A hot band of Cajun/Zydeco veterans, CZ & the Bon Vivants dish out classic Cajun dance tunes and originals. Along with singer and fiddler Catherine Matovich (whose day job is playing with symphony orchestras), the Bon Vivants are Lake Charles, Louisiana, native and East Bay great Andrew Carriere on accordion, guitarist John Herrick, bassist Elaine Herrick, and drummer Timothy Orr. Over the last few years they’ve appeared frequently on the festival and outdoor event circuit – from downtown Oakland to the Solano Stroll, the Kaiser Rooftop concert series to Bay cruises – and at many a Bay Area dance hall. The group was born when Matovich got home after playing in Neil Diamond’s touring band and saw a concert by Cajun/Zydeco fiddler Tom Rigney. “I loved working big shows, but seeing Tom’s band made me want to be in a group like that, that had so much fun playing together.”

Ashkenaz’ exciting new “Sweet & Low Down Wednesdays” Series, appropriately named after a George Gershwin tune about a cabaret pianist, kicked off in style on Feb. 24 with Maria Muldaur and gets in full swing tonight with the rollicking California Honeydrops. The series takes place all odd Wednesdays (1st, 3rd, 5th); while Gershwin won’t be playing, some of the West Coast’s favorite blues bands are, as well as those that stretch into such related dance music as West Coast Swing, New Orleans R&B, East Coast Swing/Lindy Hop, Gypsy Swing, and jump ’n’ jive jazz. As with many Ashkenaz offerings, each show will be preceded by a dance lesson that will help all comers boogie the night away in style on the spacious floor at Ashkenaz – voted “Best Dance Club” in the East Bay Express Readers’ Poll once again in 2009.

In spite of their name, the California Honeydrops play New Orleans-rooted dance music: blues, gospel, second line jazz, and early R&B. From the stomps of Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet to the romps of Fats Domino and Chris Kenner, plus Ray Charles and the band’s original songs, the California Honeydrops have been making listeners and dancers ecstatic since they formed in 2007. Their first CD, “Soul Tub,” is pure party music, but nothing like experiencing the band on the Ashkenaz dance floor.

Enjoy this month’s Grateful Dead night at Ashkenaz with a special performance by the Fill-In Friends, an all-star ensemble comprised of members of many of the most beloved local Dead tribute bands.

Rhythm guitarist Scott Cooper plays in the China Cats as well as the Gary Gates Band and Relix Records’ Stackabones. He has recorded with Howard Wales (organ player on many a Dead recording and Garcia cohort), George Marsh (drummer for David Grisman), Barry Sless (from Phil & Friends), Ben Ellman (Galactic), and many others in the Grateful Dead family. Also a member of the China Cats, bassist Roger Sideman has worked with Matt Hartle, Michael Kang (String Cheese Incident), and others. Lead guitarist Dave Stein fronts his own band and is well-known throughout the Bay Area for his tasty Garcia-flavored solos. Mark Corsolini is also a familiar face to Deadheads; the drummer for the once and great Workingman’s Ed, Mark has also toured with Dark Star Orchestra, Melvin Seals, and JGB.

Over the past few years the BandWorks program has regularly staged two-night concerts at Ashkenaz, with several bands each night, as a chance for its amateur and professional students to perform in a concert setting (see March 21 and 23). This show is a bit different, where the BandWorks teachers bring their own bands in a fundraiser for the BandWorks scholarship fund. Some of the music is danceable, spanning the spectrum from folk to classic rock to singer-songwriter to modern jazz. The half-dozen professional bands offer the community a chance to see the instructors do the real thing and help raise money for the program.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers keep adding new elements to their timeless blues-jazz-swing repertoire. The band’s third CD and first in nine years, “Miss Smith to You!”, provides fresh songs for the dance floor, including “Miss Brown to You,” “I’m Not Evil,” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Since 1989, before swing became a national craze, jazz vocal stylist Smith and her band (led by co-founder and keyboardist Chris Siebert) have been making music as sharp and irresistible as her period costumes that recall the pinup girls of the Forties. Two decades later they are still the Bay Area’s hottest swing attraction, steeped in not just the songs but the feel that makes them the real deal. Big, bluesy-voiced Smith has deservedly raked in national attention from network television to NPR, and Johnny Otis proclaims that “she and her band are a breath of fresh air!” Multiple award winners, Smith and her Skillet Lickers present not only the best-dressed but also one of the most exciting shows of East Coast Swing and Lindy Hop dance music, as well as sultry torch songs.

