On Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 6-8:30pm “The Annex Sessions” music series will continue at The Annex (El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex), 10387 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito with
Tiffany Austin & Nora Free
Meet us at the intersection of jazz and soul!
Tiffany Austin is a Vocalist, Educator, and Berkeley Law Juris Doctor whose musical influences include Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, Bessie Smith and John Coltrane. She has performed with luminaries such as Pharoah Sanders, Roy Ayers, John Handy, Cyrus Chestnut, Taj Mahal and Doug Carn. She has also performed at prestigious venues including Birdland and Dizzy’s Den in NYC, Walt Disney Concert Hall in her native Los Angeles, SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco, and on nationally televised programming in the United States. Beyond California, she has performed in Europe, Asia, and Australasia.
“Nothing But Soul”, Austin’s debut album from 2015, garnered attention from NPR’s “Fresh Air” program and Downbeat magazine for its bold recasting of Hoagy Carmichael standards. Her 2018 sophomore album, “Unbroken”, was hailed by All About Jazz as a “fully formed masterpiece”, received a 4 star Downbeat review, and reached #16 on jazz radio charts.
Austin has also written commissions for the Oakland Symphony, San Jose Jazz, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and Healdsburg Jazz. Her community efforts include teaching at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, CA, guest speaking at educational and activist events, and the 2021 launch of her Con Alma Music Creative Intellect scholarship fund for BIPOC high school musicians who excel in the areas of leadership, community service, academics, and musical artistry.
She is a guest educator at series sponsored by SFJAZZ, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and local school districts, and has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s “Roots, Jazz and American Music” program. Austin is currently Musical Director of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival Community Choir and Artistic Director of the Albany, CA Juneteenth Celebration. Most recently, she co-launched the new Wyldflowr Arts venue in Oakland, CA, and co-founded “The Diaspora Sessions”: an immersive Black art experience combining music, dance, and visual art in an interactive context. Her vision is to build spaces and opportunities for communities to exchange ideas, connect, and create.
Nora Free is an artist with an endless appetite for new ideas. Existing at the intersection of jazz, soul, and the avant-garde, Nora first garnered attention as an arranger for Atlantic Records in 2011. She was mentored by the great jazz pianist Geri Allen, at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned her Doctorate in Music Composition and Theory in 2016.
Whether she’s revamping timeless standards or performing her powerful original pieces, Nora’s music casts a spell on all who hear it. She has performed extensively at some of the largest jazz festivals in the US and in Europe.
Her work is deeply informed by her activism and work for social justice. Her latest project “Liberation Qtet” demonstrates her commitment to support the struggles of oppressed people throughout the world.
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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.