to work on group interaction and soloing. While rock is the main format, the groups play blues and pop as well. Because of the expanding number of students, this seasonal showcase now spreads to two concerts (the first was Sunday, February 1). http://www.bandworks.com

Thursday, February 5
GRATEFUL DEAD DJ NIGHT WITH DIGITAL DAVE
10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.
$6
Spin with Digital Dave's Grateful Dead tunes.
http://home.att.net/~djdigitaldave/

Friday, February 6
VIVIANE E PREFIXO DE VERÃO
WITH THE AQUARELA BRAZILIAN DANCE ENSEMBLE
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; show at 9:30 p.m.
$13
Direct from Brazil, the dance band Prefixo de Verão brings a fresh samba sound to Ashkenaz. Throughout a ten-year career, with hundreds of shows in Brazil and abroad, Prefixo de Verão has become known for its style, one that blends the disparate styles of its members into something new that is uniquely Brazilian, but not like other Brazilian music. Prefixo de Verão plays the latest samba evolution, Pagode, as well as Samba Enredo, the music of Rio's Carnavals. The group mixes Afro-Brazilian with Jamaican reggae, and combines salsa and merengue, as well as the wild Axé rhythm of the Bahia region of northeastern Brazil.

The founders of the group, including Ricardo Barros (percussion and vocals), Rodrigo Ribeiro (drummer and mixing) and Rodrigo Sperandio (cavaquinho and vocals), have broad experience with Brazil's Escolas de Samba (samba clubs), parading for many years in the street Carnaval. Over the ensuing years they have been joined by other musicians who helped shape the band's sound: Anderson Rossetti, keyboardist Vilson Ferreira, bassist Bruno Padoveze (a veteran of reggae and rock bands), percussionist Hudson Jesus (who also sings Samba-Enredos), and singer Viviane Nascimento. She is a native of Porto Seguro, where she received attention singing with bands in the open-air concerts throughout the summer, when parties can last until dawn.

Saturday, February 7
BOB MARLEY BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION with GROUNDATION
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; show at 9:30 p.m.
$13
Bob Marley would have been 59 on Friday. Celebrating his birthday and honoring Marley's continuing influence not only in Jamaican reggae but in all world music and culture (his songs weren't just great music, but also expressed his unwavering Rastafarian beliefs in global context), Groundation performs Marley's songs and its own. Combining reggae classics with band originals, the ten-member North Bay band features guitarist-singer Harrison Stafford, who teaches the history of reggae music at Sonoma State University, along with backing vocalists and a horn section. Since its formation in 1998 Groundation has issued a series of recordings on the band's Young Tree Records label, including Each One Teach One - with guests including Ras Michael and Joe Higgs' daughter Marcia Higgs. According to Stafford, Groundation attempts to convey the deeper meaning of reggae music, as well as the idea of being grounded and coming together as one.
http://www.groundation.com

Sunday, February 8
TA KE TI NA WORKSHOP WITH ZORINA WOLF
3:00-6:00 p.m.
$35
Led by Zorina Wolf, a master of Ta Ke Ti Na and local drum and percussion instructor. This rhythm workshop provides principles and techniques that aren't found in regular music approaches, and that also can be applied to other areas of one's life. According to Ta Ke Ti Na founder Reinhard Flatischler, "Learning can be a magic, joyful and powerful process that allows us to use our innate instincts and our natural abilities to explore the world around us and within us." Ta Ke Ti Na's principles "can revive our primal fascination with the process of learning." Wolf has been playing the drum for 14 years and teaching half that time.

Through the mentoring of the late African drum master Babatunde Olatunji, she discovered the importance of fostering drum communities based on cooperative teaching and learning. Students are asked to bring mats, blankets or a rug to lie on. E-mail: zorina@villageheartbeat.com

Monday, February 9
No Evening Performance

Tuesday, February 10 & Wednesday, February 11
MIDNITE
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; show at 9:30 p.m.
$17 advance/$20 door
Following the band's triumphant performance at Ashkenaz in September, Midnite returns for two-nights of elevated, conscious reggae dance music. A righteous reggae quintet from St. Croix, Virgin Islands (not quite Jamaica, not quite the United States, giving the band a unique perspective on music and life), Midnite has issued four CDs of original, deep roots reggae: "Unpolished," "Ras Mek Peace (before Reverb without Delay)," "Jubilees of Zion" and the recent "Seek Knowledge Before Vengeance." The next recorded project will be the dub album, "Intense Pressure." Founded by brothers Ron (keyboards, vocals) and Vaughn Benjamin (lead vocalist and songwriter), Midnite spent six years in Washington, D.C., heating up the club scene before returning to St. Croix in 1999. Since then it has crafted its two most recent CDs and this year began touring more in America, with its motto: "Time is not counted from daylight but from midnite." And its mission, the bandmembers explain, is "presenting Jah music and healing vibes in the highest degree is the commitment we have as servants." As they sing in one of their first original songs, "Love the Life You Live." http://midniteband.com/

