What we’re about
This group is for people who appreciate music and other forms of art beyond the mainstream, with a particular focus on the avant-garde or otherwise odd. Free Jazz, Musique Concrete, Atonality, Noise Music, Outsider Art, Surrealism, Dada, Junk Art, ...you name it! Not all events will necessarily be "weird", but simply off the beaten mainstream path.
This is intended to be an oasis from crass commercial banalities.
I'll post events that interest me, but I am also interested in hearing from artists, musicians, and other creative types about their events that I can share with members. Post your events and ideas in the "Discussions" section. I want this group to also be a vehicle that helps support artists and organizations that are doing interesting creative work.
The only requests are that we keep things friendly and civilized. MAGA not welcome.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- The Living Light The Life, Music, and Visions of Hildegard von BingenPhilosophical Research Society, Los Angeles , CA
Hybrid Event - in-person and on Zoom
Date: Wednesday September 10th 7pm-8:30pm
Venue: Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90027In-Person and Online Tickets: $14.64 incl. $2.64 Fee
https://www.resonancecollective.org/the-living-lightThe Living Light: The Life, Music, and Visions of Hildegard von Bingen
An exploration of the life, visions, and music of 12th Century polymath and Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen with Fahad Siadat (in-person and online)This lecture explores the extraordinary life, music, and mystical theology of Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century Benedictine abbess, visionary, composer, and polymath. We will delve into her vivid mystical visions, particularly as expressed in Scivias (“Know the Ways”), and unpack theological themes such as cosmic harmony and viriditas, the divine greening force. We will also listen to examples of her groundbreaking musical compositions, including chant and liturgical drama, and examine their unique expressive power and spiritual intent. The session will conclude by discussing her enduring legacy across theology, feminism, ecology, and the arts.
- KENNY GARRETT @ NEW BLUE NOTE, LABlue Note, Los Angeles, Los Angeles , CA
Great alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett live at the new Blue Note, LA, which is opening in August.
Date: Friday, Sept. 12, 7:00 (doors open 5:00)
Venue: Blue Note, LA
6372 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028Tickets: $65.87 incl. fees
https://www.bluenotejazz.com/la/shows/?eid=13778694Kenny Garrett
With his illustrious career that includes hallmark stints with Miles Davis, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, as well as a heralded career as a solo artist that began more than 30 years ago, Kenny Garrett is easily recognized as one of modern jazz’s brightest and most influential living masters. And with the marvelous Sounds From The Ancestors, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Garrett shows no signs of resting on his laurels.Kenny Garrett’s latest release, Sounds From The Ancestors, is a multi-faceted album. The music, however, doesn’t lodge inside the tight confines of the jazz idiom, which is not surprising considering the alto saxophonist and composer acknowledges the likes of Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye as significant touchstones. Similar to how Miles Davis’ seminal LP, On the Corner, subverted its main guiding lights – James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone – then crafted its own unique, polyrhythmic, groove-laden, improv-heavy universe, Sounds From The Ancestors occupies its own space with intellectual clarity, sonic ingenuity and emotional heft.
“The concept initially was about trying to get some of the musical sounds that I remembered as a kid growing up – sounds that lift your spirit from people like John Coltrane, ‘A Love Supreme’; Aretha Franklin, ‘Amazing Grace’; Marvin Gaye, ‘What’s Going On’; and the spiritual side of the church,” Garrett explains. “When I started to think about them, I realized it was the spirit from my ancestors.” Indeed, Sounds From The Ancestors reflects the rich jazz, R&B, and gospel history of his hometown of Detroit. More important though, it also reverberates with a modern cosmopolitan vibrancy – notably the inclusion of music coming out of France, Cuba, Nigeria and Guadeloupe.
“It’s Time to Come Home,” a sauntering yet evocative Afro-Cuban modern jazz original, kicks off the album. Garrett’s melodic passages, marked by capricious turns and pecking accents, signals a “call to action” for kids around the world to come home after playing outside all day. This incarnation reflects his experiences playing with iconic Cuban pianist and composer Chucho Valdés. Garrett then pays tribute to the late, great trumpeter and composer Roy Hargrove with the dynamic “Hargrove,” a bracing original that evokes the namesake’s mastery of reconciling hard-bop’s intricate harmonic and interactive verve with late-20th century hypnotic R&B grooves and hip-hop bounce. The song also references John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which accentuates both the earthy and spiritual nature of Hargrove’s music and Garrett’s saxophone virtuosity.
Traces of the Black American church also surge through “When the Days Were Different,” a warm mid-tempo original. “The idea was to take it back to the church,” Garrett explains. “It reminds me of being at a gathering with family and friends having a good time eating, drinking and spending quality time together.”
On the rhythmically intrepid “For Art’s Sake,” Garrett pays homage to two legendary drummers – Art Blakey and Tony Allen. Bruner concocts a stuttering rhythm that alludes to both modern jazz and Nigerian Afrobeat, while Bird adds polyrhythmic fire with his circular conga patterns.
Drums and percussion are again highlighted vividly on the swift “What Was That?” and “Soldiers of the Fields/Soldats des Champs.” The former finds Garrett in quintessential form as he navigates through a thicket of torrential polyrhythms and a jolting harmonic bed with the steely determination and dexterity associated with Coltrane and Jackie McLean. The latter is a magnificent two-part masterpiece that integrates martial beats, Guadeloupean rhythms and a haunting cyclical motif on which Garrett crafts pirouetting improvisations that dazzle with their initial lithe grace and increasing urgent wails. Garrett explains that “Soldiers of the Fields/Soldats des Champs” is a tribute to the legion of jazz musicians who fought to keep the music alive. “They’re the first ones to get hit and shot at in the line of fire on the fields of justice. ‘Soldats des Champs’ is also a tribute to the Haitian soldiers who fought against the French during the Haitian Revolution.”
