Side Door Summer off to a sold-out start, with a big weekend of blues, Latin jazz and spy music coming up!

Our Side Door Summer got off to a rockin’ good start with sold-out shows featuring Coo Coo Ca Choo, the hands-down best ’60s rock band ever, and Jefferson Airplane founder Marty Balin, and his tight-tight band and a string of hits.

Both shows had the crowd on the their feet – dancing during the sets and with a standing ovation at the end.

The Side Door is dark this weekend, since we have some rental shows on our mainstage, but it returns with a bang on the last weekend in June. The lineup features three don’t-miss shows:Friday, June 29, is the return of the blues guitar master Sarasota Slim. His last show was completely sold-out and he’s back with a great band in an intimate concert setting.

On Saturday, June 30, we feature a brand new Latin Jazz band, La Lucha, featuring some of our favorite jazz musicians including Alejandro Arenas, bass; Mark Feinman, drums; and John O’Leary, piano. Special guests are Jun Bustamante, vocals and Austin Vickrey, sax. They are celebrating the release of a new CD.

And we close out with a very big show on Sunday afternoon at 3. This one is so big – we’ve moved it upstairs to Hough Hall. It is License To Thrill – a show featuring theme music from the spy movies and television shows including James Bond and Austin Powers films, Mission Impossible, Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Prisoner, Get Smart and other favorites.

The 18-piece Helios Jazz Orchestra directed by David Manson, will be joined by vocalists Denise Moore, Bryan Hughes & Andrea Manson.  If you haven’t caught Helios at the Palladium you are in for a musical treat. These are powerful, horn-driven arrangements. Don’t fight the Sunday afternoon heat, come inside for a cool afternoon of Spy Music!

We’ve got lots of other great bands and artists coming up – including a Blues Blowout weekend in July, featuring the St. Pete Blues Allstars on Friday,July 14,  the Backtrack Blues Band CD release party on Saturday, July 15, and “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” star Chris Thomas King bringing his blues trio in on Sunday, July 16 at 7.

For details and tickets for all the shows and more, visit www.mypalladium.org

Helios Jazz Orchestra with Bryan Hughes

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Musicians making The Palladium their choice for live recordings

Our audiences already know that the Side Door Cabaret is the best listening room in the bay area. Musicians know it too and our downstairs room is quickly becoming THE place to record a live CD. 

Palladium favorite Nate Najar (www.natenajar.com) was the first one in the pool, recording his Live at the Side Door CD, two years ago. This fall, three other CDs are being released. Denise Moore and Then Some (www.denisemoorejazz.com) recorded their History of Jazz show last spring and are releasing the CD with a party in Tampa Saturday night at the old jazz club, 442. We’ll be celebrating the release at the Side Door early in 2011. 

 Guisando Caliente (www.guisandocaliente.com), the great Latin Jazz band, recorded their birthday party show earlier this year at the Side Door. They will be showcasing that album on October 21st when they appear with the Brazilian group O Som Do Jazz  (www.osomdojazz.com) as part of our Latin Jazz Celebration.

And Sandy Atkinson and the True Loves (http://www.sandyatkinson.net/disc.htm), who appeared as part of our Hammond B3 Summer Spectacular, will be releasing a live CD of that show, on Friday, Oct. 15 in the Side Door.

And I recently received a copy of a live DVD recorded last fall at the Side Door featuring the great San Francisco jazz guitarist, Mimi Fox. Check Mimi’s website (www.mimifoxjazzguitar.com) for details on that project. 

Expect the hits to keep on coming. Upstairs, in Hough Hall, we’re installing a new state-of-the-art sound system, complete with Pro Tools recording capability. So expect a lot more Live at the Palladium projects in the coming months and years.

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Creative Loafing cites Palladium as part of St. Petersburg’s arts boom!

Creative Loafing columnist Peter Meinke, who is also the Poet Laureate of the City of St. Petersburg, featured the Palladium in his most recent column. Meinke was writing about the arts boom in St. Petersburg and comparing it another artsy burg – Provincetown.

