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 ...

One of the world’s best percussionists, Ranjit Barot has joined forces with bassist Etienne Mbappe and U. Shrinivas on mandolin, to create a fabulous new album, due to be released on September 10th. “The word chingari literally means ‘a spark’ in Hindi,” explains Barot. The internationally renowned, Mumbai-based composer and drummer has taken the word as the name for a new trio featuring himself, Southern Indian mandolin virtuoso Shrinivas, and Cameroonian bassist and vocalist Mbappe. “My thought behind the name was a spark, yes,” he adds, “but one which lights a big fire.” “On their debut album Bombay Makossa – available September 16, 2014 on the Abstract Logix imprint – the three musicians mine their richly divergent experiences to create a dynamic, fluid hybrid sound that fuses the rhythmic intricacy and improvisational fervor of South Indian Carnatic music with the infectious buoyancy of Cameroonian sounds, bridged by a shared love of jazz, second-line funk, and the shimmering text...

Organist Wil Blades returns to the Boom Boom Room at Fillmore & Geary this Friday and Saturday night, with a stellar band in tow. On the heels of his wonderful album “Shimmy” with Medeski, Martin and Wood drummer Billy Martin, and his newest release “Field Notes”, Blades rolls in with the amazing saxophonist Skerik, (fresh from a reunion in Austin with Seattle’s Critters Buggin’); Mike Clark, (Herbie Hancock’s drummer from his original Headhunters band), and guitarist Jeff Parker. Parker joined Blades and drummer Simon Lott on the aforementioned Field Notes. If you saw and enjoyed the Shimmy show last year with Martin, (and with a horn section to boot), you will love this line-up. Blades’ Field Notes Released on the Royal Potato Family label, his latest effort as described on the their website, states, “When Wil Blades sits down at the Hammond B3, count on inspired music to follow. The 34-year old, Chicago-native, Berkeley-based artist is a cornerstone organist of his generation—a ...

One of the most prolific drummers to ever grace the skins, Dave Weckl has played with a veritable who’s who of musical greats; alongside bassist Victor Wooten in Chick Corea’s Elektric Band, the late, great saxophonist, Michael Brecker, or Contra-bass master Anthony Jackson, guitarists George Benson and Mike Stern to name but a few. Weckl returns to Yoshi’s in Oakland, this time leading his own, all-acoustic quartet in support of his newest album. Dave Weckl, Modern Drummer’s Hall of Fame-er and among the top 25 drummers of all time, launches his first band, tour and recording in over a decade. With Makoto Ozone on piano and keys, Tom Kennedy/bass and Gary Meek/saxes the Dave Weckl Acoustic Band is charged with riveting chemistry, ebullient communication and rare telepathy that engages audiences to their rapt delight. Early on, it was Peter Erskine who recommended Dave for French Toast, a Michel Camilo band. Next legendary bassist Anthony Jackson suggested Dave for the Simon and Garfun...

One of the Bay area’s best music festivals, The 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit, July 27–August 2, 2014, returns to the Community Music Center at 544 Capp Street in San Francisco. The New Music Summit is co-presented by KFJC 89.7 FM. Featured during the annual festival will be poets collaborating with unique electro-acoustic settings; a night of experimental guitar solos and duos; a cue-led improvising orchestra, vocal and student workshops, the “Touch the Gear” Expo and acoustic/electric ensembles pushing the edge of sound. Sixteen performances will take place throughout the week, and will include the first poet to experiment with jazz, Ruth Weiss. Dubbed by writer Herb Caen as “the goddess of the beat generation,” Ruth will collaborate with buchla synthesis pioneer Doug Lynner. The Summit will also feature world premieres by the Emergency String (X)tet, the Deconstruction Orchestra; Pitta of the Mind; the world-renowned Henry Kaiser; and the Teddy Rankin-Parker/Daniel Pearce Du...