Music

A setlist from any of The Essentials recent live performances explains what the band is all about: legendary music.

Covering the likes of Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and Prince, while also tossing in some originals, The Essentials should produce a horn-heavy, soulful show at The Annex on Saturday night. The Essentials are a 10-piece mixing bowl of talented musicians that infuses tight percussions, saxophones, keyboards, bass, guitars, trumpets, trombones and soothing vocals to form a throwback sound with a modern feel.

Just a few of the many Lafa Taylor fans pack the legendary budokan Arena in tokyo. Watch out Cheap Trick…Lafa Taylor is big in Japan. He's seriously really big - the guy is 6
feet 5 inches tall, and when he had an afro, he was even bigger, making
him tower over the average Japanese citizen.

But in terms of musical
popularity, Taylor is also huge in Japan. The Eugene-reared-but-now-living-in-Portland-as-of-last-week hip-hopper
traveled to Japan a few years ago and was embraced by a duo called Def
Tech known for their Jawaiian (if you guessed that this is a
combination of Japanese and Hawaiian styles, you're right) reggae
vibes. Before Taylor knew it he'd become, well, kind of famous.

Izabella rock the Old Stone to brighten up your February.With the peppering of warm days we've had in the past few weeks, sometimes it's hard to believe that July is still another four long months away. That means that above-freezing nights, gin and tonics, and most importantly, shaking a little daisy-duke-covered-ass at an outdoor music venue is still a ways off. But Friday night at the Old Stone Church is probably going to feel like summer - and that's not going to help you get over your sun-starved blues, but it will be a taster of a promising summer music season.

Although the bigger, sweeter second annual 4 Peaks Music Festival is slated for July, the festival organizers are giving a sample of the sunny fest on Friday by bringing San Francisco world jammers Izabella to the Old Stone Church. The familiar faces of Southern Oregon's State of Jefferson are slated to open. If the 4 Peaks crew’s show with Poor Man's Whiskey at the Old Stone a few weeks ago was any indicator, Friday should have the warm vibe of the summer fest…but this show will be in February…and indoors.

This is how a Ladysmith Black Mambazo song should make you feel.To many, the name Ladysmith Black Mambazo is synonymous with Paul
Simon, the mega-star who collaborated with the South African a cappella
group on his landmark 1986 record Graceland. What most don't know is
that the eight-piece mini choir had been in existence for more than 20
years by the time Simon tapped their talents in the mid-1980s. Now,
another 20 plus years has passed since Mambazo shared a Rolling Stone
cover shot with Simon, but the group is still very much alive, and
still trekking around the world, reaching into the souls of its global
audience.

"Our aim from the beginning with our music is about
uplifting our spirits and the spirits of the people. From the time we
formed the group we wanted to encourage people to stay strong and stay
positive and that someday things are going to be better," says,
longtime Mambazo member Albert Mazibuko, while gazing out his hotel
room window at a freshly snow-blanketed Flagstaff, Ariz. during a
late-February tour stop.

With three appearances in Bend within the last year, Hot Buttered Rum
is in danger of being mistakenly added to our roster of bluegrass bands
- and we wouldn't complain if they did join our team. The San Francisco
acoustic-that-sounds-electric band is teaming with fellow Bay-Area
roots musicians The Waybacks for a co-headlining tour. Since our
municipality has showed respect for both acts, it makes sense that the
tour is making a stop at the Domino Room.

They've got the bluesman strut down nicely.Henry Kammerer of Portland's gritty blues duo Hillstomp is trying to
explain why and how he and his bandmate John Johnson play the blues and
after hitting some dead ends: He remembers a quote from Keith Richards.
In an impressively accurate impression of the Stones axe man's
swaggering, drunken-sounding British accent, Kammerer mumbles a few
lines about blues being embedded in our collective bone marrow.

After some digging I was able to find the precise text of Richards' quote:
Blues
is one of the most fascinating forms of music I know, and I listen to a
lot of styles…It's in our bones. 'Cause probably we all come from
Africa. We just went north and turned white. But if you cut anybody
open, bones are white and blood is red, man. It's kind of deep, you
know? And I think maybe it speaks to us in that way. Ancient bone
marrow responding to the source.

This ain’t your uncle chester’s kinda barn.In addition to its "this-is-cowboy-country" architecture and street names, Sisters is also home to a deeper, more community-rooted attitude rarely seen these days. And it's most visible within the town's musical community. This is a town with less than 2,000 people and maybe another few thousand living in the surrounding areas, yet there's a healthy and talented pool of musicians that often join forces on recording projects and live shows. And if that's not throwback enough, consider this: The town’s most talked about indoor music venue is an old barn - now that's throwback.

Jovino Santos Neto serves up some spicy latin rhythms at the Old Stone Church.It's been a while since we had a helping of Brazilian jazz here in Bend, but after a ten-year absence, Jovino Santos Neto and his jazz trio return to Central Oregon to lay down their hip-shaking Latin beats, while sharing some knowledge with local musicians.

A native of Rio De Janeiro, Neto was raised in New York and some might remember him as a member of Hermeto Pascoal's legendary band from 1977-92. I had the pleasure to catch up with Neto over the phone last week and he told me that Pascoal was the main influence that made him want to become a musician, producer and arranger. Since 1993, Neto's trio has consisted of Chuck Deardorf on bass, and Mark investor on drums, both of whom have masterful skills of their own.