MONDAY, APRIL 13 2015 >>>
1. This isn't the first time I've received a press release that referred to an artist as "legendary." It's an adjective I've employed myself, to describe Smokey Robinson and other members of the pop music pantheon, but I can honestly say it's not a word I use lightly. A promoter who makes such a claim had better have facts to back it up. I'm happy to report that's the case with Bobby Shew, a jazz trumpeter who played in the Tommy Dorsey band and, a few years later, with drummer Buddy Rich himself. Read Christian Carvajal's full feature on Bobby Shew and Rich Wetzel in the Music & Culture section, then catch the show at 7:39 p.m. at Tacoma Community College.
2. For its 50th anniversary Tacoma Community College features works by current and former art instructors and alumni, and it's one of the better shows we've seen there in quite some time. Read Alec Clayton's full review of "TCC 50" in the Music & Culture section, then check it out from noon to 5 p.m.
3. Thirteen-year-old Hiroya Tsukamoto picked up a five-string banjo and before long mastered the guitar. In 1994, Hiroya Tsukamoto entered The Osaka University and while at college was introduced to a musical and social movement in South America called Nueva Cancion headed by musical legends such as Victor Jara and Violeta Parra. In 2000, Tsukamoto came to America, having received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Hiroya and his group have appeared several times at the legendary "Blue Note" in New York and have performed at music festivals all over the world, and on television in Japan, Korea and the United States. Catch Tsukamoto at 6 p.m. in the Olympia Timberland Library.
4. The Tacoma Historical Society will mark its 25th anniversary and learn about "Tacoma's First Boat Builder" when it meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Rotunda at the Wheelock Student Center on the University of Puget Sound campus. The speaker, Allen B. Petrich, will tell of his research into the shipbuilding history of Tacoma and the South Sound. Petrich is a grandson of Martin Petrich, the Croatian immigrant who founded Western Boat in Tacoma in 1917.
5. Drummer Steve Bentley says his quartet will perform "Jazz classics dressed in new attire" at 8 p.m. in Rhythm and Rye. Bentley also says you can expect "Groove oriented modal tunes. Bursts of spontaneous improvisation and a hand full of originals. The night shall be equal parts of drama and humor."