Thursday, February 12
GRATEFUL DEAD DJ NIGHT WITH DIGITAL DAVE
10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.
$6
Spin with Digital Dave's Grateful Dead tunes.
http://home.att.net/~djdigitaldave/

Friday, February 13
BAY AREA ARTS COLLECTIVE PRESENTS "DANCE AGAINST BUSH"
9:30 p.m., $10
Bay Area Arts Collective Presents "Bands Against Bush!" With support from Berkeley radio station KPFA's Hard Knock Radio and One Mic Radio, the goal of this event is to raise awareness among the youth of the importance of voting as a critical way to bring about social, economic and political change. The producers hope to inspire 17-28 year-olds to become informed about what's going on politically in our country and get out and vote. Musical entertainment for the night is socially conscious hip-hop.
http://www.bandsagainstbushbayarea.org

Saturday, February 14
AFFRO-MUZIKA
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; show at 9:30 p.m.
$13
Stars of Congolese music, the nine members of Affro-Muzika sing, play and dance the infectious soukous party music of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). Led by Congolese singer-dancer-composer Shimita El Diego and fiery electric guitarist Nene Tchakou, the group includes a dance crowd-friendly rhythm section as well as two onstage dancers, Aminatha and Judith. While Shimita and Nene both grew up in the bubbling early years of soukous in their Congo homeland and later developed it in Paris, the group's most recent CD, "Rumba-Soukous," was recorded in Berkeley and issued in the United States by Sunnyvale's Cassava Records.

Singer-composer Shimita El Diego (born Lukombo Nzambe) was influenced by such African musical pioneers as Tabu Ley Rochereau and Joseph Kabasele, and during the 1980s collaborated with some of the seminal Zairean bands in the early years of soukous, then moved to Paris as soukous took hold there. He sang in the popular band Le Grand Zaiko, co-founded the Soukous Stars, and is the lead vocalist on one of the biggest soukous hit records, "Lagos Night." Soukous is a Congolese style that combined Afro-Cuban rumba rhythms with African jazz and dance, all anchored by insistent electric guitar patterns. It is sung in a number of Congolese languages as well as Spanish. Soukous flourished in clubs and bars in Kinshasa and quickly spread throughout Africa, then to Paris where Shimita relocated in 1988, where he and guitarist Nene Tchakou helped pioneer the African-pop music explosion in Europe. The two musicians created Affro-Muzika, where dance rhythms are the bottom line, while Shimita sings original songs in Yoruba, Fantik, Ibo, Ashanti and Swahili. http://affro-muzika.com/.

Sunday, February 15
KIDS SHOW WITH ASHEBA
3:00-4:30 p.m.
$4 kids/$6 adults
Children under 1 free (Ages 1-5)
Asheba -- the Trinidad-born veteran of several reggae bands -- brings children and families into his joyful world of Caribbean music. Playing guitar and singing, Asheba performs songs and tells stories from his island childhood in a participatory concert that appeals to children of all ages.
http://www.asheba.net

Monday, February 16
No Evening Performance
ASHKENAZ BOARD MEETING
The public is welcome
7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. - Back Studio
From 7:30 - 7:45, the public is welcome to make open comment

Tuesday, February 17
COURTABLEU
Doors at 7:30 p.m.
Cajun-zydeco dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8:00 p.m.
show at 8:30 p.m.
$9

Named after a legendary bayou in southwest Louisiana, Courtableu comprises veterans of the Bay Area Cajun/zydeco scene who perform classic Cajun dance-hall music in the style of Aldus Roger and Walter Mouton, with electric steel guitar and drums added to the traditional fiddle and accordion. Fiddler Richard Chon (Cocodrie, Sons of the San Joaquin, Saddle Cats) joins Creole Belles accordionist-singer Maureen Karpan, multi-instrumentalist Billy Wilson on steel guitar, bassist Elaine Herrick and drummer Dave "Killer" Hymowitz. http://www.courtableu.com/

