Marcus Shelby Quintet Featuring Kennedy Shelby

Set 1 seating times: 630 / 645 / 7
Set 2 seating times: 830 / 845 / 9

Black Cat JAZZ@theEDGE! Presents…

The New Marcus Shelby Quintet Featuring Kennedy Shelby!

Composer, bassist, educator, SF arts commissioner, artistic director of Healdsburg Jazz, and bandleader Marcus Shelby is honored to present a new quintet featuring Aaron Smith (trumpet), Dillon Vado (vibraphone), Luis Peralta (piano/keyboards), Sylvia Cuenca (drums), and introducing his daughter Kennedy Shelby (vocals). The new Marcus Shelby Quintet performs original and traditional compositions that celebrate and honor black lives past, present, and future. On December 14 live at the Black Cat SF, the Marcus Shelby Quintet will also perform holiday music from a diversity of cultures.

As SF WEEKLY puts it, “You don’t need to be plugged into the Bay Area music scene for long to know the name Marcus Shelby. A seemingly tireless and always in-demand bassist, composer, bandleader, and educator, Shelby has been blending music and activism for decades.”

Marcus Shelby is a figure synonymous with Bay Area jazz and the spirit of collaboration. A recipient of the Charles Mingus Scholarship, Shelby attended Cal Arts and studied with Charlie Haden and James Newton while working simultaneously with the all-star jazz ensemble Black/Note, who released a series of highly regarded albums in the 1990s. Since moving to the Bay Area, he has led a well-known and highly respected jazz orchestra and numerous small groups, with large-scale commissions focused on the history, present, and future of the African-American experience. Shelby is also the voice of Ray Gardener in the Oscar winning Disney Pixar film “SOUL” 2020. Shelby has also worked with a range of artists including Angela Y. Davis’ “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” (2019), among others.

“My goal is to use the blues form to express African-American history ­— our social struggles, our freedom movement,” – Marcus Shelby

 “Marcus Shelby illuminates history through jazz.” – The San Francisco Chronicle

Personnel:

Marcus Shelby – bass

Kennedy Shelby – vocals

Aaron Smith – trumpet

Luis Peralta – piano/keyboards

Sylvia Cuenca  – drums

Camille Kerani – tenor sax