Today we posted three demos from the Hip-Hop Symphony:
Sweet Memory (feat. joe Bagale, Dublin and Karyn Paige)
Darkness/Light (feat. Karyn Paige, Aima and Joe Bagale)
and
Community (feat. Dublin, Seneca, Gedeon, Aima, Karyn Paige and Joe Bagale)
all instruments & beats by Adam

SO today was the first full orchestra rehearsal for the Hip-Hop Symphony I've been writing for most of the past year. I've been wanting to write more about the writing of it (haha) but when I'm not on the computer composing/orchestrating the music, or dealing with hundreds of emails from the 50 musicians in the band,  the last thing I've wanted to do is be on the computer typing up a blog. I'm trying to make it happen tho. Wish me luck! I'll try to write more on some of the other areas of the project like composing and orchestrating the music, the specific songs, the players, the instruments, the drama...all that stuff so stay tuned.

So today was amazing! We had about 40 of the 50 musicians all in one room for 3 hours and got through about half the material for the show on April 18th. I've spent about 6 months of the past year writing the music by myself in my room, about 3 months collaborating with the vocalists and recording their tracks on demos at my house and then the past few months we've been working with the rhythm section and singers at least once a week in my living room (up to about 15-or 20 people sometimes). It's kinda like a party. Once time I gave Matt Berkeley 20 bucks to feed the whole band, he came thru like a champ and he and Seneca cooked up some great pasta and sauce.

Anyway, so today was killer cause it was the first time most of the band played together and Lyrics Born also came through and showed us what he had written for two of my songs. I LOVED IT. LB is one of my all time favorite rapper/artists and to have him write something to some music that already meant so much to me...well, it made me freak out a little bit! Here I am, in a room with 40 of my favorite musicians, playing songs I've waited all year to hear, with Lyrics Born showing me what he wrote and asking me if I like it. Crazy. What he wrote completely tied together the song "Community 2.0" and made it complete. The Finale of the Piece "At My Window" features LB, Dublin and Seneca and we got to hear how that one sounded as well. Funny thing, that song is still being written - in fact, that's what I should be doing now instead of typing this note.

We also worked on two of Lyrics Born's own songs for the second half of the concert which will be more informal, fun and include mostly orchestrated versions of songs by The Shotgun Wedding Quintet, Realistic Orchestra, Joe Bagale etc...The two LB tunes are his hit "Hott 2 Deff" and one of my all time favorites of his, the lesser known "Over you". For Hott 2 Deff it was especially fun doing the orchestration cause a few years ago we were in the studio recording the parts I'd written for just three horns - Now having 17 horns, 15 strings, 2 drumsets, 2 basses,  8 vocalists...all at my fingertips, it was quite an adventure. I really like the way it came out. I can't wait to play it for Uriah, my best homie who plays in LB's band and will be featured sitting-in on the song at our concert.

The second Lyrics Born original we're doing in the second half of the show is "Over you" which features his wife Joyo Velarde on his record and the music is by DJ Shadow. In  our production Karyn Paige and Joe Bagale are singing the beautiful harmony parts over a kinda updated orchestral feel based on the vibe of James Brown's "It's a man's world". This song really adds a nice smoky feel to the set.

I was amazed at how well the musicians digested all the different musical styles and influences in the rehearsal setting. The string section were all some of the best musicians from the SF Bay area, including Anthony Blea, one of my favorite Classical and Salsa violnists. They played everything I wrote first try. The brass are all very used to my writing in Realistic Orchestra so they kinda knew what to expect but I'm trying my best to challenge them next week when we hit the more instrumental-based songs. I want to make them sweat!!! The 5 Saxes of Realistic Orchestra are now 7 in this expanded band and 4 of them are constantly changing instruments including 2 bassclarinets (my favorite!) clarinets, bass flute, alto flute, C flute, piccolo and more. I'm hoping to fnally brig out a side of the reeds section that we rarely get to experience. Wish me luck!