The latest in Ashkenaz’ popular series of kids’ shows, “Soggy Sundays,” presents ten weeks of afternoon concerts to chase the winter fog and rain away (or lift spirits higher even if it’s not raining). The wide array of top family-oriented artists provides engaging entertainment for young children and parents every Sunday through March, playing music from around the world for dancing, jumping, and spinning on the best dance floor in the East Bay!

Berkeley Copwatch, the original Copwatch group, throws a 20th anniversary celebration featuring the rocking electric trio Sistas in the Pit. Spoken word artist Cat Brooks and funk diva Miss Jada Simone, both from Oakland, also perform. A citizens’ group that monitors police actions, Copwatch is a growing movement, with chapters formed recently in Sacramento and Salinas. The Oakland Copwatch is marking its first year monitoring Oakland streets in the wake of the Oscar Grant killing. Proceeds from tonight’s show benefit Copwatch and the New Year’s Movement for Justice for Oscar Grant.

Powerhouse Berkeley singer-guitarist Shelley Doty leads Sistas in the Pit. She was the lead guitarist in ’90s dance group Jambay, and in the reunited Pele Juju, and she has long led her own genre-blending high energy X-Tet. Doty, bassist Kofy Brown, and drummer Ieela Grant create a delicious, electric, and fun sound, calling SITP’s sound “sexy rock black girl style!” www.sistasinthepit.com

The original Afrofunk Experience band makes its first Ashkenaz appearance since the band and singer Sila parted. With new vocalist and lyricist Sandy Tili there is even more singing, but the big band’s bottom line has always been its award-winning funk. The AFE opens its concerts with an intro borrowed from Fela Kuti’s “Expensive Shit,” and after that it’s all original music influenced by the whole world of funk, from Nigerian Afrobeat to Oakland’s own Tower of Power. The AFE formed six years ago and recorded two highly praised CDs featuring Victor Sila Mutungi on vocals. The group is currently at work on its first post-Sila recording, bursting with fresh original fare – “Mad Money Woes,” “Istanbul,” “Nuevo Funk” – and has just returned from its second Lake Tahoe casino gig (with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe). Other than Tili, the lineup is the same as always, with everyone joining in the singing: trombonist Andre Webb, trumpeter Mike Pitre, saxophonist David Boyce, bassist Wendell Rand (who gave AFE its name), drummer Tai Kenning, guitarist David James (a founding member of Michael Franti’s Spearhead, currently in Beth Custer Ensemble), guitarist Ken House, and percussionist Samba Guisse.

The AFE has performed at nearly every dance hall and festival in the Bay Area, from Café du Nord and the Fillmore to Outside Lands and Stern Grove, as well as major summer fests including Sierra Nevada Music Festival. Along the way it has picked up an array of awards for its soulful performances, including SF Weekly Music Awards’ Best International Act. The band’s CD with Sila, “Black President,” was just named Outstanding World Music Album in the 2010 NAACP Image Awards.

San Francisco DJ Pleasuremaker opens with his eclectic blend of soulful global dance music, heating up the floor with funk, soul, Latin, Afrobeat, disco, house, and broken beats.

Every Sunday at Ashkenaz from 11 am to 1 pm, Soul Sanctuary Dance offers an irresistible blend of soul, R&B, funk, positive hip-hop, reggae, house, and other music to free mind, body, and soul. Children and teens are always appreciated on the dance floor. Soul Sanctuary is a great informal workout for everyone, rejuvenating and nourishing for the soul and fun for the whole family.

The latest in Ashkenaz’ popular series of kids’ shows, “Soggy Sundays,” presents ten weeks of afternoon concerts to chase the winter fog and rain away (or lift spirits higher even if it’s not raining). The wide array of top family-oriented artists provides engaging entertainment for young children and parents every Sunday through March, playing music from around the world for dancing, jumping, and spinning on the best dance floor in the East Bay!

Family dance is a way for the whole gang to have a great time dancing together – no experience is necessary! Square dance caller Evie Ladin has a knack for getting people moving to the music without thinking too much or worrying about what they’re doing. Live music is provided by the Squirrelly Stringband, a two-time winner of the Berkeley Farmers’ Market Stringband Competition that features old-time Southern breakdowns and backwoods mountain music. Fiddler Dave Murray, banjo player Debbie Berne, guitarist Allegra Yellin, and Rachel Kraai on washtub bass have performed at festivals, square dances, concerts, parties, corn shuckin’s and barn raisin’s and more.

