San Francisco Performances presents Dizzy Spellz featuring Sean Jones
Herbst Theatre
Veterans' Building, San Francisco War Memorial Performing Arts Center, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-4522 USA
7:30 PM, Friday, April 15, 2022

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[7:35 PM] {lights down, pre-recorded announcements, performers out; introductory speech by Brinae Ali}

1. [7:37 PM] ? “No peace” (readings by Brinae Ali, concluding with a portion of Psalm 17)
2. [7:40 PM] ? Peace
   [7:53 PM] {BA: Salt Peanuts talk, dance & scratch}
3. [7:56 PM] Salt Peanuts
4. [8:03 PM] ? (includes BA voiceover about Lorraine Gillespie and 1967; “freedom … persistent … consistent”)
5. [8:08 PM] Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS)
6. [8:16 PM] Heaven »
7. [8:18 PM] I'll Fly Away
8. [8:21 PM] ? Free
   [8:29 PM] {pause. SJ talks about imagining when the world was united as one}
9. [8:35 PM] Pangaea
   [8:42 PM] {BA talk: “Jazz started with slaves”}
10. [8:44 PM] ? [8:49 PM] {BA: “Sometimes I can hear my ancestors…”}
11. [8:51 PM] ?
12. [8:56 PM] ? Peace of Mind
    [8:59 PM] {show ends}

• Brinae Ali: tap dance, vox;
• Alex Brown: piano;
• Kris Funn: contrabass;
• Sean Jones: trumpet;
• Wendel Patrick: turntables, electronics, beatbox vox;
• Mark Whitfield, Jr.: drums.

About the only advance help I got from the program notes tonight was to confirm the identities of the players, and to reveal that the show would be a wild mash-up of bebop and tap dance, and hip-hop beat making. Consequently, tonight's presentation was rather difficult to follow, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most everything noted above is incorrect – consider those notes to be my impression of show rather than any sort of accurate setlist. Titles noted above come mostly from salient expressions by Brinae or from the sheet music spread across the piano directly below me.

Did I like it? Well, yeah, but I'm not sure I would have bought tix if I knew what I was going to get – somehow I interpreted the initial promo as suggesting that the show would be a sort of celebration of the work of Dizzy Gillespie. My bad for jumping to conclusions!

Program Notes or program notes

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2022 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2022 event list! ☸ On to the next event!