Lavay, who’s become something of a San Francisco landmark, incorporates a variety of classic American musical styles, including swing, bebop, salsa, jump blues, and New Orleans R&B. She has become an internationally recognized Diva of Jazz and Blues, with a singing style influenced by Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Little Esther Phillips and other legendary greats.

This sultry chanteuse evokes a sensuous era of Jazz queens and sexy pinups and adds a modern, feminist twist. No wonder Los Angeles Magazine chose her as one of the sexiest people around! Lavay first performed in 1989 and immediately began attracting crowds thanks to her big, bluesy voice, exciting stage personality, and glamorous approach.. Lavay approaches her material from the standpoint of an independent woman, combining world-class singing and musicianship with hilarious, provocative lyrics. Lavay's last album received a prestigious 4 & 1/2 Star review in Downbeat magazine and reached the top 10 on the National Billboard Jazz Charts.

“The San Francisco-based Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers are a notable exception to the retro-swing norm. The saucy vocalist and her eight-piece crew actually know the difference between jump music and bland R&B in corny suits. They have been a working unit since 1989 and sound as tight as the legendary musicians they choose to emulate.”  ---Bob Blumenthal, Boston Globe

“A lush vocal style recalling both Bessie Smith and Dinah Washington.” ---Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times
 

One of the great tribute bands of any kind is The Unauthorized Rolling Stones. They do it right and their bag of songs is broad and complete. URS is led by Rudy Colombini (Mick Jagger) who brings an intensity and authenticity to the roll, while the rest of the band brings their real world experience in some of the Bay Area's top bands, to play the best music in Rock n roll, the music of the Rollilng Stones. The Unauthorized Rolling Stones has been chosen by IMAX to be part of the promotion for the new Stones IMAX movie "Shine A Light."
 

The one-two punch of fiery Texas bluesman guitarist Smokin Joe Kubek and the smooth jazz inflected guitar work of Bnois King, plus King's soulful vocals, makes this band one of the most unique in the blues world. Kubek has the technique and the chops to burn up any stage and has been doing so for the past 27 years. A guitar prodigy at the age of 14 the Texas raised guitar slinger frequented the Dallas bar scene during the 1970's and early 80's playing with Stevie Ray Vaughan and people like the three Kings, B. B., Albert and Freddie Kubek with his staggering arsenal of instruments, effects and technique, delivers a frenzied, flame-throwing guitar display. Kubek, coming from the blazing Texas blues/rock background, found in Bnois King's smooth jazz guitar stylings a finesse and fat chord sound that was a perfect complement to his technique. The combination just clicked with a seamless mesh of styles. King lays down a bed of smooth supporting jazz chords on his hollow bodied Gibson that allows Kubek to take center stage and play with almost reckless abandon. Together this dynamic duo has recorded 7 albums for Bullseye Blues & Jazz Records, the newest being the 2000 "BITE ME." So buckle up and get ready for a one-two punch, thrill-a-minute ride of high-octane Texas blues.
 

It's time once again to spend a little time with our favorite Texas bluegrass wiseacres The Austin Lounge Lizards. The Lizards specialize like no other group in smart, very funny satirical songs about all things, well, worth making fun of. Their latest cd is called "The Drugs I Need" (an amusing commentary on pharmaceutical companies) and includes the title track as well as such soon to be classics as "Xmas Time for Visa," " Neighbor of the Beast," " Buenos Dias, Budweiser," " Toast the Earth with ExxonMobil," and "We've Been Through Some Crappy Times Before." They're always a hoot as this fantastic ensemble couches hilarious and pointed social and political commentary within the sounds of high quality bluegrass and country music. For over two decades The Lizards have been cracking up audiences with this inventive style of "satirical bluegrass," which they have perfected since forming as a band in 1980. The group often draws comparisons to such diverse performers as Tom Lehrer, Riders In The Sky and Frank Zappa, and they themselves count among their influences Zappa, George Jones, Flatt & Scruggs and Steve Goodman. Trademarks of a Lizard song are highly literate, sharply pointed lyrics that poke perfectly aimed fun at politics, love, and the culture in general. Recently their recording of Irving Berlin's "C-U-B-A" was featured in Michael Moore's most recent movie, "Sicko."
 

Makana
 

"Slack key guitar music, indigenous to Hawai'i, has been around longer than the blues, and Makana is considered one of the greatest living players." -Esquire Magazine, March 2003

"Clearly, he's a world-class talent" - John Berger, Star Bulletin

"I've been deep into classical music and Hawaiian slack-key guitar. I've gotten way into Andres Segovia, and this Hawaiian guitar player called Makana" - Kirk Hammett (Metallica), Guitar World January 2006
 

Sapo Guapo is a 12 piece Latin dance band known for its Afro-Cuban sound. Based in Vacaville, Sapo Guapo has been performing for 8 years and plays a large repertoire of familiar dance music from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico and New York. The band also plays several original songs composed by co-founder and vocalist Juan Alejandro. While Salsa is featured, Sapo Guapo also plays other popular dance rhythms such as the Cha-Cha, Merengue, Cumbia and the romantic Bolero. Four member of the band have travelled to Cuba to study with famous Afro-Cubano performers, while other members have roots in "San Pancho", or the Mission district in San Francisco. The dance floor will be open.
 