Wednesday, February 18
BRENDA BOYKIN BAND & BIG SOUL COUNTRY
Doors at 7:30 p.m.; Swing dance lesson with Nick & Shanna at 8:00 p.m; show at 9:00 p.m.
$9
Everybody leaves happy at a Brenda Boykin show, whether it's an intimate listening affair with just her and guitarist Eric Swinderman doing jazz and pop standards, or in this case East Bay belter Boykin's unveiling of her new, plugged-in Big Soul Country band playing blues and jazz for West Coast swing dancing. While the band name may have changed from Home Cookin', as well as a player or two, the effervescent performance is still geared toward making sure everyone dances and feels not just good but great. Her only problem is in coming up with a name that evokes what she does. She calls her style "Afrobilly soul stew," and explains, "Afrobilly represents the music that came to the Bay Area during the great World War II migration. When the people came to work in the shipyards, they brought this wonderful Southern stew: a big fat Kansas City-meets-Memphis shuffle and a little something from Texas and Louisiana. We mix in that East Bay grease of Oakland, Vallejo, Richmond and Pittsburg. Added to the pot for extra zest are country, jazz, and gospel flavors on mostly original songs.

Thursday, February 19
MUTABARUKA
Doors at 8:30 p.m.; show at 9:00 p.m.
$15
Reggae Dub Poet Mutabaruka returns to Ashkenaz after a nearly four-year absence, bringing his powerful message of struggle for change. One of the first, most outspoken and popular of Jamaica's "dub poets" of the '70s (a label Mutabaruka resists), from the beginning he used his voice, in rhyme, to speak of the issues of the day. In this concert he presents one uninterrupted, solo 90-minute set.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1952, Mutabaruka (then known as Allan Hope) trained in electronics and was politically active on the side while working at the Jamaica Telephone Company when he discovered and investigated Rastafarianism. He found it offered more meaning than his Catholic upbringing or the radical political group he was involved with. He wrote poetry, some of it published in papers, and began taking his words to the stage, backed by reggae dub recordings. A mesmerizing performer, he became the best-known of the first wave of '70s dub poets. A series of recordings helped spread his artistry to American reggae fans, and over the next decade he became a conscious presence at reggae festivals around the world. He was to Jamaican music what Gil Scott-Heron at the same time was to America: a clear black voice speaking truth, accompanied by music that was deeply ingrained in grass roots struggle for social justice. But his poetry goes beyond political issues to look at other aspects of life, dreams, love and spiritual concerns. Mutabaruka explains that for him Rastafarianism is part of a universal quest that may also be pursued by other routes, such as Hinduism or Buddhism or Christianity. He disapproves, however, of institutionalized religion: the priest "has used your mind/to make love/with the/dead." http://www.mutabaruka.com/

Led by tenor sax blowing John Firmin, and featuring vocalist Mz. Dee, the band recently issued its fifth CD, a lively album indeed. But the ensemble really comes to life with a dance crowd, mixing Depression era swing with post-war jump blues from the songbooks of Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Big Joe Turner, Johnny Otis, Helen Humes, interspersed with hot band originals. http://www.johnnynocturne.com

Sunday, February 22
Free Jarvis Jay Masters Benefit with
HOT BUTTERED RUM STRING BAND and BLUEGRASS INTENTIONS
Doors at 7:00 p.m.; show at 7:30 p.m.
$10 - $20 sliding scale

Two excellent Bay Area Old Time and bluegrass bands team up in this fundraiser for the effort to free Jarvis Jay Masters, the widely-published African-American Buddhist writer living on San Quentin's Death Row. (for complete information, please see http://www.freejarvis.org/index.htm).

The new generation Hot Buttered Rum String Band was formed, so the story goes, from a month of hiking and making music in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The result was both the band and its style, which the group calls "high altitude bluegrass." All five members of HBRSB sing, with Bryan Horne on bass, guitarist Nat Keefe, mandolinist Zachary Matthews, fiddler-mandolinist Aaron Redner and accordionist Erik Yates. Yates also plays clarinet, flute and banjo. The band recently released its debut CD, "Live at the Freight & Salvage." http://www.hotbutteredrum.net

Host and house band of the late, long-running monthly fling dings at Ashkenaz, Bluegrass Intentions return after a several month absence. Bluegrass Intentions features Eric and Suzy Thompson on fiddles, guitars and mandolin, banjo ace Bill Evans, bassist Larry Cohea, and guitarist Alan Senauke, most of whom sing. The material is not all from the bluegrass songbook -- tunes come from blues, Cajun and Old Time sources as well as the band members' pens -- but everything is, as the band's CD title proclaims, "Old As Dirt." http://www.ericandsuzy.com/