To read the entire column follow this link: http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=1143791

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Jazz and blues highlight Palladium’s Hammond B3 Summer Spectacular

The venerable Hammond B3 is a musical instrument claimed equally by blues, rock and jazz musicians. The wonder of the B3 is that it has its own distinct sound when used in each genre. 

Up in Pinellas Park we’re blessed to have perhaps the world’s top Hammond B3 provider, Keyboard Specialties. When Eric Clapton wanted a B3, he called Paul Homb, the longtime owner of Keyboard Specialties. Their instruments – perfectly maintained and serviced – are in demand for concerts and music festivals around the country. 

This year we’re partnering with Keyboard Specialties, along with the Suncoast Blues Society and the Al Downing Tampa Bay Jazz Association, to present four great shows featuring the Hammond B3. All shows are at 8 p.m. and prices vary, so check our website. 

Here’s a listing of the shows: 

Fri, July 9    –   Kickin’ the Blues with Sandy Atkinson & The True Loves at the Side Door Cabaret. The show features Dean Germain on the B3, plus an all-star band. Sandy is recording a live album that night. 

Sat, July 10    The Battle of The B3s – Blues vs. Jazz. The show features the Organic Trio, a great Sarasota-based jazz band with strong r&b influences and The Voodoo Trio, featuring Lee Pons on the B3.

 Fri, July 23 – B3 Jazz Master Stan Hunter and his Trio. Stan has toured the U.S. and Europe with some of the great names in jazz and has highlighted our Battle of the B3s shows the past two years.  

 Sat, Aug 21  – Hammond B3 Showdown, N’awlins Style. Direct from New Orleans the Palladium presents the Joe Krown Trio, featuring keyboard master Joe Krown on piano and B3, plus Walter “Wolfman” Washington, on guitar, and Russell Batiste, on drums. Joining them on a second B3 are “Papa” John Gros, of Papa Grows Funk and Dave McCracken of Donna The Buffalo.  Showtime, 8 p.m.

For tickets and more information, visit www.mypalladium.org.

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Palladium celebrates Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington

To celebrate the April birthdays of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, the Palladium is bringing in some top notch-talent from the New York City jazz scene.

Amy London, a jazz singer and vocal professor with a Broadway pedigree, will be handling the Ella side. Her husband, guitarist Roni Ben-Hur, will be providing the music along with Ellington alum John Lamb on bass and Stephen Buckholtz on drums.

Amy, who founded the vocal program at New York’s New School, will also be presenting a master class for singers of all skill levels. She’ll be teaching jazz improvisation or “scat singing” in the style of La Fitzgerald!

The class is Wednesday, April 21, at 7 p.m. at the Palladium. The two shows with the band are Thursday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Friday, Apirl 23, at 8. For more info visit http://www.mypalladium.org.

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Sophie Milman in the SP Times!

Sophie Milman, the rising jazz talent appearing this Thursday at the Palladium, is profiled by Philip Booth in this week’s edition of the St. Petersburg Times. Born in Russia, raised in Israel and now living in Toronto, Milman has made a name for herself in jazz circles for taking pop songs and reworking them as jazz standards.

Read Booth’s story by following this link: http://www.tampabay.com/features/music/jazz-singer-sophie-milman-sets-sights-on-new-standards/1080374

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Come try the Palladium Theater’s new front doors!

Thanks to St. Petersburg College, the restoration of the historic Palladium Theater is continuing.  While a lot of improvements – like our new air conditioning and wiring – aren’t easy to see, our latest renovation project will be visible to everyone.

This week workers are replacing all of our front doors.  The original doors were beyond repair and the locks kept falling out – not a great thing when trying to secure a historic building.

The old doors were faded and beat-up from years of use. One of my predecessors, Paul Stavros, kept threatening to come by with a paint brush and repaint them. I told him to wait, that improvements were coming.

The new doors are recreations of the original but made of much better wood. These doors are made of Sapelli (also spelled Sapele) wood, an African tree with a grain that is very similar to mahogany.   A quick Google search turns up lots of raves about the wood for its beauty and strength. It is often used to make guitars and even some pianos – so it is perfect for a music venue like ours. 

The doors have impact resistant windows. All the original hardware is being polished and refitted to the new doors.

