“The Annex Sessions” will continue our music series held at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex) on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 6-8:30pm with

JazSynergy

Wilson Brooks – drums, vocals

Paul Branin – guitar, saxophone

Simon Russell – vocals, left hand bass, keyboards

What can be said about the amazing sounds of JazSynergy!

These three highly respected Bay Area musicians have combined their individual stylings to create a unique blend of musicality, soulfulness, chemistry and pocket. Reaching back to the sounds of Jeff Beck, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Sly and the Family Stone. Fusing Jazz, Funk, R&B and Blues together seamlessly like a well-oiled machine.

JazSynergy never disappoints its fans.

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.

“The Annex Sessions” will continue our music series held at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex) on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 6-8:30pm with

Javier Navarrette’s “Modupue Wednesday” with Hector Lugo y La Mixta Criolla

Featuring:

Hector Lugo – percussion/ vocal

Roman Ito Carrillo – percussion/vocal

Camilo Landau – cuatro

Ayla Davila – bass

Javier Navarrette- percussion/ vocal

And special guest from NYC – Raul Navarrette on trombone!

This event will be live streamed! Please donate to SunJams!

https://linktr.ee/javiernavarrette?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=80aa6926-8f5c-4384-9116-f291751034f4

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.

“The Annex Sessions” will continue our music series held at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex) on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 6-8:30pm with

An evening of jazz featuring the

Mara Fox Foxtet 

Mara Fox-trombone

Kasey Knudsen-alto sax

Carla Kaufman- bass

Randy Vincent-guitar

Alexey Berlind- drums

Mara is an established freelance trombonist and educator in the Bay Area. For more than 25 years she has amazed audiences all over the world, working in Jazz, R&B, Latin and Classical genres. Mara recorded and toured internationally with Conjunto Cespedes and worked with the Klezmorim. Locally, she plays with a wide variety of well-known groups including the 2013 Grammy Award Winning Pacific Mambo Orchestra, the Montclair Women’s Big Band, Bululu, and The Purple Ones.

Mara has a private trombone studio, and also teaches at St. Teresa School and Head Royce School in Oakland. She is also a faculty member at The East Bay Center for the Performing Arts.

Mara has put together a first-rate group of musicians and will treat us to an evening of jazz at The Annex.

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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.

“The Annex Sessions” will continue our music series held at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex) on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 6-8:30pm with the

Gurkestra Trio

Charlie Gurke- saxophones/compositions

David Flores- drums

Colin Hogan- keys

They’ll be playing all original music from Charlie’s Lotería project, compositions inspired by the Mexican Lotería images. Volume 1 of these can be found at the streaming link below.

Charlie Gurke is a Bay Area based saxophonist, composer, and educator. In addition to leading various incarnations of his Gurkestra, Charlie is a member of the John Santos Sextet, The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, Edgardo Cambon’s groups Candela and Latido. An active freelancer, Charlie regularly performs and records with collaborators in a variety of genres. Recent performances of note include the 2018 and 2019 Monterey Jazz Festivals (with John Santos and the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, respectively), and the 2019 Montreux Jazz Festival (with the Grammy winning Pacific Mambo Orchestra).

Since 2010 Charlie has been composer and music director for We Players theatre company, composing scores for nearly all their productions and receiving Theatre Bay Area awards for his scores for Macbeth (2014) and Caesar Maximus (2018).

Charlie is currently on the faculty at Laney Community college in Oakland where he leads the Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Combos, and teaches music theory. Charlie is also part of the faculty of the Community Music Center in San Francisco, where he teaches Jazz Ensembles and is part of the faculty for the Mission District Young Musician’s Program.

A native of the Bay Area, Charlie attended the San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA), where he studied with Wayne Wallace and Melecio Magdaluyo, among others. After high school Charlie moved to New York and attended the New School’s Jazz and Contemporary Music program, studying with legendary saxophonists Billy Harper and George Garzone. Charlie holds a bachelor’s degree in music with an emphasis on composition from California State University East Bay (aka Cal State Hayward), and a master’s degree in jazz studies from the University of Oregon.

https://gurkestra.com/home

Streaming

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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.