Here’s a new series sponsored by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, continuing on Sunday, Oct. 28. This is the third in a series of five concerts at the de Young Museum’s Koret Auditorium, featuring different blends of jazz.
This week: Les Gwan Jupons, a quintet, playing “party” music from the French, Spanish, and English-speaking Caribbean. Jazz with different accents. Reminiscent of New Orleans style Jazz bands. Biguine from Martinique, calypso from Trinidad, cumbia from Colombia, cha-cha and bolero from Cuba. “My daughter is 8-years-old,” Dominique Pelletey told us, “and she said to me, I can dance on it.” And off she went in a whirl. Pelletey is the director of Friends of Chamber Music. “This music really makes you want to dance. And what is nice about this is that you can come into the museum, listen to some music and then go away and come back or not. It’s very free. This is the kind of event where you can decide at the last minute. No reservations necessary.”
And it’s free of charge. There are only 297 seats in the Koret Auditorium, so the one request is that if you think you just want to get a taste, don’t sit in the middle seats. Moreover, the space is too small to sit on the floor. You’re right up against the musicians as it is. Two 45 minutes sets, at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. John Finkbeiner, guitar; Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass; Cory Wright/Sheldon Brown, clarinet; Henry Hung, trumpet; Rob Ewing, trombone; John Hanes, drums.
The last two concerts in the series include the Erik Jekabson String-tet on Nov. 4, “a Jazzy take on classical”; and on Nov. 11, the Faye Carol Quartet with songs from Cole Porter to Michel Legrand, but always in her particular shade of blues.
Pelletey would like to remind you that on November 18 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts the Chamber Music Day, sponsored by SFFCM: 41 ensembles, from every genre, playing 20-minute sets from noon to 7 p.m. Plus the Crowden School’s instrument petting zoo. More on this to come; this is one of the great fall afternoons in the city.