The vocal angle of the Symphony has really taken shape and become solid in the past few months. Joe Bagale has written some amazing ensemble singing to a few of the tunes. I'm deeply indebted to Joe for his hard work on this project. Dublin has been in charge of the overall lyrical direction and has written and arranged some very innovative material as always. All the vocalists have composed their own lyrics to themes that Dublin and I came up with and talked with everyone about a lot. It was a really interesting way to work with 8 people who don't really read music as a whole. What we would do is create demos and email them back and forth and each person would write to the week's most recent demo. I LOVE working this way and surprisingly, it didn't get that confusing. I definitely wanna do more of this! The demos are also really fun to listen to...My goal is to post them in some of my "spare" time this week. Again, wish me luck!

One of the other most impressive parts of the rehearsal today was the positive vibes that everyone was glowing with. I felt like everyone who was there really WANTED to be there and felt like a part of something really big. That makes a big difference as a bandleader. I'm even more excited about the next few rehearsals as we dig deeper into the other songs.

We finished the day off by all cruising across the street into an alley and taking a huge Jazz Mafia photo for the newspapers.I think at first many of us just wanted to get out of there and go on our way but as soon as we all got into a formation of about 50 people for the pic it felt like even more of a huge close-knit musical family. Documenting something like that in a simple photo has taken YEARS - so if anything, at least I finally got a picture with MOST of the jazz mafia in it...haha

Wednesday, December 17th Supertaster will be paying tribute to the music of
A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul with special guests Dublin (The shotgun Wedding Quintet), Gedeon (Sidewalk Development), Adam Theis, Jon Monahan, Matt Berkeley and many guests. We'll be rocking classic breaks all night plus DJ Aspect McCarthy on the Turntables.
Royale is located in San Francisco's North Beach on Grant Ave between Vallejo and Green
www.myspace.com/royalnorthbeach
10pm-2am
21+
$5
email Adam for guestlist
adam@jazzmafia.com

*********************************************
JAZZ MAFIA INCLUDES:
*********************************************

* The Shotgun Wedding Quintet
* Realistic Orchestra
* Brass Mafia
* The Shotgun Wedding Hip-Hop Symphony
* Spaceheater
* Supertaster
* Joe Bagale
*Adam Theis
*Dublin
and much more

• • • •
Upcoming Shows
• • • •
Wednesday, November 26th (tonight!)
Supertaster feat. Karyn Paige, Joe Bagale plus Gedeon and many guests
with
Adam Theis (Realistic Orchestra, The Shotgun Wedding Quintet)
Jon Monahan (Felonious, Dynamic)
Matt Berkely (Wisdom, Reorchestra)
plus DJ Johnny Vinetti!!
Wednesday Night Sessions @ Royale
10pm-2am
www.myspace.com/royalenorthbeach

Saturday, November 29th
Supertaster feat. Karyn Paige, Joe Bagale
Adam Theis, Jon Monahan and Matt Berkeley
with guests!
@ Mojito in North Beach!
10-1:30am
www.mojitosf.com

also
Saturday, November 29th
4 OneFunktion @ Elbo Room
4 OneFunk band (featuring Pat Dub on drums
Teeko, Max Kane and Colin Brown) and more…

Thursday, December 4th
J Boogie's Dubtronic Science (North Bay CD Release)
with Jazz Mafia Horns: Adam Theis, Evan Francis and Rich Armstrong
@ Hopmonk - Juke Joint Party in Sebastopol - my hometown WHAT!
www.hopmonk.com
www.jboogie.com

Friday, December 13th
Brass Mafia performing with Peter Rowan and TONS of guests
@ The Warfiled in San francisco
plus: Peter Rowan with Family & Friends, including: The Rowan Brothers, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Crucial Reggae with legendary musicians Fully Fullwood & Tony Chin & the Peter Rowan Blue Grass Band Michael Kang with Panjea Jackie Greene… MORE

Saturday December 26th
The Shotgun Wedding Quintet
@ Hopmonk Brewery in Sebastopol
www.hopmonk.com

• • • •
WEEKLY SHOWS
• • • •

Every Sunday:
Supertaster feat. Ms.Karyn Paige
"Soul Sundays" @ Farmer Brown
11am-2pm no cover
$15 Soul Food Buffet
www.farmerbrownsf.com

Every Monday: Aspect McCarthy DJs at Dalva 16th and Valencia
www.myspace.com/dalva_cocktails

