Seattle TravelGram

What a gorgeous May!  All this great weather brings Seattelites out of the woodwork.  We’re so ecstatic when the sun is shining, we need to dance it out!  Check out this great lineup at Jazz Alley for the rest of May:

STANDARD SHOW TIMES
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Sunday at 7:30pm
Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 7:30pm and 9:30pm

Iconic Guitarist and Tonight Show Legend Returns to Jazz Alley in Support of his New Release ZEN FOOD

Kevin Eubanks Quartet
May 17 – 20, $26.50

Choklate, Seattle-Based Songstress Blending R&B, Hip-Hop & Soul

Choklate with Special Guests Opus
May 22 – 23, $20.50

Premiere Soulful Vocal Group - "Shining Star", "Kiss and Say Goodbye" and more.

The Manhattans featuring Gerald Alston and Blue Lovett
May 24 – 27, $30.50

Seattle’s Favorite Gypsy Jazz Quintet Celebrate Their New Release “Eleven”

Pearl Django CD Release Celebration

May 29 – 30, $21.50

Electric Blues Vocalist – A Force!

Shemekia Copeland
May 31 – June 3, $24.50

Icicle Creek Music Center’s 6th Annual Piano Festival marks the culmination of a week of dedicated work by Piano Festival faculty and young artists. Most events and programs are open to the public. Schedule:

• January 6 11:00-12:30 Masterclass with Christina Dahl
  Location: Canyon Wren Recital Hall, FREE
• January 7 11:00-12:30 Masterclass with Oksana Ezhokina
  Location: Canyon Wren Recital Hall, FREE
• January 8 11:00-12:30 Masterclass with Seth Knopp
• Location: Canyon Wren Recital Hall, FREE
• January 8 7:00 pm Piano Festival Faculty Concert – Christina Dahl, Oksana Ezhokina, & Seth Knopp
  Location: Canyon Wren Recital Hall, COST: $20

For more information, visit www.leavenworth.org or call (509) 548-6347 ext. 407.

What do The Temptations & The Four Tops, Blake Shelton, Spike & The Impalers, Billy Idol, Buddy Guy & Robert Cray, Chicago and Lynyrd Skynyrd have in common? They are all heading to our neck of the woods for the 2010 Summer Concert Series at the Tulalip Resort & Casino.

Tulalip Amphitheatre is a popular entertainment venue and has fast become a summer tradition. This is a true outdoor amphitheatre featuring national acts with an intimate 2,200 seating capacity. The Amphitheatre has a reputation of having a great sight line. There truly isn’t a bad seat in the house!

Hurry, many of the concerts are almost sold out and there are a few of the concert packages that include overnight occomidations at the Tulalip Resort plus breakfast left.

The Tulalip Resort & Casino is one of the participants in the 2010 Seattle TourSaver where there are over 100 2-for-1 coupons on hotels, attractions, museums and more.

Cory Pesaturo

Where else would you have an Accordion Celebration but in our own Bavarian Village of Leavenworth in Eastern Washington? Break out in song and dance and hear accordion music on 3 different stages June 17-20. Spontaneous jam sessions will go on late into the night in many of the local restaurants too.

Workshops, concerts and competitions welcome anyone who loves the accordion. You might even be persuaded into buying one of these beautiful instruments from one of the vendors at the celebration or maybe just get yours fixed if you decide to bring it along.

The park with the gazebo also has an arts & crafts festival next door and this year, there will be fun activities for the kids on the lawn.

You really don’t need an excuse to visit Leavenworth because year round this is a wonderful destination for golf, hiking, rafting, shopping, skiing and so much more.

Thursday, September 2, 2010, legendary performance artist Cyndi Lauper has just been added to the ZooTunes line up! The quintessential “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” diva of the 1980s is back with her Memphis Blues tour.

Hot off NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice”, Lauper brings her unique musicality to the zoo to close out the 2010 concert season. Tickets go on sale June 14 at the following Metropolitan Market locations: Queen Anne, Uptown, Sand Point, Admiral and Proctor, and at the zoo.

For more information go to the  earlier ZooTunes post in the Seattle TravelGram .

Joey DeFrancesco Trio will be playing May 11 – 12, 2010 at Dimitrous Jazz Alley.