Monday, February 23
No Evening Performance

Tuesday, February 24
TOM RIGNEY & FLAMBEAU
Doors at 7:30 p.m.; Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m.; show at 8:30 p.m.
$9
Ashkenaz celebrates Fat Tuesday the Cajun way with dance music by Tom Rigney & Flambeau. Violinist-fiddler-composer Tom "Rigo" Rigney's East Bay quintet Flambeau plays traditional Cajun and zydeco two-steps and waltzes, along with low-down blues, and New Orleans R&B. But what sets the band apart is Rigney's fresh musical takes on Cajun and zydeco, and other styles he loves to play from rock to classical. The group plays mostly original material, highlighting Rigney's arrangements. The band features some tunes from its new CD, "Happy to Be Here." Where the previous CD,"Metamorphosis," was dedicated to Tom's father, the late baseball great Bill Rigney, and featured many tunes designed more for listening than dancing, "Happy to Be Here" puts even more emphasis on the dance tunes the band has been playing in recent concerts, especially hot fiddle tunes such as "Maman Rosin" and "Party Grah." http://www.rigomania.com

Wednesday, February 25
No Evening Performance

Thursday, February 26
GRATEFUL DEAD DJ NIGHT WITH DIGITAL DAVE
10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.
$6
Spin with Digital Dave's Grateful Dead tunes.
http://home.att.net/~djdigitaldave/

Friday, February 27
THE PEOPLE and LZPHOENIX
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; show at 9:30 p.m.
$10 advance/$12 door ($10 at the door if wearing costume)

Mardi Gras has been celebrated over the years at Ashkenaz with a variety of musical dance styles, most often Cajun and/or zydeco. This time is different, as two bands -- The People and LZ Phoenix--offer a hip-hop/funk Mardi Gras party. (Which leaves you with even more latitude for costume design.)

The People has grown into a septet with horns that plays a style drawn from blending reggae, Latin, hip-hop and funk. Since starting two years ago, the band has played at least 200 shows in the Bay Area and Los Angeles clubs and concert halls, along the way opening for such acts as Coolio, Pato Banton, and George Clinton & P-Funk. The People feature singer-percussionist Diana George, singer-guitarist and keyboard player Rafael Arria Bustemante, bassist Lazaro, drummer Adam Lipsky, guitarist Paul Sutherland, and the horn section of trombonist Miguel Reyes and Mario Silva. They are finishing a DVD of audience favorites performed at Oakland shows. http://www.thepeopleband.com/

Although singer LZ Love and singer-percussionist Phoenix met while singing in the Glide Church Ensemble, according to the San Francisco Chronicle's James Sullivan, the music of the duo LZ Phoenix "ain't church. It's good time soul music with all the winking insinuation and infectious self-esteem the style implies. This is the gospel according to Ms. Love." The pair recently issued a second CD, "Standing Wide-Legged and Proud," featuring the song "Life Me Up." Their new music is rooted in modern R&B and the golden era of soul. Onstage, with a six-piece backing band, they describe their approach to dance music as Sly & the Family Stone meets The Talking Heads. http://www.lzphoenix.com

Saturday, February 28
WEST AFRICAN HIGHLIFE BAND
Doors at 9:00 p.m.; show at 9:30 p.m.
$13
African Highlife dance classics are the heart and soul of concerts by the West African Highlife Band. Launched by Kotoja's Ken Okulolo, the West African Highlife Band was born from a request by late director of Ashkenaz, David Nadel, for a band to concentrate on Ghanaian and West African highlife dance music and rhythmic styles. With master musicians from several West African countries and the United States, the band draws on folk traditions combined with modern stylistic elements played with acoustic and electric instruments, and include the infectious classic highlife dance hits of Ghana and Nigeria. Along with Okulolo, the band features Soji Odukogbe, Nii Armah Hammond, Lemi Barrow, Rasaki Aladokun and Pope Flyne.
http://www.African-Highlife.com

Sunday, February 29
FLAMENCO OPEN STAGE
Doors at 7:00 p.m.; show at 7:30 p.m.
$9
This regular feature at Ashkenaz presents flamenco "in an intimate, cabaret setting, as it should be seen," with a costume exhibit and sale of flamenco items. Alicia and Roberto Zamora are the featured performers.