Pamela Rose
Wild Women of Song
Saturday May 12, 2012 4:00 p.m.
Wild Women of Song
Saturday May 12, 2012 4:00 p.m.
RESERVED SEATING
NOTICE:
ONLY ORCHESTRA SEATS
ARE ON GROUND LEVEL.
ALL OTHERS REQUIRE
ACCESS BY STAIRS
Tickets:
Adults: $ 27
Seniors (62 and Older): $ 24
Child (17 and Under): $ 15
Tickets May Be Purchased in Advance
at the Ticket Office
604 W. Second Street -
Next Door To The Theatre
Monday through Friday
10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
and 1 hour before showtime
or
by phone: (925) 757-9500
or ONLINE
NOTICE:
ONLY ORCHESTRA SEATS
ARE ON GROUND LEVEL.
ALL OTHERS REQUIRE
ACCESS BY STAIRS
Tickets:
Adults: $ 27
Seniors (62 and Older): $ 24
Child (17 and Under): $ 15
Tickets May Be Purchased in Advance
at the Ticket Office
604 W. Second Street -
Next Door To The Theatre
Monday through Friday
10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
and 1 hour before showtime
or
by phone: (925) 757-9500
or ONLINE
Whether you buy your tickets
by phone or online
please consider requesting
E-Tickets (Print At Home)
and bypass the wait at Will Call.
Fees:
At Box Office: No Fees
By Phone: $2.00 Per Order
Online: Varies By Ticket Price
Mail Tickets: $ 2.00 Per Order
by phone or online
please consider requesting
E-Tickets (Print At Home)
and bypass the wait at Will Call.
Fees:
At Box Office: No Fees
By Phone: $2.00 Per Order
Online: Varies By Ticket Price
Mail Tickets: $ 2.00 Per Order
With this delightful multi-media performance celebrating the history of female songwriters from the Tin Pan Alley era, Wild Women of Song, veteran San Francisco jazz and blues vocalist Pamela Rose makes a compelling case for the enduring contributions of women to America’s treasure trove of popular music. Boasting a big, bold voice and blues-infused sensibility, Rose brings a vast array of musical experience to songs by more than a dozen gifted but lesser-known tunesmiths. “Dorothy Fields should be as familiar as Ira Gershwin or Johnny Mercer,” says Rose, a Los Angeles native who first gained notice on the Bay Area scene in the late 1970s through her work with organist Merl Saunders and later with the Motown revue ZaSu Pitts Memorial Orchestra. Immersing herself in jazz over the past two decades, she’s the rare singer who can belt sassy golden age blues by Alberta Hunter and Ida Cox as easily as crooning a torchy Peggy Lee lament. Completing the package, Rose also possesses enviable songwriting skills, and she throws her own well-crafted originals into the mix.
"Rose infuses her live and recorded performances with non-stop energy and... heartfelt, female-centric jazz anthropology." - JazzTimes
"It’s more than a jazz concert. It’s a swinging honors course in Womankind!" - San Francisco Magazine
Artist Website
"Rose infuses her live and recorded performances with non-stop energy and... heartfelt, female-centric jazz anthropology." - JazzTimes
"It’s more than a jazz concert. It’s a swinging honors course in Womankind!" - San Francisco Magazine
Artist Website
Pamela Rose Honors 'Wild Women of Jazz'
By Jim Harrington
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 11/07/2011 04:50:27 PM PST
Pamela Rose had just finished her final song at a jazz-club gig in Germany when a thought crossed her mind: Her set list had been culled entirely from female composers. It wasn't premeditated. The San Francisco jazz-blues performer had simply picked songs she enjoyed singing -- and they all turned out to be tunes written by women. She didn't think much of the coincidence, until she shared it with the crowd.
"I got this huge response, which actually quite surprised me," Rose recalls of the 2008 show. The audience reaction was enough to make Rose believe she had happened upon something special. The idea eventually blossomed into her vastly popular "Wild Women of Song" show, which she'll perform as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival on Saturday at the Herbst Theatre. The multimedia experience is equal parts concert and history lesson.
Rose and her talented band -- which, for the SFJazz gig, consists of saxophonist Kristen Strom, pianist Tammy Hall, guitarist Jeff Massanari, bassist John Shifflett, drummer Allison Miller and guest vocalist Denise Perrier -- perform jazz and blues tunes hailing from what Rose calls "the Golden Era of jazz, which went from approximately 1920 to 1950."
The music is accompanied by a slide show of pictures of the songwriters and a script that provides details of the composers' lives. The result is something far more meaningful than just a pleasant evening of music. "It's like putting on a play," Rose says. "We are sort of reconstructing this era for people."
First, however, she had to reconstruct it for herself. Rose freely admits that she initially knew very little about some of the songwriters she wanted to focus on. She was familiar with some of the bigger names, such as Ida Cox, Dorothy Fields and Peggy Lee, but there were others she'd never heard of -- even though she'd known their songs for years. Rose had her work cut out for her. Fortunately, she doesn't mind research, especially when it unearths incredible tales of some of popular music's most sorely neglected figures. "I used to be a literature major at UC Berkeley," she says. "I'm fascinated with a well-told story." "I was so moved by some of their stories," she adds.
