Arts and Culture
Bay Area African American Women in Music: Eclecticism remains Linda Tillery’s Forte
Ever since she answered a newspaper classified ad in 1967 that read, “Wanted: One Soul Singer” – which happened to be the title of her favorite Johnnie Taylor album – Linda Tillery has been one of the most active and widely revered participants in Bay Area music. After responding to the ad, she was hired as lead vocalist by the psychedelic soul band, The Loading Zone.
 
Blessed with powerful alto pipes and a mastery of trap drums and hand percussion, the San Francisco-born, Oakland-based musician has traversed a broadly eclectic stylistic path that’s included R&B, rock, jazz, blues, oldies and women’s music.
Tillery spent seven years with Bobby McFerrin’s innovative a cappella group Voicestra, and for the past three has been a member of Hills to Hollers, a trio that fuses the bluegrass sounds of the rolling Kentucky hills with the blues and field hollers of the Mississippi Delta.
“You can take several American art forms and sort of merge them together and see where they intersect, where they overlap and maybe where there’s new discovery,” Tillery, 66, says of the trio’s music. “I’ve learned about artists that I’d never heard before. Listening is one of my main tools.”
“There’s a song we do by the Louvin Brothers. I’d never listened to them before,” she says. “I went online, listened to them and said, ‘These guys are fabulous! What a sound!’ It opened my eyes to something new.”
Tillery’s main calling, however, is her Cultural Heritage Choir, which she formed in 1992 after seeing opera divas Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman singing spirituals on a PBS television program. It was a life-changing experience for Tillery.
“I had a visceral response to this stuff,” she recalls. “I could feel it physically. I was sitting at home, just me and my cat, and I said out loud, ‘This is what your mother’s gonna do now. This is it!’”
Rather than sing spirituals in the European classical manner, as Battle and Norman had, the six-voice Cultural Heritage Choir delved into rougher renditions of spirituals from recordings made decades earlier in the rural South for the Library of Congress. Those performances, she says, “just made your hair stand on your head.”
The Cultural Heritage Choir, which has toured throughout the United States, in Canada and Europe, has recorded four albums of spirituals and folk songs between 1995 and 2010. “Say Yo’ Business,” from 2001, features Eric Bibb, Odetta, Wilson Pickett and other guest vocalists.
Although Tillery now gets around on crutches – having suffered from a stroke, heart arrhythmia, other ailments and undergone knee replacement surgery in recent years – that hasn’t stopped her from performing. She feels that if violinist Itzhak Perlman can walk on stage with the aid of crutches, sit down and play, so can she.
Arts and Culture
Kedrick Armstrong: New Music Director for the Oakland Symphony
The Oakland Symphony Announced Kedrick Armstrong as its Next Music Director. In addition to conducting the orchestra’s public concerts, Armstrong will also actively participate in the Oakland Symphony’s many education and community engagement programs, designed to inspire a love of music in people of all ages.
By Post Staff
The Oakland Symphony Announced Kedrick Armstrong as its Next Music Director.
In addition to conducting the orchestra’s public concerts, Armstrong will also actively participate in the Oakland Symphony’s many education and community engagement programs, designed to inspire a love of music in people of all ages.
Armstrong is the successor to previous music director and Conductor Michael Morgan, who passed away in 2021 after a 30-year tenure at the Symphony.
Armstrong will open the Oakland Symphony 2024-2025 season on October 18.
Armstrong, who is 29 and hails from Georgetown, South Carolina, is currently the creative partner and principal conductor of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony.
The Chicago Tribune has praised Armstrong for his ability to “simply let the score speak for itself.” He enjoys a wide range of repertoire, spanning early music to premiering new works, using his joy and curiosity for all music to cultivate understanding and collaboration within diverse communities.
“I am deeply honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as the new music director of the Oakland Symphony,” Armstrong said. “As a Black conductor, I find it humbling to stand on the shoulders of both Michael Morgan and Calvin Simmons,” the most recent and the first African American music directors of the Symphony, respectively.
Armstrong led three programs at the Symphony between 2022 and early 2024, which showcased his broad knowledge of the classical repertoire and enthusiasm for spotlighting diverse voices.
On his Oakland Symphony subscription debut on Feb. 16, Armstrong led the world premiere of “Here I Stand: Paul Robeson,” an oratorio by Carlos Simon on a libretto by Dan Harder, commissioned by the Oakland Symphony.
Armstrong was selected unanimously by the Oakland Symphony’s board of directors and musicians after an extensive two-year search. “The search committee was overwhelmed by Kedrick’s scholarship and curiosity about all kinds of music, from classical and jazz to gospel and hip-hop,” said. Dr. Mieko Hatano, executive director of the Oakland Symphony. “We are thrilled to have him join us at the Oakland Symphony.”
Arts and Culture
Faces Around the Bay Dr. Carl Blake, Pianist
Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999. One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.
By Barbara Fluhrer
Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999.
One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.
Blake obtained a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and continued post-baccalaureate studies in Jamaica before earning a Master of Arts in Music at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of two Fulbright residencies in Honduras and completed a third residency at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. He has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University.
At age 19, Blake, then an undergraduate piano major at Boston University, was “discovered” by Impresario Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams, who is the Founder and Director of Today’s Artists/Four Seasons Arts.
Williams honored Blake by awarding him the first Marian Anderson Young Artist Award. Anderson personally presented the award at the Masonic Auditorium in S.F. Subsequently, Blake was presented by Dr. Williams in his San Francisco debut at The Herbst Theatre. Williams subsidized a year of study abroad for Blake at the Paris Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Williams sponsored Blake’s New York Weill Hall debut, where he has performed twice since. Blake performed several times at the Yachats Music Festival in Oregon.
Blake continues to perform nationally and abroad. His hobbies are reading, baking and travel. He says, “I’m still pumping ivories, as Belgian pianist Jeanne Stark described the disciplined practice of concert piano.”
Arts and Culture
Oakland Jazz Great Offers Master Class as City Declares “John Handy Day”
World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city. Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).
By Conway Jones
World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city.
Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).
“John Handy is a jazz icon and an inspiration to musicians everywhere,” said Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old Oakland tenor saxophone player who is enrolled at the Oakland School for the Arts.
In celebration of this day, the reception in downtown Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle was a gathering of artists, young and old, coming together in his honor and celebrating his 91st birthday.
Handy presented a Saxophone Colossus free masterclass for musicians. This class afforded a rare opportunity to learn about the saxophone from an aficionado. The class was free and open to all – saxophonists, vocalists, aficionados, students, and casual listeners.
“As a longtime friend for over 60 years, and fellow musician who has had numerous opportunities to share the stage with John, it has always been a pleasure performing with him and hearing his creative interpretations of the music and his gift of ease inspiring the next generation of jazz musicians,” said Roger Glenn, a multi-instrumentalist.
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