Curtis Lundy Quartet

featuring Craig Handy-tenor sax 

w/ Matt Clark-piano; Akira Tana-drums

April 18, 2024

7 pm

$20 - advance / $25 - door

Purchase tix here. .

We welcome Carl Allen back to OPC to present a clinic for drummers of all ages.

“How To Become A Musician Who Plays Drums”
(A Jazz Perspective)

Topics to be discussed and demonstrated:

• Back to Basics (for all levels)

• Time and its variations

• Playing from a melodic perspective

• Soloing and Grooves

• Keeping the Gig (after you have gotten it)

• The Business of Being a Musician

• and more …

COST
FREE-Students
$20-/General Public - 18+

Click here to register.

In this workshop, participants learn the basic techniques that DJs use to keep the party going. Workshop is for girls and gender-expansive youth.

Date: March 2nd & 23rd, 2024

Time: 1:00 - 2:30 pm

Location: OPC, 3445 San Pablo Ave., Oakland, CA 94608

Cost: $25 per day (No one turned away)

Register here

Join us Thursday October 27, 2022 at 8 pm (PDT) for a special performance by renowned bassist, Amina Scott.

$25

Location: Bandcamp, 1901 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612

Amina Scott returns home to Oakland for a special fundraiser concert that will benefit a program near and dear to her, the Black Girls Play program

Purchase tickets here

Virtual Winter Concert on December 19, 2021 at 3pm

Special guest, Ashleigh Murray, starred as Josie in the hit shows on the CW network’s
"Riverdale” & “Katy Keene"

Log on with your friends and family to enjoy this virtual presentation featuring performances from the young musicians of our Black Girls Play Flute and Violin, Afterschool Jazz Level 2, and
Son Umbé: Sounds of Afro-Mexico programs!

RSVP and Purchase your tickets HERE

A link to the performance will be emailed to you on the day of your event. 

Join us Thursday December 16, 2021 at 7 pm (PDT) as we kick off the holidays with Key Elements Latin Jazz Ensemble. Back by popular demand!

ABOUT KEY ELEMENTS LATIN JAZZ ENSEMBLE

KEY ELEMENTS LATIN JAZZ ENSEMBLE is a San Francisco Bay Area Latin & Brazilian Jazz quintet created in 2017 by veteran Latin Jazz Pianist/Composer, Patricia Thumas. Patricia has been an active member of the San Francisco Bay Area Latin music scene since the beginning of her extensive career in the seventies with Ritmo 74, opening shows for the NY-based Fania Records Allstars. For nearly five decades, she has performed throughout the Bay Area with some of its finest musicians in top venues of San Francisco and the greater Bay Area.

KEY ELEMENTS has a unique sound blending their knowledge and tremendous respect for Afro-Cuban, Jazz, Brazilian, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms that create an exotic, earthy feel that will wiggle your toes and soothe your soul!

The ensemble's mission is to create music that heals humanity and brings Joy, Happiness, and Peace to all the world!

The KEY ELEMENTS crew consists of:

Patricia Thumas | Musical Director Piano/Keyboards, Composer

Robin Nzinga Smith | Woodwinds, Chekere

Sue"Suki"Kaye | Congas & Percussion

Joyce Baker | Trap Drums

Sylvia Sherman | Bass

Tickets available at Event Brite https://bit.ly/LiveatOPCKeyElementsLatinJazzEnsemble

Meet the Musicians

Patricia Thumas, pianist/leader/composer, is a native San Franciscan, who emerged as the Bay Area's first female Salsa pianist with the highly acclaimed "Ritmo '74", opening for the international stars of New York-based Fania Records label at many of San Francisco's finest venues. She has had an extensive career as a Salsa Pianist, including working with John Santos' late seventies Cuban Charanga band "Tipica Cienfuegos," and was also a member of legendary Afro-Cuban Master Drummer Francisco Aguabella's band. She toured nationally and recorded 2 CDs with the internationally acclaimed "Blazing Redheads” on the Reference Records label. In the late seventies/eighties, she co-led "Chevere" & "Bahia," both Latin & Brazilian jazz ensembles. She was an eight-year member of the "Julio Bravo & Salsabor Orchestra," performing locally & nationally, and a twenty-five year veteran of "El Grupo Sinigual," which has a soon to be released CD, and she occasionally works as guest pianist with Adelante. Patricia was selected and served as a Judge for the 2017 SF Carnaval Parade. She is featured in Jim McCarthy's book "Voices of Latin Rock.” She is also featured along with other veteran community artists past & present on a mural at Casa Bandido, located at 25th & York Streets in San Francisco. She will soon be featured in a book about the Mission District's artistic community! Her latest project is heading up Key Elements, which will be featuring her original compositions and arrangements with a Latin & Brazilian jazz-fusion flair!