Every Wednesday: Wednesday Night Sessions at Royale. The Park and Supertaster alternate check local listings for schedule

Every Friday - San Soulful: Aspect McCarthy, Johnny Venetti hosted by Gedeon @ Koko's Cocktails in SF

• • • •
News
• • • •
Just announced: Lyrics Born will be a special guest vocalist in the 50 Piece Mega Symphony "Beats Bows and Brass" premiering on April 18th 2009 @ The Palace of Fine Arts. Performing alongside LB will be Dublin, Aima, Joe Bagale and Karyn Paige. The Orchestra will feature tons of your favorite Jazz Mafia players written, arranged, and led by Adam Theis. For more information go HERE

• • • •
re: The End of An Era: Jazz Mafia Tuesdays come to an end at Brunos
• • • •
Sorry for the miscommunication about when Tuesdays actually ended - For the record there are no more Jazz Mafia Tuesdays at Brunos and we are currently in negotiations with many clubs to start up again in the new year - If you want more information on what happened you can read the article in the SF Weekly from November 19th HERE
For a comprehensive story of Jazz Mafia Tuesdays since the beginning 8 years ago, click HERE

• • • •
ALL New Recordings featuring Jazz Mafia READ BELOW

• • • •
J Boogie's Dubtronic Science
• • • •

J Boogie's Dubtronic Science "Soul Vibrations" is available now!
The album features the Jazz Mafia horns on most tracks as well as an awesome lineup of Bay area celebrities.
The video for the song "Inferno" was just featured on the YouTube front page, and has garnered 86,000 views.
The album has been selling great on iTunes, and hit 3 in the electronic album charts the first week.
iTunes link: important to please rate and comment!
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=288945836&s=143441

Amazon.com link:
http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Vibrations-Boogies-Dubtronic-Science/dp/B001CVCBRG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1222287454&sr=8-2

Album preview and press website:
http://filez.om-records.com/flash/jboogie/home/
Om Records:
http://www.om-records.com/artists/j-boogie's_dubtronic_science
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/dubtronicscience
Blog:
http://www.dubtronicscience.blogspot.com
Facebook:
http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=582620548&v=info&viewas=582620548&pub=2309869772
Website:
http://www.jboogie.com
Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/dubtronicscience

• • • •
The Mighty Underdogs "Droppin' Science Fiction
• • • •

The Mighty Underdogs "Droppin Science Fiction" is out now! Featuring all music and beats produced by Headnodic (Crown City Rockers) with Lateef and Gift of Gab (Blackalicious) on vocals. The album includes Jazz Mafia Horns on three cuts as well as MF Doom, Julian and Damian Marley, Casual, Lyrics Born, Akrobatic, Mr. Lif, DJ Shadow, Chali 2na, Tash, Zion, Raashan Ahmad and more. The album is available thru itunes, emusic and many other outlets.
• • • •
Crown City Rockers EP
• • • •

Crown City Rockers have released an EP promoting their upcoming album in early 2009. The track Restless includes a version of Jazz Mafia horns including Adam Theis, Kasey Knudsen and Erik Jekabson. You can listen to the EP at www.crowncityrockers.com

• • • •
Zion-I "Search and Seizure" Mixtape
• • • •

Zion I "Search and Seizure" Mixtape Free Download
Adam and Headnodic (Crown City Rockers) did a little interlude towards the end of side one
Their full length album "The Takeover" comes out in January and features Jazz Mafia horns on a few tracks. This will be our third album with them!
To download the mixtape:
http://www.zionicrew.com/mixtape/
to hear the original version of Headnodic and Adam's song go to Adam's Myspace page HERE

PLUS EXCLUSIVE VERSES FROM
DEL THE FUNKYHOMOSAPIEN, MICKEY FACTZ, DILATED PEOPLES(RAKAA), TALIB KWELI,
SANTOGOLD RMX, THE GROUCH, KFLAY, & MORE!!
• • • •
Los Angelitos "See you at the Club"
• • • •
Ok, well this one qualifies for "Blast from the past" of the month. I was searching on emusic.com for some rare jazz album and I see a record from a group called Los Angelitos. Me and many other Bay Area musicians played in that band in the late 90s, it was a very popular group but unfortunately disbanded before the album we recorded was finished. Somehow the album got "finished" by adding a live track, making it 8 songs, which would've been a normal length back in the 50s…but anyway, check it out of you want to get a taste for what San Francisco soul/latin/funk sounded like when the livin' was easy and everyone had a dot come job. The album is available on itunes and emusic.com
players include: Piero El Malo, Dave Tweedie, Adam Theis, Dave Chachere, Bob Craford, Tim Crawford, Dan Eisenberg, Rand Singer and more…

