Rick's Picks of the Week: Stacey Kent

Rick's Picks of the Week is jazz vocalist, Stacey Kent, on Monday, December 12th, at 7:30 on the Mainstage at The Triple Door.

Stacey Kent's voice has a delicate, dreamlike way of carrying you through each note and cadence leaving you feeling like you're soaking in a ray of sunshine.

Kent's Raconte Moi album features twelve songs sung entirely in French, including La Venue de Mélo. As a listener you would never guess French is Kent's second language, her voice is crystalline with a tender vulnerability, yet posses a certain intensity the French lyrics brings out.

"Making this record reminded me all over again why I became a musician," says Stacey Kent.

Growing up in New Jersey and Colorado, Kent learned french from her Russian-born grandfather who, after fleeing Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, lived in Paris for several years before moving to the United States. Her grandfather has been a key inspiration behind her French influence, yet her newest discography addition, Dreamer in Concert, features more English sung songs. Released in October 2011, Dreamer in Concert manages to capture the emotionally direct, yet naive qualities unique to Kent's sound.

To purchase tickets to Stacey Kent's upcoming show on December 12 at 7:30 on the Mainstage follow this link here>>

Rick's Picks: The Round's Holiday Show

Rick's Picks of the Week is the The Round's Holiday Show on Sunday, December 4th at 7:30 pm on the Mainstage at The Triple Door.

Holiday tunes from some of Seattle's favorite performers configuring into one holiday supergroup!

Matt Bishop of Hey Marseilles:

Kaylee Cole:

Joshua Morrison:

Hot Bodies In Motion:

Shelby Earl:

Daniel Blue of Motopony:

Hannalee + more!

If music wasn't enough, expect slam poet, Shelby Handler, from Seattle Poetry Slam, Youthspeaks, painter Fritha Strand-Davern, and maybe even some ugly sweaters.

Proceeds for The Round's Holiday Show benefit The Abbey and their mission to support artistic and social development through new collaborative arts & cultural experiences. The Abbey focuses on music, dance, visual, literary and culinary arts in formats including multi-arts performances, group classes and workshops, individual lessons, and exhibits.

To purchase tickets click here>> The Round's Holiday Show or call the box office at 206.838.4333.

Rick's Picks of the Week: Nearly Dan

Rick's Picks of the Week is Nearly Dan on Wednesday, November 23rd at 7pm and 9:30pm on the Mainstage at The Triple Door. For the first show, Nearly Dan will play Steely Dan's fifth album, The Royal Scam, and for the second show they will play Steely Dan's sixth album, Aja.

Nearly Dan captures the distinctive, rich in character, quirky, alternately exuberant and tormented lead vocals of Steely Dan, a legacy of the great jazz-pop duo Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, in there own vibrantly unique way.

Based out of Seattle, Nearly Dan is made up of 14 local and national musicians who share a passion for the distinctive music of Steely Dan- revered for inventive music-making, jazz- infected lush harmonies and their own mysterious lyrics that can make one glad to be alive or want to mope in bed. The individual Nearly Dan members come from across genres- from rock, R&B and country to fusion, swing and jazz- and have received training at institutions from Berkelee College of Music in Boston, to University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

More than just a tribute band, this group's musicians have performed with greats such as Ray Charles, George Benson, Diane Schuur, Lou Rawls, Basia, Huey Lewis, Towere of Power, The Four Tops, The Temptations, and Gladys Knight. Anyone who knows the music of Steely Dan, also know that only fabulous musicians can pull it off! A challenge this group is energized by, and rises to!

Tickets are $20 per show or $29.50 for both shows. Call The Triple Door box office for package deal 206.838.4333 or purchase online here>>

Rick's Picks of the Week: Over the Rhine

Rick's Picks of the Week is the roots rock, americana-esque, folk band, Over the Rhine; with three chances to catch smoldering vocals and cinematic melodies, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 7:30 pm, at The Triple Door.

The Southern Ohio-based husband-and-wife team of multi-instrumentalists Linford Detweiler (keyboards, electric bass, vocals) and Karin Bergquist (vocals acoustic guitar, piano), otherwise known as Over the Rhine, has a poetic way of harmonizing earnest and raw lyrics with enduring melodies.

The Long Surrender, the newest addition to the band's discography, is titled as a response to the lifelong desire to let go of certain expectations in order to remain open and curious; as Karin explains, "it seems like many of our friends are currently wrestling with various forms of 'letting go,' so hopefully, the ideas conjured by the title feel somewhat universal." The album was released nationally in February on OtR's own Great Speckled Dog label, named after their great dane Elroy, and was recorded by Grammy-award winning producer, Joe Henry and features a duet with artist Lucinda Williams.

See a Triple Door favorite, Over the Rhine, this upcoming weekend, Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th at 8pm, and Sunday the 20th at 7:30 pm on the Mainstage. Tickets are $30 advance/$35 day of show/$40 VIP {front Row Seating} and can be purchased online, click here>>

Rick's Picks of the Week: Curtis Salgado

Rick's Picks of the Week- blues extraordinaire, Curtis Salgado on November 11 at 8pm at The Triple Door.

Born in the Pacific Northwest in 1954, Curtis Salgado grew up listening to jazz and his father, an aspirating singer of classical music. With music in his blood, Salgado's ambitions to become a musician began to formulate in 1972 with a band called Three-Fingered Jack. He then became a large part of the flourishing Northwest blues scene, which lead him to join guitarist/vocalist Robert Cray to record the album "Who's Been Talking." The next 6 years of his musical career with Cray, enabled a higher lever visibility plus sit-ins with the likes of Muddy Waters, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Albert Collins and Bonnie Raitt.