The doors will be in place for our two Side Door shows this weekend – The Kym Purling Jazz Trio on Friday and our Nova Scotia Fiddling Celebration on Saturday.

Come by this weekend and try the new doors for yourself – and stay for a great show!

The Kym Purling Trio appears in the Side Door Cabaret on Friday, March 12 at 8 p.m. And the Nova Scotia Fiddling Celebration – featuring Andrea Beaton and Troy and Sabra MacGillivray is Saturday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. For more information and tickets go to www.mypalladium.org or call the box office at 727 822-3590.

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A conversation with Noel Paul Stookey

Noel Paul Stookey loves his home in Blue Hill, Maine, but February isn’t the nicest month of the year to be there. That’s one reason he’s headed to Florida for three shows starting Friday, Feb. 19 at the Palladium. He’s also holding several meetings with members of his secret society.

“I’ll be hanging out with seven devotees of the Dimpled White Orb,” Stookey told me during a recent phone call. “We’re playing golf on your beautiful Florida courses.”

Stookey, best known as one of the guys with a goatee and a guitar in the legendary folk band Peter, Paul and Mary, is coming to the Palladium at the invitation of his friend and former songwriting partner, Jim Mason, who now lives in Tampa. Stookey and Mason (along with Dave Dixon) were co-writers of Peter, Paul and Mary’ s 1967 satirical hit “I Dig Rock ‘n Roll Music.”  It was one of the first times Stookey had collaborated with a songwriter other than Peter Yarrow.

“We sat down on the floor in an apartment in New York City and came up with a tune was very exciting…collaboration in that era was a brand new ballgame for me,” Stookey said. “I think (Bob) Dylan’s strong presence, ideologically, contributed to a lot of writers taking chances and speaking out of their personal perspective.”

Most critics still consider Album 1700 PP&Ms most ambitious release, with songs styles that blended rock, jazz, pop and folk. 

I was just starting high school when the album was released and immediately formed a folk-pop trio called Joe, Paul and Sherrie that played local coffee houses around Tampa Bay. We did our best to cover some of the songs from 1700 , particularly the jazz ballad “Whatshername,” but none of us knew how to play a diminished or augmented chord. 

Joe, Paul and Sherrie are happily retired but Stookey is still going strong and has “Whatshername”  on the song list for his Florida shows.

The shows will also feature a question and answer section led by WMNF DJ Cam Dilley following intermission.

“My wife is concerned that I’m going to wax too much,” Stookey said. “The second half is not going to be all conservation. There will be plenty of singing.”

Stookey will talk about his longtime collaboration with Mary Travers, who died last September after a long battle with leukemia. They had been performing together – with some sabbaticals – since the early 1960s. Stookey said the time apart helped the group stay together.

“Most bands have such dire problems they break up or substitute members. We took time off. We had respect for each other and we brought that to the stage,” he said.

When Travers was diagnosed that time apart was no longer so important.

“Peter and I were there every two to three weeks. Now that she is gone there is a sadness but an awareness of just how much my life has been impacted by her.”

Noel Paul Stookey will appear in concert at the intimate Palladium Theater in downtown St. Petersburg on Friday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. Tickets are also available for a post-show reception with Stookey hosted by WEDU-TV. Call 727 822-3590 or visit www.mypalladium.org for tickets and information.

 –Paul Wilborn

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A JAZZ VALENTINE FROM WHITNEY JAMES

Jazz vocalist Whitney James is returning to the Side Door Cabaret for a special Valentine’s show on Saturday, Feb. 13 at 8 p.m.  It’s going to be a night of romantic ballads by Whitney and her great band.  Whitney is based in Tierra Verde but she is playing these days in Seattle, San Francisco and New York in support of a fine new album called “The Nature of Love.”

Her January show sold out in advance, so get your tickets early for this intimate evening of music.  Call 727 822-3590 or visit www.mypalladium.org for tickets and information.

Both the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune wrote stories about Whitney’s last show. To read them, follow the links below:

http://www.tampabay.com/features/music/tierra-verdes-whitney-james-puts-lifelong-love-of-jazz-into-her-first-cd/1063405

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jan/06/071144/jazz-singer-celebrate-new-album-st-petersburg-conc/

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