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Weekend arts forecast: Too much Latin Jazz? Never!
It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, and this weekend is packed with sizzling Latin Jazz, served up in different tasty combinations.
Musician and educator David Manson’s annual EMIT Latin Jazz Fest returns today, Friday and Saturday at several relatively new performance venues. At the Music Center at St. Petersburg College (6605 5th Avenue N., on the Gibbs campus), José Valentino & Eternal Power perform tonight (Thursday, Oct. 5) at 7:30 p.m.; the musicians are José Valentino (flute and saxophone), Robert Acevedo Jr. (percussion), Elias Tona (bass), Jesse Pitts (drums) and Bruno Miranda (piano). Advance tickets.
Hear Gilberto Garcia & The Latin Knights at 7:30 p.m. Friday on the snappy outdoor ArtsXchange stage, 515 22nd Street S. (in the Warehouse Arts District); percussionist Garcia’s seven-member group is one of the most in-demand Latin Jazz outfits in the bay area. Advance tickets.
Dimas Sánchez and The Afro Latin Jazz Project play the ArtsXchange at 7:30 p.m. Saturday; the musicians are Mariano Morales (piano), Mauricio Rodriguez (bass), Jorge Malave (saxophone), Jochy Rodriguez (trumpet), Dimas Sanchez (drums, percussion), Ito Colon (percussion) and Thobos Lubamba (African percussion). Advance tickets.
And more Latin jazz
Acclaimed Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez – an international Latin Jazz star – and his trio play Central Park Performing Arts Center (Largo) Friday. They’re touring behind the new Coral Way album. Tickets.
The jazz duo Orilla, with vocals (Ona Kirei) and bass (Alejandro Arenas), plays a show at the Dali Museum today from 6 to 7 p.m. The program is to include coplas, boleros, cumbias, tangos and more. Tickets and info here.
Tonight at Central Park Performing Arts Center: Vocalist Tierney Sutton and her swinging band. Sutton is a nine-time Grammy nominated jazz singer, perhaps best known for her performances (and songwriting) on the soundtrack for director Clint Eastwood’s film Sully (2016). Find tickets here.
Tonight at 7 p.m., the Tampa Bay Jazz Collective is onstage at thestudio@620. The band consists of vibraphonist/keyboardist Eric Zabala, guitarist/saxophonist Alex Malkovich, bassist Cooper Madden and drummer/percussionist Cole Hazlitt. Tickets.
Jazz artists Brian Simpson (keys), Jackiem Joyner (sax) and guitarist Steve Oliver join forces for a show Sunday night at the Central Park Performing Arts Center. Tickets.
The Maestro speaks
St. Petersburg Opera Company will launch Season 18 with Alcina, by Handel, at the Palladium Theater Oct. 13, 15 and 17. In anticipation, founder and artistic director Mark Sforzini – he also conducts the orchestra on show days – is doing one of his Mornings With the Maestro events Friday at Opera Central, the company’s home at 2145 1st Avenue S. (in Preis Hall, as the performance space is known). He’ll be joined by many principal cast members for an informal discussion – with live demonstrations – of Alcina. Find tickets, with all details, here.
This weekend’s concerts
Comedian Matt Rife, known for his 13 million TikTok followers and the standup specials Only Fans, Matthew Steven Rife and Walking Red Flag, has two shows tonight (7:30 and 10 p.m.) at the Mahaffey Theater. Tickets.
Houston rock band Blue October (“Hate Me,” “Into the Ocean”) drops into the Seminole Hard Rock Live Event Center tonight. Tickets.
Chicago (original members: 3) plays The Sound Saturday. This sold-out show is a celebration of the 40th anniversary of Hooters, which started in Clearwater, and net proceeds benefit the Moffitt Cancer Center and Morton Plant Mease Hospital.
The touring Outlaw Music Fest comes to the Mid-Florida Credit Union Amphitheatre Saturday. Willie Nelson and Family co-headline with the Avett Brothers. Also on the bill: Gov’t Mule, Elizabeth Cook and Particle Kid. Tickets.
Saturday brings San Diego’s hard-rocking surfer-dude band Switchfoot to Jannus Live. The guys are touring behind the 20th anniversary of the breakthrough album The Beautiful Letdown. Tickets.
The Tampa Repertory Theatre/ThinkTank production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” continues through Oct. 15. Photo: Ashley Emrick.
On theater stages
Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, that absurdist Shakespeare sendup by Tom Stoppard, is entering its final weekend at Jobsite Theater (tickets). Ah, but every time a curtain comes down, another rises (or something along those lines).
New this weekend: Nightsweat, an original comedy by bay area playwright Natalie Symons at freeFall (tickets); the searing drama Indecent at American Stage (read our story here); and another original work by a local writer, William Leavengood’s drama Ghost Stories From Yellowstone, at the Off-Central (tickets). Leavengood will guest on Friday’s Arts Alive! podcast.
The iconic Arthur Miller drama The Crucible (a story of the Salem witch hunts of 1692) continues this weekend and runs through Oct. 15 – the joint Tampa Repertory Theatre/ThinkTank production is in the Stageworks theater space (tickets). And at the Jaeb Theatre, in the Straz Center, the British jukebox musical The Choir of Man is onstage through the end of next month (tickets).
Where’s the orchestra?
This weekend’s Florida Orchestra collaboration is off the ground. Literally. Performers from the Los Angeles-based Troupe Vertigo will be onstage with TFO Saturday (8 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.) for Cirque Dances, combining symphonic favorites like Copland’s Hoe-Down and a suite from the musical Chicago with choreographed contortions, dances and acts of aerialist derring-do. Find tickets for the concerts here.
The Weekend Arts Forecast appears every Thursday in the Catalyst.
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