Doors at 7:30 pm; Show at 8:00 pm
Tickets are $18 Advance / $20 at the Door
"There's A Message in the Music" with Rhonda Benin, presenting an interactive workshop explores the lyrics of 6 African American Singer/Songwriters whose music details the events of Post Civil Rights Urban America. (Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble). followed by a second-line celebration of the quintessential New Orleans art form seeded in Congo Square and grown through the New Orleans black experience with the MJ's Brass Boppers.
MJ’s Brass Boppers Brass Band is an authentic New Orleans singing and swinging brass band fusing traditional NOLA standards, funk, jazz, modern pop & more with a second line twist!
San Francisco Bay Area vocalist, Rhonda Benin has earned a reputation for not just a good voice but showmanship, magnetic stage personality, humor, and of course her great dancing. Rhonda’s impressive resume includes performances at SF Jazz, Yoshi’s, MOAD, The Healdsburg, Sonoma, Burlingame, Sausalito, Filmore, and Calistoga Jazz Festivals. In the summer of 2012 Rhonda traveled to Hangzhou, China for a 3 month engagement at the JZ Jazz Club and was 2014 USA headliner for The Kigali Up Music Festival in Kigali, Rwanda. In addition to singing, Rhonda is producer and founder of the annual Women’s History Month show “Just Like A Woman” a tribute to Bay Area Women In Music. Benin is a 26 year member of The GRAMMY nominated vocal ensemble Linda Tillery and The Cultural Heritage. She appears on the CHC’s 7 Cd’s and has toured 30 countries performing and recording with legendary artists such as Taj Mahal, Wilson Pickett, Richie Havens, Odetta. Al Green, Keb Mo, Santana, Patti Austin, Janis Ian, Jackson Brown, Hugh Masekela & Sweet Honey In The Rock.
In 2006 Rhonda produced her first solo CD, A Matter of the Heart a classic mix of jazz, blues, and soul and is currently working on her 2nd CD.
Rhonda is on the teaching staff of Healdsburg Jazz ‘s Operation Jazz Band, San Francisco Arts Project, LEAP, California Conservatory of Music, Cal Performances and conducts her own school assemblies and workshops, “The Voice, The Hands The Feet” “Twist and Shout” and “Love Letters Make Me Misty Blue”.