Robin Nzingah Smith, sax/flute, has been playing music since the age of six. She studied jazz at the New Muse in Brooklyn, the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, and Billie Taylor’s Jazzmobile under the tutelage of Frank Foster, Frank Wess, and Bill Baron. Nzingah attended Rutgers University where she received a degree in flute performance. While there, she had the honor to perform with the University Big Band at the funeral of Thelonius Monk. Nzingah’s musical styles run the gamut from Jazz to Salsa, R & B, Funk, and Classical music. She frequently performs with the Oakland Civic Orchestra, the Mary Lou Williams Tribute Band, as well as with Bay Area Funk and Blues legend, Johnny Tolbert. Nzingah has been a dedicated music educator in the Bay Area of San Francisco for over two decades. She teaches band, Jazz, Improvisation, and gives private music lessons.

Sue "Suki" Kaye, congas/percussion, originally from NYC and now living in the Bay Area has been playing congas, ngoma, kalimba, and other percussion for over 40 years. She has been deeply influenced by many amazing teachers, studying the music of the Congo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Trinidad and more! Over the years, Suki has performed with many bands, including Azucar con Ache, Rita Lackey and Friends, Liquid Girlfriend, Montuno Groove, Omeyocan, Pura Vida, Zakiya Hooker, Bole Bantu, Azucar y Crema, Samba Ngo, and the Ngoma Players, and is now very excited about playing with this new project-Key Elements. She has had the pleasure of opening the show and sharing the stage with such well-known artists as King Sunny Ade, Sheila E, and Babatunde Olatunji (RIP). Suki has also been a dance accompanist, playing for both classes and performance groups. She presently plays with Taller Bombalele, a Puerto Rican Folkloric group. She is also an educator, teaching elementary, preschool, and after school programs as well as conducting drum workshops for adults and kids. She is on the faculty of Born to Drum, a Bay Area women's drum camp. Suki also enjoys writing and arranging music and of course playing and being creative with other musicians!

Joyce Baker-drums. Joyce Baker has been playing drums since she was a small child with her famous father “Buddy” Baker. Joyce has played with Lavender Country for many years and recently at SXSW; as well other greats such as Emmy Award Winning Songwriter Lisa Nemzo, Mel Graves, George Marsh, Opie Bellas, Lea DeLaria, Carolyn Brandy, Michaelle Goerlitz, Vicky Grossi, Janice Beard, Mimi Fox and the Cable Car Award Recipients Nicholas Glover and Wray. Joyce has also shared the stage with Con Fun Shun, Jefferson Starship,”Blondie’s” Debra Harry. Over the years, she has also been seen and heard with Theatre companies Contra Costa Theatre, Hootchie Doo Productions “Nunsense” series, orchestras with Sonoma Valley Chorale, Contare Con Vivo, and Oakland East Bay Symphony. Joyce is a recording artist and can be heard on multiple CD’s with Amy Meyers, Liquid Girlfriend, Doug Stevens and The Outband, Nicholas, Glover and Wray, D. Anthony, Bad Ass Boots, “Gotta Give me Somethin’,” and Lavender Country’s guitarist Mark Newstetter. By day she is an award winning music teacher in OUSD, and Jazz and Blues Camp for Girls @ the Berkeley Jazz School. By night she can be heard with Lavender Country, Bad Ass Boots, Big O’, Mary Lou’s Apartment, and her own swinging jazz group. Otherwise, she lives with her lovely wife of 29 years, the best dog in the world, Santita, her cat, Sir Lumley, in her hideway home in the hills of El Sobrante.

Sylvia Sherman-bass. Sylvia is an alumna from community arts workshops at La Pena Cultural Center and Mission Cultural Center, with a focus on percussion in Cuban music, including opportunities to participate in clinics with master Cuban artists such as Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and Anga Diaz and to study with Bay Area based Michael Spiro and Jesus Diaz. She brings her experience with percussion to her bass playing and performs with several groups including Key Elements, El Guajiro, Ray Martinez and the Latin OGs and Sinigual. Sylvia is Program Director at Community Music Center where she works to develop community arts programs for people of all ages.

Visit Key Elements website to stay informed of future events.

This concert will be livestreamed on Bandcamp. Tickets available here.

For more Info and to Register to receive Zoom link go to https://bit.ly/Etienne-Charles-Masterclass

Key Elements is a Latin/Brazilian Jazz Ensemble comprised of some of the San Francisco Bay Area's most seasoned instrumentalists who perform exceptional, original music for your listening and dancing pleasure. Their music has a fresh, new vibrant flair with infectious, exotic, enchanting rhythms.

Tix on sale Feb 22, 2021

For more info: https://bit.ly/Live-at-OPC-KeyElementsLatinJazz