Joey DeFrancesco has been and still is an important force in the revival of the Hammond B-3 organ as a jazz instrument.  His eclectic style ranges from soul-jazz and bluesy grooves.

This Philadelphia native established his credentials at an early age with virtuoso technique and an innate soulfulness that he brought to bear on the hulking Hammond B-3 organ.  At only seventeen years old, Miles Davis invited DeFrancesco to join his band on tour. The same year, Joey released his recording debut as a leader on All of Me (1989). Through the 1990s, Joey was favorably acknowledged as one of the most important forces in the revival of the Hammond organ, an instrument that had fallen out of favor among musicians and the public since its golden period during the 1960s and early 70s.

Combining monstrous chops with a flair for showmanship and an unquenchable urge to burn, DeFrancesco almost single-handedly put the Hammond B-3 back in the public eye. Today DeFrancesco is regarded by organ aficionados as the baddest B-3 burner in the business. And while Joey has never made any boastful claims about his own ranking among the organ elite on the contrary, he has always respectfully deferred to his B-3 elders, the fact is, no organist today plays with the skill, harmonic depth, and authority of this phenomenon from Philly. With over 20 solo releases and historic associations with legends such as Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith, Bobby Hutcherson, Elvin Jones and John McLaughlin, DeFrancesco’s place in the idiom’s history is cemented.

Ringo Starr

Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery announced their line-up for the 2010 Summer Concert Series and they are bringing to the outdoor venue a very diverse and talented group.  The  concert series will offer 17 concerts spanning the range of pop, jazz, rock and blues from June 12th through September 25th.

Acclaimed artists include, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Steve Martin, Steve Miller Band, Lyle Lovett & His Large Band, Jackson Browne, Martina McBride, Jamie Cullum, Ringo Starr, The B-52’s & Blondie, Natalie Merchant, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chris Isaak, Pink Martini, Crowded House, Harry Connick, Jr. as well as the annual KWJZ Music Festival.

These outdoor summer concerts on the Amphitheatre grounds are scenic to say the least. Some evening’s hot air balloons drift overhead while you are enjoying music, drinking fine wines available for purchase and dining on your own gourmet picnic food.  Some concert goers bring elaborate picnics while other purchase from a variety of northwest foods from vendors on the grounds.

Chateau Ste. Michelle is Washington State’s Founding Winery, with some of the oldest and most acclaimed vineyards in the Columbia Valley. Built on the 1912 estate owned by Seattle lumber baron Frederick Stimson, the winery’s roots date back to the Repeal of Prohibition, when the Pommerelle Wine Company and the National Wine Company were formed. Before the concert you can tour the grounds or if you are early enough, take the winery tour.

Honk! Fest West is a street fair dedicated to bringing marching bands, samba lines, horn players, drum corps, and every manner of rhythmic and melodic noisemaker we could find right to the Seattle streets April 9th, 10th & 11th. For schedules and events click on Honk Fest’s link.

HONK! events are a celebration of the emergence of a new type of street band, one that is typically acoustic and mobile, often politically aware and articulate, and always high spirited. There is a rich community ethic amongst many honkers, who use their music to erode the barriers between professional and novice, and between audience and performers. Although uniforms are sometimes used as a performance tool, individuality is key, and group members often hail from all range of classes, ethnicities, ages, and backgrounds. Perhaps most importantly, the honkers’ ultimate goal is to have fun, to relish the art of making fun as a form of individual and collective transcendence, and to encourage others to see and do the same.

This year, over 20 bands large and small (anywhere from 8 – 60 members) will come from all over the United States and Canada, ready with old ditties, new tunes, fighting songs, protest marches, funeral dirges, swinging gospel, Balkan folk, tin pan jazz, and everything in between.

Need something to do tonight? Friday February 5th – Showbox SoDo – Showbox presents JACK’S MANNEQUIN with FUN and VEDERA. $25.00 advance at Ticketmaster. $28.00 day of show and at the door. Doors at 6pm. All Ages.

Jack’s Mannequin is an American rock band formed in 2004, originally hailing from Orange County, California. The band began as a side project of Something Corporate frontman Andrew McMahon, and comprises guitarist Bobby Anderson, bassist Jonathan Sullivan and drummer Jay McMillan.

Tickets here