• • • •
Lyrics Born "Everywhere at Once"
• • • •

The newest album from Bay Area Celebrity Lyrics Born was released in April. That was 7 months ago, so it's not "new" but it has a great cover so i wanted to include it for esthetic purposes, ok? The album features the Jazz Mafia Horns and horn arrangements by Adam Theis. Listen for the horns on the tracks "Don't Change, Hot to Deff, The Skin I'm in, Rules were meant to be broken, Whispers and I Can't Decide".

You get bonus points if you can pick out Adam rockin the sousaphone on one of the tracks. Also Uriah Duffy's insanely grooving bass lines are worth the price of the album alone.

• • • •
New Jazz Mafia T-Shrts by Rachel Hornaday
• • • •
Rachel has a new batch of limited edition T-Shirts, she'll be selling them at Bruno's for the next few weeks. The shirts will be available online soon but for now gotta come to the shows to get em.
$15 each womens sizes S, M mens sizes S, M, L, assorted colors

• • • •
Join Jazz Mafia on Twitter
• • • •
Are you the kind of person that would like to get a message on your phone when MC Hammer shows up to Zeitgeist with Will. I. Am? Well, if you do, then you are like me and Derek Taylor and you should link up with us at www.twitter.com/jazzmafia
We will be using it to send out last minute unannounced info on shows, parties, after-hours hangs, surprise guests and stuff that our weekly (at the most) updates can't cover.
• • • •
Submit playlists for www.jazzmafia.com
• • • •
New amazing technology is at hand my people!!! go to www.mixpod.com
sing up and create your own online mix. I'd suggest the video player but the mp3 one is cool too. It's free, takes like 2 minutes and you can share the music with all the rest of us. Just email me the link or the code for your playist and I'll post it at jazzmafia.com
The imixes draw from youtube and anywhere online where mp3s are available so you can find most any song ever.

• • • •
That's it for now kids. This took a few hours longer than I planned. Have a great Thanksgiving. Oh yeah, if anyone is gonna be in the North Bay for Thanksgiving evening, some of us are gonna get a drink in Santa Rosa after visiting family. Drop me a line if you want to join.

OH! Also - A large crew of folks including me, Uriah Duffy, Rachel Hornaday… are gonna be in and around Sayulita, Mexico from roughly Jan 1st thru Jan 12th. If you are gonna be traveling to Mexico during that time, or wanna take a trip and connect with us, let me know!

Adam Theis
415.637.3865 (c)
www.jazzmafia.com
www.myspace.com/adamtheis
www.myspace.com/jazzmafia
www.myspace.com/theshotgunweddingquintet
www.myspace.com/supertastersf
www.myspace.com/brassmafia
www.myspace.com/grandjunctionband
www.flickr.com//jazzmafia
www.flickr.com/adamtheis

ZION I THE SEARCH & THE SEIZURE MIX TAPE
Adam and Headnodic (Crown City Rockers) did a little interlude towards the end of side one
PLUS EXCLUSIVE VERSES FROM
DEL THE FUNKYHOMOSAPIEN, MICKEY FACTZ, DILATED PEOPLES(RAKAA), TALIB KWELI,
SANTOGOLD RMX, THE GROUCH, KFLAY, & MORE!!

FREE DOWNLOAD BELOW....
http://www.zionicrew.com/mixtape/

The Final Jazz Mafia Tuesday at Brunos was on 10/28/08 and was the Shotgun Wedding Hip-Hop Symphony 5 Year Anniversary. There won't be any more Jazz Mafia Events at Brunos. Me and the Jazz Mafia have went our separate ways from Brunos and are not in communications with them anymore.

