Event Listing - Music

Fri Nov 9, 2007

Sunset Promotions Presents

ALBINO!, The Shotgun Wedding Quintet & Karl Denson

@ The Great American Music Hall

Tel. 4159714527
Email ALBINO!, The Shotgun Wedding Quintet & Karl Denson
Website

Location	Date and Time
Great American Music Hall (GAMH) 859 O'Farrell Street San Francisco, CA 94109 map cross street: Polk district: Polk Gulch/Van Ness	Fri Nov 9, 2007 (Doors: 8:00pm)

Description

On Friday, November 9, Sunset Promotions & Great American Music Hall have assembled a “horn o’ plenty”. San Francisco’s massive heavy heavy afrobeat band ALBINO! will trade sets allnight with beloved local jazz-hop heroes the Shotgun Wedding Quintet. As if that wasn’t enough, both bands will be joined by Greyboy Allstar Karl Denson.

ALBINO! has grown from a local band celebrating the music of Fela-Kuti into a nationally touring, 12-piece afrobeat monster. Albino brings high-energy grooves and an explosive stage show thick with hypnotic percussion, a heavy horn section, African dance, outrageous costumes, and infectious group choreography. The ALBINO! combination of over-the-top live energy, tripped-out tribal stage garb, and the ability to envelop audiences in an irresistibly funky, loving embrace have made the band a favorite of festival crowds and the Burning Man community in particular. Beholding this 24-legged freaky behemoth as it locks into its choreographed steps is as much of a feast for the eyes as their deliciously layered funk is for the ears. On top of this, Albino’s lyrical messages offer scathing sociopolitical commentary and urgent calls to civic action, in keeping with the revolutionary spirit central to Fela Kuti's Afrobeat legac y. The live Albino! experience simply never fails to *move* an audience, in every sense of the word.

THE SHOTGUN WEDDING QUINTET is one of the fearsome heads of the Bay Area hydra known as the JAZZ MAFIA. Drummer Joe Patrick Kortey and turntablist Aspect McCarthy drive a slamming funk-hop backbeat for the acid jazz stylings of multi-instrumentalist Adam Theis, horn player Joe Cohen and MC Dublin. The result is a versatile monster that can take on any type of groove and lives to fuse them together. Oft-compared to the Breakestra, Brand New Heavies and the Pharcyde, TSWQ will make you dance, even as Dublin spins tales of urban revelation, frustration, and transcendence. After celebrating the release of their self-titled full-length CD with a sold-out barnburner at the Independent in August, TSWQ throws its hat in the ring for another kind of showdown at the Great American.

Those who have heard KARL DENSON’S tenor sax playing with his band TINY UNIVERSE, have seen him alongside the seminal acid jazz band GREYBOY ALLSTARS or even in a more regimented setting performing with LENNY KRAVITZ tend to be persuaded that he is one of the pioneers who will be keeping jazz vital with-in many varied musical scenes. Unlike other players who are easily pigeonholed, Denson is a formative visionary with a jazz philosophy fueled by his joy in getting bodies to move. He prefers to push the envelope when it comes to his collaborations and therefore his career has taken on many forms. Denson’s broad range of projects has earned him a reputation as a groundbreaking musician, equally potent as a masterful collaborator and an innovative solo artist.