Election Section

Let me begin my completely biased and highly arbitrary list of events by telling you about the Oakland Museum Jazz Series. Four days of the week you can grab an inexpensive lunch, sit in the light-filled room that is the dining area, and hear bassist Ron Crotty accompany one of three fine Bay Area pianists who are in rotation there: Brian Cook, Terry Rodriguez, and Bliss Rodriguez. Terry was the fellow playing when I stopped in recently. 

He’s got an approach reminiscent of Bill Evans (those big, fat Ravel chords), and his lines are fluid and imaginative. As for bassist Crotty, he’s an elder statesman of jazz that played years back with Dave Brubeck. 

It’s unusual these days that jazz players happen onto a regular gig where they can grow used to one another, developing repertoire and rapport. And the piano-bass setting, perhaps the most intimate combination in jazz, is always a special pleasure when it’s handled well, as it is here. The musicians seem almost to breathe together. Wednesdays. Thursdays. Saturdays and Sundays at the Oakland Museum: 1000 Oak St. 238-2200. 

This Saturday night, Amy X. Neuberg is having a record release party with Herb Heinz at the Oakland Metro, down there at the base of Broadway. We’re talking now of a larger, noisier, and altogether zanier approach to music. 

Amy’s a strikingly talented singer / percussionist who likes to combine these skills in her band, playing Midi-controlled samples and singing energized material that falls considerably left of center. 9 p.m. Saturday, March 13 at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. 763-1146. 

As a study in contrasts, let’s move on to Richard Wagner. Regarding the Berkeley Opera’s “Legend of The Ring,” there was a rave published in this very paper a few days back. Suffice to say that if you can get a ticket, you should report to the Julia Morgan Theater this Friday, March 12 at 7 p.m. or Sunday for the 2 p.m. matinee. (925) 798-1300. 

Next week—Friday, March 19—the Oakland East Bay Symphony has pulled together a program that deserves some sort of medal for eclecticism. Beethoven’s 7th and Ravel’s Bolero share the bill with Paul D. Miller (AKA the legendary D.J. Spooky), who will be holding forth on computer, mixing board and turntable. Composer Anthony DeRitis has created a score for the orchestra (it appears that both he and Mr. Spooky are working with the Beethoven and the Ravel as source material). As concepts go, this one’s got my vote. Sink or swim, it’s going to a wild evening. For those who haven’t heard D.J. Spooky’s recordings, the beats come and go (personally, the beats are not my thing), but the soundscapes he creates with loving care lend credence to the idea that there’s some strange and welcome beauty to be found in all this technology. 465-6400. 

On Tuesday March 16, Kent Nagano conducts the Berkeley Symphony at Zellerbach Hall in “21st Century Cellos,” the second in this series. You get Elliott Carter (with Joan Jeanrenaud the featured soloist), Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (with Laszlo Varga), and Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony in the same program. 841-2800. 

Also March 16, if you need an alternative (or if you’re feeling frisky after the show), go hear Kitty Margolis at Yoshi’s. She’s a wonderful, fiery, fun-loving singer with a deep understanding of the tradition. 

Then, March 17-21, also at Yoshi’s, you have a rare opportunity to hear pianist Ahmad Jamal. I’m not sure what I need to say about this one, except “Go.” Ahmad Jamal has influenced most everyone in jazz, including the late Miles Davis, who likely got some of his “less-is-more” approach from this quarter. Jamal’s trio has been together longer than Methuselah. They play only the necessary notes, and in all the right places. 

Ligeti and Penderecki represent the Eastern Bloc, John Adams the West Coast, Yu-Hui Chang the Pacific Rim in a concert by the Empyrian Ensemble at the Berkeley City Club at 2315 Durant Ave. on Tuesday, March 23. The Empyrian is an invaluable Bay Area resource, an ensemble that continues to present, year after year, premieres and contemporary repertoire with the very highest standards. Marjorie Merryman’s “Hidden Boundaries,” for clarinet, cello, and piano, is also on this program. www.berkeleychamberperform.org  

I’m going to wind up with a pitch for G.S. Sachdev’s concert at St. John’s later this month. Each of us, I suspect, has a soft spot for a particular instrument. I find, for me, the wood flute has some inexplicable magic that instantly has me enthralled, ready to fall into something like a fugue state. If you have a similar compulsion-or if you’d like to develop one-come and celebrate bamboo flute master G.S. Sachdev’s seventieth birthday on Saturday, March 20 at St. John’s. Sachdev is joined by Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla. The Bay Area is, happily, home to some of the world’s finest practitioners of the classical Indian music tradition. Here’s a chance to hear two of them at St. John’s Presbyterian, 2727 College Ave. The concert is at 7 p.m. www.bansuri.net 

Not long ago, I got mail from a friend who’d gone to hear a show I’d recommended. He told me it hadn’t been so great. Not that he expected me to get his money back or anything—he was pretty sanguine. But it did get me thinking about the peculiar nature of doing a column like this, and about the risks that we all take when we pony up for tickets. To dispense with the obvious, my cup of tea may be arsenic to you. Moreover, I can’t predict what shows will be terrific before they happen. But my friend’s complaint made me reflect on the ways in which the cards are stacked against live performance these days. We’re living in an age when we can relive, on CD, carefully edited performances by players captured at the height of their powers, playing works that are tried and true. I have, for instance, a recording of Heifetz performing eight of the major violin concertos. I’ve been playing this lately for anybody who’s got an extra few minutes, just so we can both be in the same room with a miracle. 

And recordings are miraculous. But if you think back to the seminal experiences that made you fall in love with music, many of these experiences were surely live. There’s something irreplaceable about being in the same room with the performers, witness to the risks they’re taking, hearing those molecules of air being jostled and displaced for the first time. We pays our money and takes our chances, knowing now and then we’ll win big. The disappointments we can always use for conversation. 

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