One of Northern California’s main Cajun/Zydeco bands over the past decade, the women-led Tee Fee Swamp Boogie has a reputation for playing infectious, happy swamp boogie and blues dance music that mixes as much highly charged electric blues as Cajun roots into its shows, and tops it off with rich vocal harmonies. The East Bay’s major outdoor concert producer Russ Jennings explains, “Their music is just hip enough, and just traditional enough, to keep the gray hairs and the green hairs up and dancing all night long.”

A mainstay of the real Bay Area blues scene, belter and balladeer Mz. Dee brings her smokin’ dance band to Ashkenaz’s exciting “Sweet & Low Down Wednesdays” Series that takes place all odd Wednesdays (1st, 3rd, 5th). Some of the West Coast’s favorite blues bands appear in the series, as well as some that stretch into such related dance music as West Coast Swing, New Orleans R&B, East Coast Swing/Lindy Hop, Gypsy Swing, and jump ’n’ jive jazz. As with many Ashkenaz offerings, each show will be preceded by a dance lesson that will help all comers boogie the night away in style on the spacious floor at Ashkenaz – voted “Best Dance Club” in the East Bay Express Readers’ Poll once again in 2009.

“Baraka” is the Sufi word for “blessing.” In its Ashkenaz debut, Baraka Moon brings soul-stirring transcendental Sufi trance grooves with didge and drums to the stage and dance floor. Baraka Moon is the combination of three world music masters from different countries who have devoted their lives to collaborating with like-minded musicians from other cultures. Fresh from completing its self-titled debut CD and a West Coast tour, Baraka Moon is Sukhawat Ali Khan on vocals and harmonium, didjeridu virtuoso Stephen Kent (who also plays percussion, ngoma, and bass), and Geoffrey Gordon on multiethnic drums, percussion, and chant.

An annual tradition now entering its second decade, Stomp the Stumps! brings together some of the Bay Area’s most dedicated political rock and dance bands for fundraising concerts to help save what’s left of natural Northern California. Berkeley’s Funky Nixons, who have played in all eleven Stomp the Stumps, are a rocking band with honking sax that uses pointedly political and usually satirical lyrics to rally listeners to the causes of the day. Not as irreverent but just as rocking, the Gary Gates Band also donates its music to community causes, playing original jam band music that inspired the San Francisco Bay Guardian to compare it to Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead. Hailing from Oakland, the Quilt plays Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan covers as well as original down-low, rollicking rhythm and blues inspired by the Jerry Garcia Band, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, and more. myspace.com/quiltrain, directaction.org/nixon, garygatesband.com

A rockin’ parade of young groups from BandWorks takes the stage this week in “Soggy Sundays,” the latest in Ashkenaz’ popular series of kids’ shows, presenting ten weeks of afternoon concerts to chase the winter fog and rain away (or lift spirits higher even if it’s not raining). The wide array of top family-oriented artists provides engaging entertainment for young children and parents every Sunday through March, playing music from around the world for dancing, jumping, and spinning on the best dance floor in the East Bay!

Janam (formerly Black Olive Babes) offers an eclectic mix of Balkan, Turkish, Romani, Sephardic, and American roots and original music. These sultry rhythms and soul-stirring melodies create a dance- and trance-inducing groove that carries listeners from the shores of the Black Sea to the foothills of the Appalachians. Founded by longtime Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble singer Juliana Graffagna, Janam is a hand-picked ensemble of some of the Bay Area’s best-known and most innovative interpreters of Southern Balkan and Middle Eastern traditional music. Janam is Graffagna on vocals and guitar; Peter Jaques (Brass Menažeri, Stellamara) on clarinet and vocals; Dan Auvil (Ziyia, Édessa) on percussion; Bill Lanphier (Toids, Trio Mopmu) on bass; Tom Farris (Helladelics) on guitar, laouto, and accordion; and Gari Hegedus (Teslim) on oud, violin, and mandocello. www.janamband.com

