A vegan café in downtown South San Francisco isn’t the first (or second) place I’d expect to find an ongoing performance series exploring the state of the Asian-American jazz movement, but after checking it out last weekend it all made perfect sense.
A note from Pinole-based, British Columbia-born bass guitarist and composer Chris Trinidad about the series he’s curating, “Directions In Music Making By Asian American (and One Canadian) Improvisors II,” got me out of the house last Saturday. Arriving just after noon at Sky Café’s inviting Grand Avenue storefront I followed the sound of the music through the front room to an enclosed, wood-paneled side patio where I found four musicians set up on a low wooden bandstand.
Billed as “Kulintang Kollaborations II” the quartet featuring Trinidad, Conrad Benedicto on the traditional Philippine brass gong kulintang, Carie Jahde on drums, and Francis Wong on soprano sax was deep into Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” taking the standard into a shimmering vortex. The keening tone of Wong’s soprano sax melded effectively with the kulintang’s ringing pitches, while Jahde’s supple cymbal work filled out the metallic upper register leaving Trinidad ample space at the bottom.
More than an instrumental performance, the event unfolded like an open-ended conversation. Benedicto talked about how kulintang, which in the Philippines is strongly identified with the southern islands of Mindanao and Sulu, “has become an expression of Filipino-American identity, a diaspora phenomenon.” Reading a passage from his fantasy novel Musalaya’s Gift about a kulintang healing ceremony, he gained momentum as the other musicians gradually started playing behind him, adding drama to the scenes with watercolor sonic backdrops.
Trinidad and Wong are the guiding spirits behind the series, which continues with “Nikkei Stories” Saturday, March 16 when they’ll be joined by taiko and dance artist…
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