One fateful day in 1979, John Belushi was in Eugene filming Animal House, and he caught Curtis' act and was astounded. Belushi's experience triggered a blues and R &B tutorial, with Salgado the teacher and Belushi the dedicated student. Filled with new found knowledge, Belushi used Salgado's show as the basis for the Blues Brothers act he and Dan Akroyd put together. The first Blues Brothers album was dedicated to Curtis Salagado.

Salgado left the Cray band before it broke through nationally in the mid-80's. Since then he has fronted Boston's Grammy-Winning Roomful of Blues before returning to the Pacific Northwest where he formed The Stilettos, who toured nationally with Steve Miller and The Doobie Brothers. Salgado's most recent solo album, Clean Getaway, was the breakthrough he'd been waiting for and gave him a new perspective on his musical odyssey.

"I'm playing music with the most incredible people," says Salgado. "I've got everything to be grateful for. To me, I've won the lottery, I've won all the Grammys. It makes me humber. So I'm just trying to stick to my guns, perfect my craft and make great music."

See the man behind the inspiration of The Blues Brothers, the talented blues and soul musician, Curtis Salgado, on November 11th at 8pm on the Mainstage!

Rick's Picks of the Week: Tribute to Jim Knapp

Rick's Picks of the Week is a Tribute to Jim Knapp on Wednesday, November 2nd, at 7:30 on the Mainstage at The Triple Door.

The Seattle jazz community will come together to celebrate Jim Knapp, a trumpeter, composer, and bandleader who founded the Cornish College's jazz program in the late 70's. Presented by Earshot Jazz Festival, the tribute will include the Jim Knapp Orchestra, the Cornish big band, and surprise musical guests.

Born in Chicago, Knapp received B.A. and M.A. degrees in Music Composition from the University of Illinois where he studied with Kenneth Gaburo and Salvatore Martirano, among others. For the past thirty-eight years he has made Seattle his home, where he has led the Composers and Improvisors Orchestra, various small jazz ensembles, and more recently, the Jim Knapp Orchestra. Currently, he continues to teach and serves as a professor of music at Cornish College of the Arts.

Presented by Earshot Jazz Festival, the tribute will include the Jim Knapp Orchestra, a 15-piece orchestra featuring many of the finest jazz soloists in the Northwest, the Cornish big band, and surprise musical guests.

Rick's Picks of the Week: The Campbell Brothers ~ Sacred Steel

Rick's Picks of the Week is The Campbell Brothers ~ Sacred Steel on Sunday, October 23rd at 7:30, on the Mainstage at The Triple Door.

Earshot Jazz Festival presents The Campbell Brothers, a sizzling band that delivers a devoutly rocking Holiness-Pentecostal repertoire with growling, wailing, swinging steel.

Pedal-steel guitar ace Chuck Campbell joins his brother's, lap-steel playing Darick and electric guitarist Phil, along with Phil's son, Carlton on the drums, and Katie Jackson with her soul-curing vocals. The Campbell Brothers create a lively and bluesy twist to the traditional sound of African-American gospel music.

See The Campbell Brothers ~ Sacred Steel live October 23rd at 7:30 on the Mainstage.

Rick's Picks of the Week: Robben Ford Trio

This week, Rick's Picks of the Week is five-time Grammy nominee, blues guitarist Robben Ford and his newly formed band, Robben Ford Trio, on October 18th and 19th, at 7:30 pm on the Mainstage at The Triple Door.

Within the past few years, Ford formed the group Robben Ford Trio with friends and talented musicians, Mike Landau (guitar) Jimmy Haslip (bass), and Gary Novak (drums). Most recently, the group collaborated to release "Renegade Creation," a project recorded for Mike Varney's Shrapnel label.

Ford is one of the premier electric guitarists today, known for his blues playing as well as his ability to be comfortable in a variety of musical contexts. Joining him is session musician and guitarist, Mike Landau, as well as pioneering electric bassist, Jimmy Haslip, and innovative drummer, Gary Novak, whom triumphantly create- Robben Ford Trio. See Robben Ford Trio live 10/18 and 10/19 at 7:30 pm on the Mainstage.

Rick's Picks of the Week: Tales from the Sahel: An Evening with Baaba Maal

This week's Rick's Picks of the Week will be a unique event filled with music and discussion from Tales from the Sahel: An Evening with Baaba Maal on Tuesday, October 11th, at 7pm on the Mainstage at The Triple Door.

During the course of the evening, Baaba will be playing songs with LA musician Mermans Mosengo, from Playing for Change, as well as talking about his personal experience growing up in Africa and his views on issues facing the continent today with acclaimed music journalist and author, Chris Salewicz.

Known for his fiery vocal performances and his musical fusion of western sounds with the traditional beats and melodies of West Africa, Baaba Mall has earned immense critical acclaim and has continually reinforced his role as a innovative artist in the world music arena. His work has also extended beyond music and into the realms of humanitarianism through his role as emissary for the United Nation's Development Program. People gather to support his continual outspoken stances on HIV/AIDS in Africa, the growing role of women on the continent and his support of youth-based initiatives to help Africa move into the new millennium.

"I think the musician's role is to give advice, to warn people, and to make them aware of what they might not have thought of themselves. We use melodies and harmonies to make songs enter your mind." So declares the celebrated Senegalese master-musician, Baabe Maal, of the songs on Television, his new multi-lingual album which was released in June.

To purchase tickets to see Baaba Maal, following this link: Tales from the Sahel: An Evening with Baaba Maal.