Doors at 7:00 pm; Show at 7:30 pm
Tickets are $10 - $20 sliding
A swirling stew of poetry, jazz and infectious Latin and world beats mix it up as two great Bay Area groups not only share the stage but also join each other to use music as an expression of the power of truth: Avotcja & Modúpue plus Manny Martinez & La Rebeldia.
Avotcja (pronounced Ah-vacha) Jiltonilro is a card carrying New York-born music fanatic-sound junkie and popular Bay Area radio host (her “Bebop, Cubop & the Musical Truth” airs Tuesdays on KPFA-FM). She is often seen onstage creating poetry with a band of the Bay Area’s best musicians from around the world accompanying her in the band Modúpue. Avotcja says it’s “a group where jazz meets Latin jazz and dances with poetry.” Tonight’s Modúpue (“gratitude” in Yoruban) lineup features violinist Sandi Poindexter, bassist Heshima Mark Williams, vocalist and small multi-percussionist Manny Martinez, and multi-percussionist Raul Ramirez.
Avotcja is a lifelong musician-writer-educator-storyteller and is on a shamelessly spirit-driven melodic mission to heal herself. She is an award winning poet and multi-instrumentalist who has shared stages around the country with musicians and fellow poets; an array of musicians has used her poetry in their own music and performance, from Piri Thomas to Bobby Matos. Avotcja has been featured at events from Afro-Solo to San Francisco's Carnival, Club Le Montmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark, and New York's Henry Street Settlement Theater among other significant sites. She received the Berkeley Poetry Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and Berkeley City Council proclaimed May 10, 2014, as “Avotcja Jiltonilro Day.” Modúpue was named the Bay Area Blues Hall Of Fame jazz group of the year in 2005 and 2010.
Manny Martinez & Rebeldia make their Ashkenaz debut with a dance-oriented style integrating the sounds Martinez developed over the past three decades of performing: funk, salsa, hip-hop, politics, literature and education. “But mostly salsa!” Martinez says. According to Martinez, “Good music should be able to move body, mind and spirit simultaneously.” For this concert La Rebeldia combines its core members (singer Manny Martinez, timbales player Ray Martinez, keyboardist Angela, and horn players Mara Fox and Ross Wilson) with musicians from Modúpue. The group plays songs from its next EP of Martinez’ original songs due in May, “Identidad Profunda,” and some Nuyorican classics. Martinez is a relocated New Yorker who spent his teen years in Puerto Rico. Arriving in San Francisco in the late 1980s, he came to attention as the lead singer and composer of Bay Area alt-rock band Psychefunkapus, followed by Latin rock band Los Mocosos and salsa bands Mazacote and Azabache. In 2016 he formed La Rebeldia to incorporate the various influential elements of his life: uplifting dance music with a message.
