Jazz Mafia Presents: Shotgun Wedding Hip Hop Symphony November 4, 2009

With Brass, Bows & Beats, Adam Theis, Joe Bagale (vocals and arrangements), Jon Monahan, and Jeanne Geiger (guitar/trombone and arrangements) and their fellow fearless innovators have made a major contribution to the constantly evolving American and global art form known as jazz.

But this phenomenal work is about much more than one simple classification can begin to describe. Approached with innovation and improvisation, Brass, Bows, & Beats was developed over the course of a year with help of a $50,000 grant from The Wallace Alexander Gerbode and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations. This multi-thematic, genre-defying and community-oriented work both embraces and expands on jazz tradition, while sending a positive and pertinent message for our times.

The result is a piece that continues to impress an historical impact that simply cannot be denied; a work, as Gabe Meline of the Sonoma County Bohemian writes, “on par with Miles Davis & Gil Evans’ ‘Live at Carnegie Hall’ or Charles Mingus’ ‘Epitaph’ – visionary in scope, staggering in depth.”

Featuring players such as Dublin, Joe Bagale, The Realistic Orchestra, The Shotgun Wedding Quintet, Jeanne Geiger, Dave Scott, Karyn Paige, Seneca, Chris McGee, DJ Aspect McCarthy, and many more, Brass, Bows & Beats seamlessly combines Latin polyrhythms, boom-bap rhymes, melancholy ballads, swinging jazz and blistering solos, while at the same time adhering to symphonic structural elements. All spun together in the spirit of a Jazz Era big band- but conducted with a maestro’s sense of timing, timbre, and mood- the experience is akin to watching the New York Philharmonic back a street corner B-Boy battle in the heart of downtown Oakland.

The original 60-piece Palace ensemble can be pared down to a tighter core of 40 to accommodate and emphasize more intimate settings. The piece marks a coming of age for The Jazz Mafia as a new voice in composition. Brass, Bows, & Beats is a monumental achievement displaying an exciting barrage of compositional elements, which the composers ingeniously weave together through a complex blend of skill, talent and courage. An eager and quickly growing global audience awaits their further contributions.

A creative force on the Bay Area music scene for more than a decade, the loose-knit band of jazz cats, MCs, arrangers and composers known collectively as The Jazz Mafia, is fast emerging as the most prolific musical organization on the West Coast. Launching some of the Bay Area’s most innovative and stylistically expansive ensembles, these musicians contribute their varied talents to a cross-cultural mix of new beats and melodies, blended with instrumental virtuosity. The Jazz Mafia Horns have recorded in the studio with Carlos Santana and backed artists such as Zion-I, KRS One, and Thomas Dolby. Other bands in the JM pantheon include The Shotgun Wedding Quintet, the incredible Realistic Orchestra, Supertaster w/ Joe Bagale, Brass Mafia, Jazz Mafia Trio, Spaceheater, and The Shotgun Wedding Hip Hop Symphony. With top-tier brass players and an always premium rhythm section, and dealing in jazz, funk, hip hop, soul, R&B and more, The Jazz Mafia form one of the most powerful assemblies of virtuosic performers on the West Coast.

Official Website: http://www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco/jazzclub/artist/show/970