Summertime jazz is happening again at the Westgate Hotel up on the pool deck, and while this isn’t blues (as a rule), Whitney Shay will be singing there on Friday night before her quartet plays next door later on at the US Grant.
For those of you who love to swing dance to blues… this week we have lots of swinging blues around the downtown. Tuesday night at Humphrey’s and at Henry’s Pub, and Wednesday night at Tio Leo’s.
The JammingOut blues jam at HOB on Wednesday nights (7-11p) now features a local band about once a month, and last night it was the Charles Burton Blues Band. This is a fun band with a loyal following of local swing dancers (next Tuesday night he’ll be playing at Henry’s Pub which has Swing Tuesdays, and he’s often at Tio Leo’s on Thursday nights).
I’m pleased to finally have video of Charles and some of his band members. Last night they performed a number of songs, including this cover song Stranger Blues, which is on one of Charles’ many CDs.
And here is Charles singing his rendition of Sweet Potato Pie, which is also the name of his latest CD. You can hear more sample tunes on the CD by going to TUNES on this site.
San Diego Blues
We got a lot of video from last night’s jam, starting with Donna Larsen singing T-Bone Walker’s cover song Stormy Monday. She’s joined by Doyle Thomas and Judd Austin on guitars, Tony Garrick on drums, and Avel (I think that was his first name…) on bass.
Later Victoria Wasserman sang Aretha Franklin’s cover song Chain of Fools, along with Jacinto Castaneda and Nicholas Butterfield on guitar, Dale Davis on bass and Michael Minor on drums.
And the evening ended as it always does with the house jam band back up on stage. Here we’ve got Lafayette Falkquay and Doyle Thomas having some fun singing the great BB King cover song Every Day I Have The Blues together. With them are Judd Austin and Junya Isogawa on guitars, Kevin Cooper on bass and Michael Minor on drums.
San Diego Blues
Every Thursday night you can hear this beautiful lady’s voice at the Gaslamp SpeakEasy (from 9p-1am), singing a mix of blues and jazz. I absolutely love her voice, and I’m thrilled to finally get some good video clips from her weekly gig.
Annette is joined with her Bomb Squad band members… Tony Peterson on drums, Doug Brunelle on bass (as well as the clarinet and flute), and Alan Zundelevich on keyboard. In this video, the band is performing cover song Got My Mojo Workin.
For Billie Holiday fans, Annette will melt you as she sings this cover song All of Me.
And in this last video, Annette and her Bomb Squad are performing Eric Clapton’s cover song Further On Up the Road.
San Diego Blues
Once again some incredible talented young people (up to 21 years old) showed up and played together last Saturday afternoon at the monthly BLUSD Youth Blues Jam at the Gaslamp Speakeasy.
The host musicians are Leilani Kilgore (guitar – playing over her head in this video), Tyler Ray Davidson (guitar) and Malachi Johnson (on drums). Joining them in this video is Victor franklin, who is playing the bass guitar.
In this video, Aidan Mooney, who is only 9 years old, plays the guitar with the older teens hosting the jam – and holds his own!!
San Diego Blues
I just learned that the Thursday night blues/jazz jam hosted by 88.3 Jazz KSDS Radio, which has been hosted by Spaqhetteria in Little Italy for quite some time, is moving to a new week day and place – effective THIS week.
The blues jam will now be on Wednesday evenings (6:30-9:30) at Proud Mary’s Southern Bar & Grill north of the city. You can find it at 5500 Kearny Mesa Road (west side of 163 in the Ramada Inn). This is also where the tried and true bluesman Tomcat Courtney plays every Thursday night, starting at 6pm.
It looks like a fairly light week of blues around downtown. Patrick’s Pub is now starting to host more rock bands, and Kona Kai is going to be closed for renovations for a while.
The blues jams are all still happening on Monday (Speakeasy), Tuesday (Patrick’s), Wednesday (House of Blues) and Thursday (Spaghetteria).
Each week a new mix of musicians shows up at the JammingOut & BLUSD jam (at House of Blues Voodoo Stage) and gets randomly assigned to get up on stage together. Last night Bobby Hayse, from Indiana, came in and sang cover song Mustang Sally, along with Brandon Cerquedo on guitar (who did the solo in this clip), Doyle Thomas on guitar, Jim Holtz on bass and Tony Garrick on drums.
San Diego Blues
This is a good video of Lafayette Falkquay and his blues band performing cover song Black Cat Bone this past Saturday night. Doc Holiday was playing keyboards, Ronnie Baumslater was on bass (can’t fix that red light that’s on him unfortunately), and Billy Wear was on drums.
San Diego Blues
Another good week of blues jams and bands around town. Blues every night in the Gaslamp – at Patrick’s (and every night but Sunday) at the SpeakEasy.
There is also the Youth Blues jam on Saturday afternoon that is always incredibly good, and some of the kids that come in are as young as 9 years old. This is an open jam for any young person who wants to come play some blues.
This may be Kona Kai’s last week of music out on Shelter Island before they shut down temporarily for renovations.
