The Annex Sessions will resume on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, 6-8:30pm at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex)
Javier Navarrette’s “Opening the New Year” with Featured Guests!
featuring:
Kai Lyons – Tres, Vocal
Einar “Tito” Leliebre- Percussion, vocal
Yadier Noa – Bass
Javier Navarrette- percussion, vocal
Orisha, Changuii, Latin Jazz, Rumba, Descarga!
Bios:
Kai Lyons– is a 28-year-old San Francisco native. In 2022, he became the first foreigner to win 1st prize at the international changüí festival of Guantánamo Cuba, on the Cuban guitar known as the “tres cubano”. He was the music director of Loco Bloco, winning 1st prize in the 2022 Carnaval parade of San Francisco. He is constantly traveling the world studying ancient and obscure styles in Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Ghana and Morocco. And bringing it back to The City, to create contemporary new, fresh music with local artists. He has performed with an array of musicians including Snow Tha Product, San Francisco Philharmonic, Haitian, Cuban, Brazilian and Malian music masters, and various members of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Jazz Guitar at Cal State East Bay and teaching-artist for the San Francisco Symphony.
Einar Leliebre Nuñez – has been a lead musician with the esteemed company Danza del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba since 2003. He also plays and sings with Obbatuke, Grupo Barracón (by Luca Brandoli), has collaborated with Oyu Oro (led by Danys “La Mora” Perez) in New York, Manana Cuba in Cuba, England, Spain and Scotland and many more. He has participated in many national festivals such as the Olorun Festival, the Romerías de Mayo, the Jornada de la Cultura Iberoamericana, as well as national tours. He can be invited or hired to perform (singing and percussion) for events and remotely, lead percussion sections, give individual or group instruction in song and drumming, mount music with musical groups and dance productions, and construct Bata drums by hand. He is versed in the Folkloric music of Cuba, Rumba, religious music, and experimental collaborations with electronic and jazz styles. Visit this page or contact us for more information.
Yadier Noa Chamble – is a bass player from Camagüey Cuba. He has had the opportunity to play with some of the best bands and musicians from the island, including Yasek Manzano, Boby Carcasef, Orlando Sanchez (Cubajazz), Orlando Valle (Maraca), Alfred Thompson and Caribbean Ensemble, Paulo FG y su Elite, Los Primos Jazz Project, Enrique Alvarez y su Charanga Latina, Azúcar Negra, and Tania Pantoja. Since moving to California, he has played with Orquesta Borinquen, Jamie Dubberly, Jesus Dias & Qba, Trio Mulatos, Orquesta Tainos, Orquesta NRumba, and La Moderna at the famed Yoshi’s in Oakland. He has performed at the Redwood City Salsa Festival, Hayward Latin Jazz Festival, Bay Area Latin Jazz Festival in Castro Valley, Berkeley Jazz Festival, and Berkeley Salsa Festival. He has also traveled to Canada and performed at the Halifax Jazz Festival. Yadier attended the National School of Music (EÑA), in Havana, Cuba, and subsequently taught bass there as a professor for 2 years. He is currently a bass professor at Community Music Center in San Francisco.
Javier Navarrette – is a professional percussionist, musician, composer, arranger and educator living in Oakland, California, specializing in Afro-Caribbean music. Javier’s performance and recording career spans over three decades. He has played and studied with many of the greats in the Afro-Latin music tradition, and has recorded on three Grammy-nominated albums with John Santos and the Machete Ensemble/ Folklorico Kindembo.
Javier teaches music in public/private schools and in adult workshops. For the past 10 years, Javier has been teaching with Living Jazz Children’s Music Project in the Oakland public schools and at the summer Jam Camp for Children.
Amongst Javier’s groups are Javier Navarrette’s Latin Jazz Trio and Javier Navarrette’s Socially Distant Friends.
In 2021-22, coming out of the pandemic, Javier produced Modúpue Sundays with Arts at the Basin, Brooklyn Basin, Oakland. He currently produces the Neighborhood Sessions at The Annex in El Cerrito, and a pilot program at the Alameda Radium Runway Project, presenting the Bay Area’s legendary musicians in the Afro-Latin music tradition.
The Natural Grocery Company is proud to present this series in partnership with SunJams and Javier Navarrette Music Productions.
SunJams is committed to funding children’s music education in underserved public elementary schools. Your donation will help support this ongoing program.
All of the proceeds will go directly to our network of local musicians, each of whom have been severely impacted by the lack of events during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whether you donate $10, $100, or $1000 – any amount helps and will allow us to keep bringing music to our community! As always, your donation to SunJams 501(c)3 may qualify as tax exempt.
Javier Navarrette Music Productions continues to bring live music to several venues around the Bay Area. Javier has been a professional musician and music educator in the Oakland Unified School District for the past 20 years. Over the past few years Navarrette has produced outdoors events that have proven instrumental in enabling musicians to deal with some of the fallout of the pandemic and shutdown that followed.
COVID RELATED SAFETY MEASURES
Please be safe. Feel free to wear a mask if you prefer.
TICKETS
Tickets are NOT required for this venue, you can simply come in, order food and beverages at the Annex counter and pay at the registers.