That's evident on "Wild Women of Song: Great Gal Composers of the Jazz Era," the 2009 CD that arose from Rose's passion for the subject. The album features Rose covering songs by Kay Swift, Doris Fisher, Bernice Petkere, Maria Grever and many others.
The show routinely draws rave reviews from fans and critics. Notably, her set at this year's Monterey Jazz Festival -- an event that also featured such heavyweights as Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Hiromi, Poncho Sanchez and Joshua Redman -- certainly had people buzzing.
"I was a little bit nervous," Rose remarks of performing at Monterey. "It's a big deal." Yet, Monterey is just one sign of how far "Wild Women" has taken Rose. The CD, Rose's fifth overall, has been a hit with fans on both sides of the Atlantic and has led to performances before capacity crowds in New York and London. Then, of course, there's Saturday's Herbst date, which is a major showcase -- especially for a local artist. Things could get even wilder for Rose in the near future. Her SFJazz show doubles as a release party for her new book, also titled "Wild Women of Song: Great Gal Composers of the Jazz Era," an 80-page color paperbound offering that provides even more details about the subjects. The book also includes a 44-minute CD, mostly featuring tracks from the original "Wild Women" album. All of this, Rose hopes, will serve to shed some light on some deserving -- and, in some cases, nearly forgotten -- figures in music history.
"I think there is this classic view that everyone who was involved in writing the Great American Songbook were all men in hats at the Brill Building, in cubicles, chomping on cigars," Rose says. "I just want people to remember (these women's) names."
By Jim Harrington
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 11/07/2011 04:50:27 PM PST
Pamela Rose had just finished her final song at a jazz-club gig in Germany when a thought crossed her mind: Her set list had been culled entirely from female composers. It wasn't premeditated. The San Francisco jazz-blues performer had simply picked songs she enjoyed singing -- and they all turned out to be tunes written by women. She didn't think much of the coincidence, until she shared it with the crowd.
"I got this huge response, which actually quite surprised me," Rose recalls of the 2008 show. The audience reaction was enough to make Rose believe she had happened upon something special. The idea eventually blossomed into her vastly popular "Wild Women of Song" show, which she'll perform as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival on Saturday at the Herbst Theatre. The multimedia experience is equal parts concert and history lesson.
Rose and her talented band -- which, for the SFJazz gig, consists of saxophonist Kristen Strom, pianist Tammy Hall, guitarist Jeff Massanari, bassist John Shifflett, drummer Allison Miller and guest vocalist Denise Perrier -- perform jazz and blues tunes hailing from what Rose calls "the Golden Era of jazz, which went from approximately 1920 to 1950."
The music is accompanied by a slide show of pictures of the songwriters and a script that provides details of the composers' lives. The result is something far more meaningful than just a pleasant evening of music. "It's like putting on a play," Rose says. "We are sort of reconstructing this era for people."
First, however, she had to reconstruct it for herself. Rose freely admits that she initially knew very little about some of the songwriters she wanted to focus on. She was familiar with some of the bigger names, such as Ida Cox, Dorothy Fields and Peggy Lee, but there were others she'd never heard of -- even though she'd known their songs for years. Rose had her work cut out for her. Fortunately, she doesn't mind research, especially when it unearths incredible tales of some of popular music's most sorely neglected figures. "I used to be a literature major at UC Berkeley," she says. "I'm fascinated with a well-told story." "I was so moved by some of their stories," she adds.
That's evident on "Wild Women of Song: Great Gal Composers of the Jazz Era," the 2009 CD that arose from Rose's passion for the subject. The album features Rose covering songs by Kay Swift, Doris Fisher, Bernice Petkere, Maria Grever and many others.
The show routinely draws rave reviews from fans and critics. Notably, her set at this year's Monterey Jazz Festival -- an event that also featured such heavyweights as Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Hiromi, Poncho Sanchez and Joshua Redman -- certainly had people buzzing.
"I was a little bit nervous," Rose remarks of performing at Monterey. "It's a big deal." Yet, Monterey is just one sign of how far "Wild Women" has taken Rose. The CD, Rose's fifth overall, has been a hit with fans on both sides of the Atlantic and has led to performances before capacity crowds in New York and London. Then, of course, there's Saturday's Herbst date, which is a major showcase -- especially for a local artist. Things could get even wilder for Rose in the near future. Her SFJazz show doubles as a release party for her new book, also titled "Wild Women of Song: Great Gal Composers of the Jazz Era," an 80-page color paperbound offering that provides even more details about the subjects. The book also includes a 44-minute CD, mostly featuring tracks from the original "Wild Women" album. All of this, Rose hopes, will serve to shed some light on some deserving -- and, in some cases, nearly forgotten -- figures in music history.
"I think there is this classic view that everyone who was involved in writing the Great American Songbook were all men in hats at the Brill Building, in cubicles, chomping on cigars," Rose says. "I just want people to remember (these women's) names."