Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the gales of November B9:
➤ Call it a homecoming, call it a touchstone to Santa Cruz’s rich jazz past. Next Thursday, Nov. 13, vocalist Sasha Dobson is set to perform at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, a room she knows quite well. The Dobson family name looms large in local jazz circles. Sasha is a successful jazz singer in her own right, as well as part of the trio Puss N Boots with Norah Jones and Catherine Popper. But in Santa Cruz, she might be more well-known as part of an accomplished family devoted to jazz. Sasha’s mom, Gail Dobson, who passed away in 2024, was also a popular jazz vocalist in her day, having emerged from the rich San Francisco scene of the 1960s. Sasha’s brother, Smith Dobson Jr., is a busy percussionist and sideman — and, in fact, he will be part of his sister’s performance next week at Kuumbwa. But local jazz fans are most likely to tell stories about Sasha’s dad, Smith Dobson Sr., a passionate and talented pianist and jazz ambassador who was consumed with the transcendent possibilities of music. Smith Sr. was killed in a South Bay car accident returning home from a gig in 2001, and the community still keenly feels that loss. His memorial service was one of the most remarkable events I’ve witnessed covering the local arts community. Here’s a chance to catch up with the Dobsons and let Sasha and Smith Jr. both know how much their parents meant to all of us in Santa Cruz.
➤ It’s an amazing pairing — Patterson Hood, founding member of the passionate Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers, and Craig Finn, who started the underappreciated New York band The Hold Steady. On Wednesday, Hood and Finn will bring their considerable experience and musical perspective to the stage at Moe’s Alley for a sure-to-be memorable collaboration.
➤ Can we really already be gearing up for “A Christmas Carol”? Yes, yes we can. On Monday, the actors of Santa Cruz Shakespeare, which includes Mike Ryan and Julie James, come together at Bookshop Santa Cruz to present a preview of what to expect from the Dickens classic this year, because the production’s opening date, Nov. 26, is coming on faster than you think.
➤ The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk parking lot is not usually the place to hang out on a beautiful fall Saturday. But this Saturday, the Boardwalk lot is the stage for its annual Hot Rods on the Beach car show, featuring classic cars, muscle cars and hot rods of all shapes, sizes and colors. Let Monterey have the fancy Concours d’Elegance. This one is more Santa Cruz’s style.
➤ They’re the greasy roadside band with a finely honed sense of humor. They are Southern Culture on the Skids, the North Carolina trio that’s made Moe’s Alley a home away from home with an annual date as regular as the county fair. This year, Rick, Mary and Dave bring their fun-loving sensibility to Moe’s on Saturday. Banana puddin’ for everybody!
➤ There are some things that only a town that sits on the ocean can provide, and one of those happens this weekend at the Boardwalk’s beautiful Cocoanut Grove. It’s the Santa Cruz Sea Glass and Ocean Art Festival, featuring the work of more than 60 artists who have done amazing things with colored glass from the ocean.
➤ Grief, death, remembrance … and celebration? It’s part of the Día de Los Muertos community art show on Friday at the Tannery Arts Center. More than a dozen artists will be represented at Studio 116 at the Tannery, with food, art activities and a community altar.
➤ It’s November, so we can pretty much snuff out the last embers of the summer. And a good way to do that is to embrace the coming winter. The great adventurist and filmmaker Warren Miller brings his latest film, “Sno-Ciety,” which presents in thrilling detail all the ways that winter is awesome. It plays Tuesday at the Rio Theatre.
➤ If you regularly listen to NPR, you don’t have to be told who Ari Shapiro is. The longtime co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” certainly has his fans, but they might not think of him as a stage performer. On Friday, Shapiro, now freed from the NPR grind, comes to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center for “Thank You for Listening,” a cabaret-style show in which Shapiro will tell tales from his memoirs, through story and song.
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