Some six decades after the release of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s ingenious reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet score The Nutcracker, the jazz suite continues to gain recognition as one of their masterworks. The acoustic supergroup Mr Sun distills the swinging essence of the work, while infusing the music with a potent shot of bluegrass. Featuring fiddle great Darol Anger, mandolinist Joe K. Walsh, guitarist Grant Gordy and bassist Aidan O’Donnell, Mr Sun released the debut album Mr Sun Plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite last month. The Marcus Shelby New Orchestra with Tiffany Austin explores the same material through a contemporary big band lens at the SFJAZZ Center Dec. 17.
7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14
JCCSF Kanbar Hall, San Francisco
In recent years, when San Francisco-born Sam Reider performs around the Bay Area, it’s either been playing solo piano or in a duo, as an accordionist, with Venezuelan cuatro master Jorge Glem. But before he moved back to the Bay Area in 2019 to earn a graduate degree in composition from San Francisco State University, he toured the world with his world-jazz bluegrass band the Human Hands, absorbing a disparate array of sounds and influences. Now, the all-star acoustic combo plays a last-night-of-Hanukkah concert featuring Reider alongside alto saxophonist Eddie Barbash, best known as a founding member of Jon Batiste’s Stay Human; Rising Appalachia fiddler Duncan Wickel; Bela Fleck bassist Mark Schatz; and guitarist Roy Williams, who’s toured and recorded as the rhythmic foil for French Gypsy jazz master Stéphane Wrembel.
7 & 9 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14–Friday, Dec. 15
Keys Jazz Bistro, San Francisco
Before the pandemic, Kalil Amar Wilson (they/them), the child of renowned Nigerian bassist, vocalist and bandleader Babá Ken Okulolo, spent several years performing around Russia. Now the Oakland-reared jazz crooner is reintroducing themself to Bay Area audiences. A conservatory-trained jazz vocalist with a sumptuously lithe sound, bountiful soul and consummate technique, they’re a world-class improviser who has performed with the likes of Omara Portuondo, Herbie Hancock, Zakir Hussain and Dave Holland.
The Keys engagement was originally planned as the debut of a duo with piano great Tammy Hall, but she suffered a health setback. Wilson will now be joined by veteran bassist Gary Brown, drummer Joe Kelner, and pianist and Keys proprietor Simon Rowe at the North Beach jazz club for four intimate holiday shows.
7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 15
The Sound Room, Oakland
Trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman spent years on the road with Phish’s Trey Anastasio, and was devastated when cancer took her horn-sectionmate James Casey in August. So Cressman and duo partner Ian Faquini — the Brazil-born, Berkeley-reared guitarist, vocalist and composer — recorded the EP An Old Fashioned Christmas, in partnership with the Nancy Langhorne Foundation, a cancer-fighting nonprofit, with all proceeds will go toward colon cancer research. Applying their luscious Brazilian jazz sound to a set of holiday standards, the duo will play the new arrangements at the Sound Room, including the premiere of a “Waltz of the Flowers” arrangement that sets the Nutcracker Suite favorite to a samba groove.
Wednesday, Dec. 20–Saturday, Dec. 23
Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco
While San Francisco jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi had already scored a bona fide pop hit with his 1962 instrumental single “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” his life changed with the broadcast of the first Peanuts television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, in 1965. The infectiously swinging score has been a soundtrack for the holidays ever since, and the SF Symphony’s live production, complete with dancers, voice actors and veteran jazz pianist Larry Dunlap, brings the animated source material to 3D life. The program also includes pieces from John Williams’ scores for Home Alone and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas and more.
8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 22
Freight & Salvage, Berkeley
Hailing from Camagüey, Cuban singer, songwriter and percussionist Mario “Mayito” Salomon leads the timba band Timbeko, a talent-laden combo that infuses contemporary Cuban dance music with funk, jazz, gospel and R&B. Since debuting in 2018 as part of Oakland’s Temescal Street Fair, the band has been making inroads on the competitive salsa scene, with recent concerts in Miami. Featuring Carlitos Medrano on congas and percussion, bassist Ayla Davila, guitarist David Lechuga, pianist Jason Moen, vocalist/saxophonist Mario “Mayombe” Cruz and vocalist/guitarist Jordan Wilson, Timbeko is sure to heat up the holidays.
