Articles by Harry S. Pariser

Live Review

Iris DeMent at The Freight

by Harry S. Pariser
July 12, 2026

Iris DeMent The Freight Berkeley, California June 27, 2026 Singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist Iris DeMent returned to The Freight in Berkeley, California to hold forth on a Saturday evening. Iris Luella DeMent is famous for songs that touch on political and social issues as well as the romantic. She definitely knows how to warm up a room. With her distinctive twang, there is nobody else quite like her. DeMent's personal history is remarkable. ...

Live Review

Chucho Valdés Royal Quartet at SFJAZZ Center

by Harry S. Pariser
June 23, 2026

Chucho Valdés Royal Quartet SFJAZZ San Francisco, CA, USA June 13, 2026 Born to a musical family in Quivicán, Cuba in October 1941, Chucho Valdés's given name is Dionisio Jesús Valdés Rodríguez. His father, pianist, composer, and bandleader Ramón Bebo Valdes, introduced him to the piano at age three. Valdés graduated from the Conservatorio Municipal de Música de la Habana at 14 and started his own jazz trio at age 18. His first ...

Live Review

Coltrane 100 at The Freight

by Harry S. Pariser
April 29, 2026

Coltrane 100: Both Directions at Once The Freight Berkeley, CA April 15, 2026 On September 23, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina, a child was born. He would have--by the time of his untimely demise at the age of 40--an immense influence on the structure, performance of, and future of the music known as jazz. John William Coltrane was a force of nature. And his influence still reigns strong today. At 73, Joe Lovano ...

Live Review

Dar Williams at The Freight

by Harry S. Pariser
April 18, 2026

Dar Williams The Freight Berkeley, CA April 9, 2026 Dar Williams has been creating powerful, popular, poignant, and sometimes humorous tunes and performing, acoustic guitar in hand, for decades. A doyenne among singer-songwriters, Williams is blessed with a gorgeous voice as well as with a gift for poetic, ethereal lyrics. Given the moniker Dar in her childhood (she was born Dorothy), the precocious Williams took up the guitar at age nine and penned ...

Live Review

Drum Tao at Zellerbach Hall

by Harry S. Pariser
April 3, 2026

Drum Tao Zellerbach Hall CalPerformances Berkeley, CA March 21, 2026 Way back in 1993, Taro Harasaki had an epiphany. He had just exited Mystère, the Cirque du Soleil show then running in Las Vegas. The performance had made a huge impression on him. “I can do this in Japan," he thought. His concept was to marry Kumi-daiko (組太鼓, literally “set of drums"), a small-group Taiko drum performance first developed in 1951, to polished performance and choreography ...

Live Review

The Silkroad Ensemble at Zellerbach Hall

by Harry S. Pariser
March 31, 2026

The Silkroad Ensemble Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual Berkeley, CAMarch 27, 2026 Every sort of instrument was set out on the stage, which was bathed in red light. Everything had been readied for a very special event: a rare performance by the classical-ethnic fusion group The Silkroad Ensemble. At its commencement, members walked down the aisles en route to the stage chanting “Weh." Rhiannon Giddens, the ensemble's director, initiated a song, and then ...

Live Review

Omar Sosa Suba Trio at SFJAZZ Center

by Harry S. Pariser
March 24, 2026

Omar Sosa Suba Trio SFJAZZ Center San Francisco, CA March 8, 2026 Pianist and composer Omar Sosa saved something very special for the fourth and final evening performance of his SFJAZZ Center residency, his second for the institution. In mid-2012, Sosa had encountered London-based Senegalese kora master and singer Seckou Keita at a recording session there. They began jamming, which led to the genesis of what was to be a sustained musical collaboration. This led, ...

Live Review

Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band at Zellerbach Playhouse

by Harry S. Pariser
March 22, 2026

Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band Zellerbach Playhouse CalPerformances Berkeley, CA March 6. 2026 On a Friday night, pianist Grant Richards sat on the stage of the intimate UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Playhouse. To his right stood acoustic bassist Marcos Varela, with Edward Littlefield next to him manning the drum seat. The other members of the big band sat in rows of black chairs beside them. Five saxophonists sat in the front. Four trombonists were seated ...

Live Review

John Santos Sextet at The Freight

by Harry S. Pariser
March 16, 2026

John Santos Sextet The Freight The African Roots of Jazz Latino Berkeley, CA March 1, 2026 Percussionist and composer John Santos is no stranger to concert halls in the Bay Area and beyond. He is known not only for his musical ensembles (such as Orquesta Batachanga and the Machete Ensemble) but also for his decades of employing his encyclopedic knowledge to teach classes concerning the roots and history of salsa music. Tonight's ...

Live Review

DakhaBrakha at The Presidio Theater

by Harry S. Pariser
March 9, 2026

DakhaBrakha Presidio Theater Screening of Aleksandr Dovzhenko's Earth San Francisco, CA February 22, 2026 The theatrical, groundbreaking DakhaBrakha--a self-described Ukrainian “ethno-chaos" quartet, whose name means “give and take" in old Ukrainian--combine Ukrainian and other folk musics along with percussion instruments such as tabla and djembe to form a sonic mix of international rhythms which is unique. Avant-garde theatre director Vladyslav Troitskyi created the concept of DakhaBrakha in 2004 at the Kyiv Center of Contemporary Art. DakhaBrakha currently features the ...