Charles Unger's "Around the World"

San Francisco saxophonist Charles Unger, fresh from a recent tour of Sweden has re-emerged with a new album entitled, “Around the World”. Unger and jazz group, “The Experience”, featuring bassist Ben Luis, drummer Tony Coleman, and keybordist Sue Crossman, will debut the music from this latest effort at the Peacock Lounge tonight in the Lower Haight. Special guest performers will include a talented array of vocalists; Beverly Al-Kareem, Darlene Roberts and Unger’s longtime musical muse, Valencia Hawkins.

A major force in the music scene of the San Francisco Bay area for the last 40 years, saxophonist Charles Unger is a musical institution. He is known for his exuberant style and talent, and for a stage show that is unforgettable.

A regular performer at various San Francisco clubs, Unger is an innovator in the genres of Jazz, R&B and World Beat. Unger, who plays alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, was deeply influenced by the seminal works of artists such as Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Grover Washington, Kenny Garrett and Lester Young, but has also drawn on a lifetime of experience playing with top level musicians the world over. Unger brings an undeniable sense of joy to his performances, with a smile that welcomes even the most recalcitrant listeners to the party, then proceeds to open up avenues of music that are enjoyable for the uninitiated and the aficionado alike.

In San Francisco, Unger plays every Wednesday and Friday evening at Les Joulins Jazz Bistro (where he has performed for 19 years), leading a jazz band that includes his wife Valencia on vocals on Friday evenings. His band performs first Saturday of each month at the Sheba Lounge. He has also played at Rasselas, Yoshi’s San Francisco, Intercontinental Hotel San Francisco, 57th Street Gallery in Oakland and many other places in the San Francisco Bay Area.

During the last three summers, Charles Unger Experience has performed in Sweden at the Gothenburg Cultural Festival, in Båstad and at the Kristianstad/Åhus Jazz Festival. He has also performed with the Swedish group Wavemakers in the musical ”A Dream of a Better Life” at multiple locations. During the summer of 2011, Unger toured Europe for the first time since 2005, and performed in Sweden, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris and in the South of France.

Unger is a great player who loves what he is doing. Music for him is a spiritual mission and a quest for a kind of secular redemption that he has pursued since he was a child — one that sustains him and has brought him a wealth of knowledge and experience. Those experiences and more, are beautifully reflected on this latest release.


Charles Unger Experience “Around the World” CD Release Show
Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight Street, San Francisco
Doors open @ 7:00 pm

Popular posts from this blog

Building the Phil Collins Gretsch Kit - Part One

Image
Back in 2017, I managed to acquire a dozen of the revolutionary new wireless Versatriggers from Poland; Battery powered drum triggers you can mount inside a drum shell. Replace the acoustic drum head with a mesh head and you have yourself a v-drum. I first tried out the Versatrigger on an old Viking snare I'd converted previously with an internal Pintech trigger, and a Remo Silent Stroke mesh head. After connecting the Versatrigger wireless USB hub to my MacBook Air, I was able to tweak the sensitivity and trigger the drum surprisingly well. I also learned I needed to be able to access the trigger for adjustments and battery replacement, so double headed toms weren't practical. The kick and snare are easy enough to cut out a round hole in the bottom head, but the toms would have to be easy to access as well. A modest kit with concert toms would work perfectly. I didn't want to build just another small v-drum kit of virtually identical trigger pads either, so when
Read more

Building Bill Bruford's Symmetrical Tama Kit

Image
In two of my previous blogs, I wrote about successfully restoring a Tama "Bill Bruford Signature Series Palette" snare drum , and then building a duplicate version wrapped in chrome . Although they looked and sounded great, I thought about completing this project by adding a kit to go with it. Now I suppose I could always could buy a Tama Starclassic kit, and use the snares I built, but where is the fun in that? Bruford's Signature snare drum had all black Tama lugs, just like his Tama kit with King Crimson. That particular kit was a Canary Yellow Tama with deep power toms. Bruford would reappear with a another version of that yellow kit at the 1999 Modern Drummer Festival alongside his all acoustic Earthworks band. That kit also had black lugs, and featured an 18" kick drum, 16", 13", 12" and 10" toms. That kit appeared to be a rarity, perhaps even custom-made for Bruford. I've never seen another Tama kit that matched it. If I could gather
Read more

Building the Bill Bruford Signature Snare - Part One

Image
Bill Bruford's "rimshot" is one of the most unique and exquisite snare drum sounds ever heard. From his earlier days on his 14"x 5.5" Ludwig Supraphonic Super-Sensitive snare with Yes, to his brass 14" x 6.5" Tama Big Beat snare with King Crimson, Bruford's crisp rolls and sticking technique were a thing of beauty and a joy to behold.  In his later years, Bruford moved away from the metal snare drums of rock, to the jazzier sound of the all-maple 14"x 6.5" Tama Starclassic snare drum with his all-acoustic group Earthworks.  It was during that era that Tama offered the "Bill Bruford Signature Palette Series" snare drum, a customized, 6 ply Starclassic; 2 ply Maple, 2 ply Birch and 2 ply Maple. It was also outfitted with all black hardware; lugs, hoops, strainer and a custom "Black Metallic Sand Blasted" finish, with Bill Bruford's personally autographed and numbered decal. Listing for around $650, the snare quic
Read more