Jazz Mafia Tuesdays were supposed to end at the beginning of December but In the past week emotions were running very high and I said some things in an email that I shouldn't have said, which caused the owners of Brunos to close the doors on Jazz Mafia Tuesdays right before our show Tues Nov 11th. Even though at the time of writing that email I felt like what I was saying wasn't unprofessional or inappropriate, looking back now I wish i would have not said some of the things I did. It wasn't worth not getting to play all the amazing music we had planned for our last 3 weeks of Tuesdays. Sorry y'all!

For more information you can read the post below but basically the club didn't feel like Tuesdays were profitable enough for them and for us, because of the popularity of the night, we were looking to move to a venue that could fit more people and not be so crowded; so a change of scene was kinda needed by both parties involved. Unfortunately there were some egos bruised on both sides and people felt like they weren't being respected and being given the credit that they were due. In the past two years of Tuesdays at Brunos there was very little communication between us and the club about how to improve the night and make it better for both sides. That is most likely why things ended so messed up.

Like I said, the original message I sent said some things that offended the owners of Brunos and I'm not in the business of trying to hurt anyone or put anyone out of business. So here is a revised version that tries to explain a little of both sides:
>>>
Brunos is and always has been a special place to me, it was one of the hottest clubs to play and and see music at when I first moved to SF 10 years ago. Even in it's ups and downs through various owner/management changes and remodels I've always managed to keep my bands playing there and people always have continued to show up, which is a testament to the good times people have had there in that small cozy room referred to as the "cork club" for the past 15 years or so. Eric Garland, Dublin, Aspect McCarthy and I have played there in our various bands since the late 90s and moved our regular Tuesdays there in 2002 from Black Cat/Blue Bar - I've probably played there over 500 times. Crazy.

When the new owners took over Brunos 3 years ago they did a full rennovation that took almost a year and changed things a lot. In the Cork Club they put in a new sound system for the bands and DJs and hired the talented Chris Fletcher as a sound engineer which were good choices. They also put in an AC/ventilation system, which was much needed. Me and my musicians feel like most of the other decisions made to "improve" the club were done so without consulting any experts or people who have experience in live music venues etc...Spending lots of money on rebuilding the stage twice, each time decreasing it's size and then installing a giant DJ Booth was one of the things that makes it difficult for a band to play there. The owners felt like they were going out of their way to make things better and we felt frustrated that they were wasting money on things that were not helping, or were even hurting - The Giant second set of speakers they installed ON the stage made it smaller for a 3rd time - so small that now a 4 piece band can barely fit on it. Week after week of playing there it felt like each time there was a new hurdle that we had to jump over. The club apperently also felt the same - They said that on Tuesdays our patrons "trashed" the place and that there were other problems that our night brought the club.

Another thing that confused me and many people is why the club has never put an ad in the paper saying they have live music and many people still think the club is closed due to their lack of publicity. Even an ad saying "hey! brunos is open!" would've helped I'm sure.

Even with these problems we've managed to have a great run and the last two years have been the most successful we've ever had with many capacity/sold out nights. We are currently in negotiations with two other places that we are considering moving JM Tuesdays too - I'd imagine that even if we do secure a new venue we will take Tuesdays off until at least mid January. I am also getting kind of burnt on doing the bulk of the producing for the events so I will be looking for a promoter to work with on producing bigger and better Tuesdays when we get to that point. If you'd like to read more about the history of Jazz Mafia Tuesdays I wrote a more extensive article at:
www.jazzmafia.com/jazz-mafia-tuesdays-brunos/

I'd like to thank all the musicians and folks who have helped out thru the past 6 years of JM Tuesdays at Brunos. Special shout-outs go to Mark Rosenberg, Steve Redell, Bill Evans, Fletch and Baytaper.com for their documentation in photos video and audio. Also thanks to the staff at Brunos who have always been SUPER cool to us and to those who stood up for us. Many promoters have helped spread the word and helped immensely: Davin Showy McShow, Biss List, Tom Montgomery, Eli Spector, Caren Rueven… Our door people: Rachel Hornaday, Danny Grewen, Steve Redell, Chumpchange Charles, Big Ken, Ryan Greene...All the regular Tuesday freaks are the backbone too, so hugs to y'all…you know who you are!