The leader’s love for Afro-Cuban jazz returns on the dramatic title track, which begins with Garrett playing a slow melancholy melody on the piano before the music gives way to a soul-stirring excursion, filled with passionate vocal cries from Trible and moving Yoruban lyrics from Pedrito, paying respect to Orunmila, the deity of wisdom. “It’s about remembering the spirit of the sounds of our ancestors – the sounds from their church services, the prayers they recited, the songs they sang in the fields, the African drums they played and the Yoruban chants,” Garrett says. The album closes as it opens with “It’s Time to Come Home,” this time Garrett uses his saxophone as a rhythmic instrument to have a conversation with the percussionist without the vocal accompaniment.
- Free Piano Concert - Althea Waites: A Musical CelebrationGerald R Daniel Recital Hall, Long Beach, CA
Free and open to the public. We have seen Althea Waites play, and she is wonderful. She sold out the Nimoy Theater in 2024. Come hear her for free!
Date: Sunday, September 14, 2025, 4:00pm
Venue: Gerald R Daniel Recital Hall
California State University Long Beach
1250 N Bellflower Blvd
Long Beach, CA 90840
Get Directions hereInformation and maps here
Althea Waites: A Musical Celebration
Sunday, September 14, 2025
4:00pm Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall
FREEAbout the Celebration
Join us for a Musical Celebration as Althea Waites, longtime CSULB piano faculty, returns to the Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall for an afternoon of extraordinary piano music. A distinguished champion of music by American composers and the 2023/24 Leonard Stein Resident Artist for the acclaimed PianoSpheres, Ms. Waites has concertized for over 60 years and remains active. Her most recent CD featuring several world premieres was released in 2023.More about Ms. Waites: "Althea Waites, a trailblazing pianist, celebrates a life of music" by Rich Archbold, published in Long Beach Press-Telegram, February 13, 2024.
About Althea Waites
Internationally acclaimed pianist Althea Waites has concertized extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and South Africa as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborative artist. In addition to performances on concert stages around the world, she has also participated in numerous festivals as soloist, collaborative pianist, and ensemble coach including Aspen, Tanglewood, the Yale Summer Festival at Norfolk, the Jocob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Idyllwild Arts Festival in California, and the National Arts Festival at Makhanda on the Eastern Cape of South Africa.Praised by the Los Angeles Times for "Superb technique and profound musicality," Ms. Waites has a distinguished history of championing new music by American composers and has received several tributes and commendations for her work. Recent honors include being chosen as the 2023/24 Leonard Stein Resident Artist for PianoSpheres, a California based organization that supports and promotes the performance of new music and rarely heard works especially written for the piano. The MTNA (Music Teachers National Assn.) will honor her as the 2025 recipient for the advocacy Award in recognition of diversity, equity, and inclusion in teaching and performance of music by historically underrepresented composers. Previous appearances include concerts at Disney Hall, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Merkin Hall in New York, the Geneva Conservatory of Music in Switzerland, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, as well as colleges and universities throughout the United States, to name a few.
Recording credits include Black Diamonds, a landmark CD of music by African-American composers and the premiere recording of Florence Price’s 1932 Sonata in E Minor, Along the Western Shore, and Celebration, a 2012 CD featuring music by American composers and pieces which have been written for and dedicated to Ms. Waites in honor of 60 years as a concert artist and teacher. Her latest CD, Reflections In Time, was released in 2023 and includes premiere recordings of music by Margaret Bonds.
Ms. Waites holds degrees from Xavier University of Louisiana and the Master of Music degree in piano from the Yale School of Music where she studied with the late Donald Currier. Previous teachers and mentors include Alice Shapiro, a protégé of Rosina Lhevinne, Russell Sherman, and Sister Mary Elise Sisson. She is in demand for masterclasses, recitals, lectures, and residencies at schools and arts institutions throughout the United States, and her commitment to community service is evident in her work with outreach programs in retirement homes, churches, community centers and any place where music can be used as a tool for piece and the elimination of racial and political division.
Althea Waites is a Yamaha artist and her recordings are now included on her new label, Kuumba Music.
- JAPANESE ARTHOUSE 101: GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988)The Frida Cinema, Santa Ana, CA
I am not usually interested in anime, but this one is supposed to be very good.
Date: Monday, September 15, 7:30
Venue: Frida Cinema
305 E 4th St #100, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Phone: (714) 285-9422Dinner 6:00 Taqueria Guadalajara, 305 E 4th St, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Tickets: $9 https://thefridacinema.org/movies/grave-of-the-fireflies/
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 100% positive rating
Trailer here
Director: Isao Takahata Run Time: 89 min. Release Year: 1988 Language: Japanese
Starring: Akemi Yamaguchi, Ayano Shiraishi, Masayo Sakai, Tsutomu Tatsumi, Yoshiko Shinohara
The penultimate film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Isao Takahata's Grave Of The Fireflies! In the final days of World War II, two siblings—teenaged Seita and his little sister Setsuko—struggle to survive in firebombed Kobe after losing their home, their parents, and eventually, their place in a society that has collapsed around them. What follows is not just a war story, but a story of love, resilience, and unbearable loss. Rendered with breathtaking beauty by the legendary animators at Studio Ghibli, Grave of the Fireflies is often called one of the greatest animated films ever made. It is also one of the most emotionally shattering anti-war films of any kind—haunting not because of spectacle, but because of its heartbreaking truth.
Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!
