“The Annex Sessions” will continue our music series held at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex) on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, 6-8:30pm
Jazz Caliente
Lee Waterman – guitar
Melecio Magdaluyo – saxophones and flute
Tommy Kesecker – vibes
Marc Levine – bass
Gerry Kennett – drums
Jazz Caliente’s music is infused with Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms. The band’s repertoire includes Lee’s original compositions and the music of great Brazilian, Afro Cuban, and Jazz masters, such as Airto, Tito Puente, Miles Davis, Chano Pozo, and Horace Silver.
Musician Bios
Lee Waterman is originally from New York where his early interest in music was nurtured by his grandmother, a locally prominent classical pianist. At the age of nine he studied drums and later played in the school band. In his late teens, Lee took up guitar and Latin percussion. For four years he studied jazz guitar and music theory with internationally known guitarist and author Warren Nunes. This strong foundation in jazz styles plus the multicultural influences of his percussion studies forged Lee’s eclectic compositional style. Lee has led several Bay-Area based combos throughout the last three decades including the Silver Moon Big Band, and Jazz Caliente. He has also performed with sax great John Handy, vocalist Mark Murphy, and Narada Michael Walden and opened for Tito Puente and Pancho Sanchez.
Melecio Magdaluyo is a Bay Area native and is without doubt one of the finest reed men on the West Coast. He has appeared with Ray Charles, Whitney Houston, Tito Puente, Eddy Palmieri, George Coates, Pete Escovedo and John Santos’ Machete Ensemble.
Tommy Kesecker graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has toured internationally with the renowned group Zakir Hussain and the Rhythm Experience. Other credits include appearances with jazz piano legend Larry Vukavich as well as The Different Drums and Percussion Group, which performs for and educates local children. Tommy has also appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Russian River Jazz Festival, and a variety of concert venues throughout the U.S. and beyond.
Marc Levine worked for two decades in L.A as a top studio musician. During that time he toured and/or recorded with Rosemary Clooney, Gerry Mulligan, Bette Midler, Dionne Warwick, Olivia Newton-John, Burt Bacharach, Melissa Manchester, and Barry Manilow. With Barry he toured for 9 years and appeared on The Tonight Show many times.
Gerry Kennett is known for his impeccable timing, crystal clear timbre, and mastery of multiple musical genres. He began his musical career on clarinet and saxophone, but switched to drums in high school. A member of the award winning University of Nevada Jazz Band, he soon branched out to performing for shows at Harrah’s, Harvey’s, and The Nugget on the Las Vegas/Reno/Tahoe circuit. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area Gerry began working with Val Diamond of Beach Blanket Babylon. Val relied on Gerry’s drumming for many years in her solo performances at The Great American Music Hall, Bimbo’s, and The Boarding House. Since then Gerry has been one of the Bay Area’s most in demand free lance drummers as well as a popular music educator.
https://leewatermanproductions.com/
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 register.