Vocal powerhouse and songwriting talent Shana Morrison returns with her band Caledonia for another great evening of R&B, pop, rock, blues and more. Shana's Morrison sings a smart brand of pop music that includes a broad range of influences such as blues, R&B, country, rock, and jazz. The bulk of her show showcases her own impressively diverse and mature songwriting talents she's also likely to throw in a few choice cover tunes by such greats as John Lee Hooker, Bill Withers, or papa Van Morrison. Her songs are both interesting lyrically and catchy and accessible musically, with all her material pinned down by her strong and emotionally varied voice. "Morrison's vocal abilities encompass a mosaic of interests and influences, and her country and rhythm and blues inflections in particular make one mindful of such early west coast discoveries as the pre-mega fame Janis Joplin. With a thoroughbred voice, Shana Morrison can wail with the best of them."-Common Ground
 

The Rova Saxophone Quartet teams up with the Nels Cline Singers as the Celestial Septet for Rovaté 2008. In this ultimate free-jazz mashup Rova, resident renegade sax quartet, and the Nels Cline Singers, a stunningly imaginative guitar/bass/drums trio, join forces for an evening of late Coltrane/Albert Ayler-inspired musical ecstasy. The Septet will present reworkings of John Coltrane pieces, as well as original works by band members inspired by Coltrane and Albert Ayler-perhaps the most overlooked yet influential visionary of the 1960s jazz scene. Nels Cline (the guitar wizard who has breathed new life into alt-rock band Wilco) consistently ignites the stage in collaborations with Rova members, most notably during his many performances with Orkestrova's Electric Ascension (Rova's reworking of the John Coltrane classic "Ascension") and the Yo Miles! Fillmore shows of eight years ago. The group is backed by the Singers' brilliant rhythm team of Scott Amendola and Devin Hoff.
 

Sacramento's top traditonal country five piece band is Rowdy Kate, fronted by tattooed country darling Keri Carr. Rowdy Kate features the lovely singing voice of Carr belting out old country classics as well as new Rowdy Kate originals that you'd think were old country classics. Keri is an incredible singer, capable of taking on old tunes by Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline or even Willie Nelson and Conway Twitty. Although the band is relatively new, there are a couple of familiar faces from previous Sacramento bands, including her husband Larry Carr (formerly of Popgun) and guitarist Robert Sidwell (formerly of The Chrome Addicts and The Hucklebucks).
 

Three Leg Torso formed in 1996 as violin, cello and accordion trio with the mission of creating original modern chamber music for their unique instrumentation. Over the following years the band has expanded both its musical mission and its size to become a quintet that now performs its eclectic synthesis of chamber music, tango, klezmer, latin and world music. As principal composers, founding members Béla Balogh (on violin and trumpet) and Courtney Von Drehle (on accordion) provide the core of 3 Leg Torso's sound. They are joined by veteran percussionist/mallet player Gary Irvine, the fastidious mallets/percussion of Kyle MacLowry and the fiery upright bass player Michael Papillo.

"All the beauty of Astor Piazolla's music and all the spunk of Kronos Quartet's."- CMJ

"Wildly exciting, wildly eclectic, rather difficult to describe." - Dirty Linen
 

Pepino D'Agostino was named by Acoustic Guitar Magazine as "Best Acoustic Guitarist of 2007" Peppino D'Agostino is finally garnering the recognition he's long deserved. He has been praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a poet---among the best talents around", applauded by the San Diego Times as " potentially a giant of the acoustic guitar," and touted by Jazziz as a "phenom in the same league with John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Doc Watson and John Renbourn." Few can match Peppino's combined technical prowess and lyrical artistry on the steel string, and not many are as eager to challenge the limits of their instrument--using unconventional tunings, playing the notes on the fretboard only with the left hand while simultaneously creating percussive effects with the right hand and inventing a mini orchestra of sounds that, on first listen, seem almost impossible for one lone guitar. The Chicago Tribune writes: "---D'Agostino plays steel-string guitar with virtuosity and complexity---Influences are as far-flung as the flamenco work of Paco de Lucia and the pop sensibility of the Beatles, evident in the songs he's written, which brim with memorable melodies." "His sound is warm and buoyant, like the man himself, and his personality shines through."