I don’t have a permit but I am paying two musicians, David Boyce and Philip Greenlief, to play a concert at Lytton Plaza on Saturday, October 16, 2021.

If for some reason the plaza is not available for such an event, we are likely to both the whole show, two men and their instruments, across the street to the foyer of The Stanford Theatre which is resonant yet has been uneventful since March of 2020.

David Boyce and his trio Broun Fellinis played Earthwise’ The Cubberley Sessions twice, back in the day. Once with New Orleans Klezmer All Stars, once with some rappers in EPA led by Heru Hall.  They were advertised in a poster for a third show,  opening for Oliver Lake but pulled out at the last minute and were replaced by Noe Venable. I saw David Boyce more recently in a sextet that played along to the silent film “Hands of Orlac” in October, 2019.

Philip Greenlief I know thru his collaboration with Scott Amendola. He did a show in 2019 at Palo Alto Art Center. Or maybe at The Mitch. I think with Trevor Dunn. He did a solo show at Mitchell Park outdoors on July 31, 2021, my first concert in many months. It was supposed to be with Amendola, but the drummer felt ill and decided against coming. Philip did jam a bit with Motoko Honda but mainly just did one long improv of about 30 minutes duration.

Atlhough they will not perform together, Jonathan Lagunta Bautiista of Palo Alto will perform on alto sax at 2:45 Saturday. Notably, Jonathan will play an instrument that I bought after seeing an ad in a local newspaper a few years ago, 2019. The seller lived on Portola Street in Los Altos. I paid $250 for it. It was 250 years before that that Portola noticed an alto. Lagunta also played with John Santos and Melicio Magdalayo a cameo in 2019.

David and I have known each other for quite some time, but we didn’t start playing together until 2006, when I began teaching at the San Francisco Waldorf High School (where he teaches World Music). I realized then that I had never really had a duo with another tenor player – and it’s so good because we have such a deep love for the instrument. We have never talked about using compositions, it was just understood without ever saying anything that we would be an improvising unit and so the music has evolved naturally.

Also:

Our music has a range – both in the way that we lead and accompany each other, but also in the way that we use the duo to explore the horn and it’s rich history. We have spent many hours listening to tenor players together – something that doesn’t seem to happen a lot in our fast paced world – and have enjoyed an ongoing conversation about the instrument over the past 15 years, both on stage and off.

and:

lastly: this is likely the lastly event I produce at Lytton Plaza this year, although I do have Mary Gauthier at Mitchell Park the next day, Sunday October 17 at 2 pm. Sylvie Simmons will be mistress of ceremony. Two doctors from Stanford’s “Med Muse” program, Tamara Dunn and Terrigal Burn, open the show. Jaimee Harris also appears, with Mary Gauthier. I, Mark Weiss of Earthwise Productions and Plastic Alto, will do next to nothing. Maybe nothing at all. I.e. let Sylvie run the show. Sylvie appeared in fall, 2019 at Cubberley H-1 with Matt The Electrician (who might have been helpful last week at Cogswell Plaza). Sylvie Simmons returns to Palo Alto for an Earthwise Productions event at The Mitch, A Tribute to Leonard Cohen. On November 20 at The Mitch is a triple bill with Barbara Manning SF Seals, The Corner Laughers and Clean Girl and The Dirty Dishes. Then maybe just glorious John Cage like pregnant poise and pause and silent and found sound until the weekend of January 28, the next year when a jazz musican from New York named Caroline Davis will play a show, two shows, perhaps three shows or more. With her band. More sax. Very saxy, even. 

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I’m watching “Lost in Translation” with Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson, from 2003. Should be good for a few liffs — which is a cross between “laughs” and “riffs”.