The tight and fiery 7th Street Sound serves as host and house band in this reggae mini-festival laden with some of the top talent from the fertile Virgin Islands reggae scene. 7th Street is a Berkeley-homegrown, Ashkenaz-raised band. Friends since high school, Eddie Arnold (drums), Danny McCaffrey (bass), and Benjamin Goff (keys) have been playing together since 1992. They recently added guitarist Jason Collins of the Funkanauts. 7th Street Sound has been called one of the Bay Area’s best-kept musical secrets and has backed many artists, including lovers’ rock legend Lloyd Brown on his first California tour. Other artists 7th Street Sound has worked with include Messenjah Selah, Brother Ayouba, Earl Zero, Winstrong, and Roots Natty. www.myspace.com/7thstreetsound

From St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, singer Binghi Ghost takes his name from the Rastafarian word for “Nyabinghi,” meaning the real, original chanting Rastafarians use to give thanks and praises through singing. Add in the choices humanity is currently facing, translate them into reggae, and that is Binghi Ghost’s music, an uplifting sound conveying that “we can accomplish what we set our minds to do.” www.myspace.com/binghighost

Army also hails from the Virgin Islands, boasting a vocal style that is both soothing and energizing (he lists Nat “King” Cole and Dennis Brown as major influences). Born Fitzmaurice Williams, the young singer was in his church choir at the age of 5, played saxophone in a jazz band in high school, and then moved to New York. A stint in the U.S. Army gave him his moniker. Back in St. Croix, he recorded his first album, “Yesterday’s News,” in 1990 and gained notice for his fresh vocal style. Army explains that he uses music as a weapon in the war for spiritual renewal for all peoples: “For me the music is a healing. I feel that the music healed me, took me to places where I could have not necessarily have been without it. If I could shine some light some how, I would know that I have done something.” www.armyreggae.com

Blaak Lung, a.k.a. Alan “EayGee” Gordon, grew up in the Bay Area influenced by Augustus Pablo, King Tubby, and other reggae greats as well as conscious hip-hop artists such as KRS-One. He began creating reggae, hip-hop, and dub tracks at age 13 and progressed to a 20-year career of producing conscious roots vibrations for a long list of artists. In the last few years Blaak Lung has stepped to the fore with his hard-hitting solo CDs. He describes his distinctive singing style as “EngJay,” a combination of spoken word, dub poetry, and DJing. www.blaaklung.com

Vaudevillians Stage Troupe closes out “Soggy Sundays,” the latest in Ashkenaz’ popular series of kids’ shows, which has presented ten weeks of afternoon concerts to chase the winter fog and rain away (or lift spirits higher even if it’s not raining). The wide array of top family-oriented artists provided engaging entertainment for young children and parents every Sunday from late January through March, playing music from around the world for dancing, jumping, and spinning on the best dance floor in the East Bay! The fun continues in April with the next series, “Sunny Sundays.”

World/Afro-Polynesian singer-dancer-composer Mahealani Uchiyama describes her music as “sweet, soulful island sounds.” Her “island sounds” are everything from Tahitian ahuroa to reggae, blended with musical elements from Africa, including the mbira (thumb piano). She is accompanied by a full Tahitian drum orchestra, ukuleles, guitarists, a chorus, and colorfully costumed Polynesian dancers. A highlight of Uchiyama’s shows is the fusion of Tahitian and Senegalese drum and dance, which, she says, “celebrates all of us who straddle two worlds.”

Uchiyama is the director of the Center for International Dance and of the KaUaTuahine Polynesian Dance Company. She has performed in such prestigious venues as San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, New Zealand’s National Museum, and the Grand Heiva in Tahiti. Her latest CD, “A Walk by the Sea,” combines the sounds of her cultural and spiritual heritage; it won the 11th Annual Hawai’i Music Award for best world music album of 2007.

George Cole’s wildly swinging Quintet is tonight’s attraction in Ashkenaz’s exciting “Sweet & Low Down Wednesdays” Series that takes place all odd Wednesdays (1st, 3rd, 5th). Some of the West Coast’s favorite blues bands appear in the series, as well as some that stretch into such related dance music as West Coast Swing, New Orleans R&B, East Coast Swing/Lindy Hop, Gypsy Swing, and jump ’n’ jive jazz. As with many Ashkenaz offerings, each show will be preceded by a lesson that will help all comers dance the night away in style on the spacious floor at Ashkenaz – voted “Best Dance Club” in the East Bay Express Readers’ Poll once again in 2009.