E. Doctor Smith's Blog

"Keyboardist Steve McQuarry, bassist Craig Kleinman and drummer E. “Doc” Smith brought their brand of electric jazz and fusion to the Cadillac Hotel on Friday, September 19th @ 12:30 pm. The MKS Trio performed some of the music of Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Catalyst, Jaco Pastorius and Billy Cobham. Concerts at the Cadillac is a free concert series open to the public. The purpose is to provide high-quality music for the residents of the Cadillac Hotel and San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. Everyone is welcome. Dedicated to the power of music to uplift and inspire. The Cadillac Hotel is also home to the Patricia Walkup Memorial Piano, a meticulously restored 1884 Steinway Model D concert grand piano. The case is of Indian Rosewood and the old growth spruce soundboard is the piano’s original. The piano spent its first 70 years or so in a castle in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It was shipped from New Haven, Connecticut, to the Cadillac Hotel in June, 2007. This beautiful ins

For the past 15 years, the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (SFEMF) has brought internationally acclaimed musicians to the Bay Area, becoming the premiere festival dedicated to the genre. The festival began last night at the Exploratorium with the Kanbar Forum, David Dunn, Headboggle + Caitlin Denny, and continues from September 12th–14th. SFEMF will present artists working with analog synthesizers, home-brewed electronics, laptop-generated sound, processed live acoustic instruments, amplified found objects, projected video, improvisation, and performance art. This year’s festival opens at the Exploratorium with field recording maverick David Dunn and antic keyboardist Head Boggle with live visuals by Caitlin Denny. Interested in site-specific interactions and research-oriented activities, David Dunn creates a new view of the environmental world through music. He has received over 35 grants and fellowships for both artistic and scientific research, including the Alpert Award (20

Allan Holdsworth, one of the world’s best known guitarists returned to Yoshi’s in San Francisco last Tuesday and Wednesday, before wrapping up his amazing 3 day stint at Yoshi’s in Oakland on Thursday. Holdsworth has been thrilling audiences the world over for several decades; I first saw him with the legendary Tony Williams Lifetime band of the mid-seventies, and months later with his fellow Brits in the celebrated prog-rock super group U.K., featuring Roxy Music’s Eddie Jobson, and King Crimson’s John Wetton and Bill Bruford. Holdsworth would soldier on with his own groups like I.O.U and assorted trios, displaying the genius he has become known throughout the world for. Many critically acclaimed albums would follow; his guitar synth forays with “Atavachron”, “Road Games”, “Metal Fatigue”, “Sand”, “Secrets”, “Wardenclyffe Tower”, “Hardhat Area” and “Sixteen Men of Tain” in 2000. Fans of the guitarist will no doubt recall his tribute to the late Williams, “Blues for Tony”, culminating