JoVia Armstrong (shown at The Mitch in May with Destiny Muhammad) leads her Eunoia Society quartet Friday at Palo Alto Art Center by Earthwise

This is a bit redundant of Tuesday’s post, if you are a serial reader of Plastic Alto: I have four more productions, and a total of five shows coming up. Things are a little slow at the box office. So I am writing as a way to work out my marketing plan for these next 18 (edit: 15) days. Is writing a type of prayer? Will people read this and buy tickets? Go to “eventbrite” plus “earthwise”. Link TK.

First: JoVia Armstrong Eunoia Society cd release party — Bay Area exclusive – -Friday, November 3 at Palo Alto Art Center; her band includes co-leader Leslie DeShazor, Brett Farkas and Hubert Anthony Crawford. They hail from Virginia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. I am reading Sun Ra by Szwed (1998) as prep. 

Second: Ben Goldberg combo, Thursday, November 16, Palo Alto Art Center — the same band more or less plays SFJazz that week; they include: Ben Goldberg, Will Bernard, Hamir Atwal, Ben Davis the cellist; 

Third: Anat Cohen duo with her husband Marcello Goncalves 7-string guitar– Mitchell Park Community Center; fourth, same show repeats, early and late shows, etc. This is the number one clarinet player in jazz, with a strong history working with Stanford Jazz Workshop; and is Israeli’s top musician –during, for better or for worse, but its hard to argue that this is good, a lot of attention these days because of the conflict — war — in the Middle East — there is some concern that pro-Palestinian activists would try to disrupt or heckle at our show. Although I did run into the Rev. Kaloma Smith – who says Rabbi Booth is “one of my best friends” — and they did a vigil together last week — the same time as my Todd Sickafoose show — and he said he felt it very unlikely my profile of activists wanting to disrupt a concert. I think his word for music was “healing” or something like that. He didn’t know he was being interviewed – he was not being interviewed. But I think it is worth mentioning him and his work in this context. He also said he has been to Jordan and Israel recently. I meanwhile mentioned “Bob Marley and Boots Riley” who I claim blame capitalism. And I am not sure how this passage sells concert tickets.

John Wooden the very successful UCLA basketball coach is the one who said, among other things, and a whole Pyramid of wisdom BE QUICK BUT DON’T HURRY.

He also coached Lew Alcindor who is even better known as Kareem Abdul Jabbar. My favorite muslim, way more so than Mo Salah. I saw Kareem at LAX once. I never saw Muhammad Ali, except on tv or in the movies: Bo-may-ee! If Kareem is the best Muslim hoopster of all time, the best Jewish player is Dolph Schayes (1928-2015) and in a meta note I tagged this essay “jewish” and had never used that term as a tag before. Although I use “ethniceities” as a euphemism as a category. 

I meant to say to Kaloma, before his appointment showed up, that I was working with Ben Goldberg, a Jew, Anat Cohen an Israeli back to back but then zipping up to the City on Saturday to see and hear but not likely meet or greet Abdullah Ibrahim – -who some knew as Dollar Brand.

I paid Stanford students twice to learn and perform Soweto by Abdullah Ibrahim. Soweto is a contraction of South West Township of Capetown.

And Kim Porteus is at Stanford for a few months – I saw her for the first time in 35 years. She works in South Africa for the Nelson Mandela Education Foundation. She said she was interested in seeing Abdullah Ibrahim.

I ran into Michael McFaul, son of a music teacher, who took me to see The Dead at Berkeley with our respective ladies in spring 1982. Good omen, not sure how that helps sell those 1,000 seats.

EventBrite lists me as having 382 followers.

But I eschew other social media.

This post might end up with 50 readers.

I might hit up KCSM to promote Ben, Jovia, Anit shows. Why wouldn’t they?

As of 8 a.m. Thursday: 11/3: 3/254; 11/11: 12/543; 11/16: 1/67; 11/17-1: 28/132; 11/17-2: 8/149. That’s a total capacity of: 800. Total sales: 52; total page views: one thousand forty five. 

I might hit up the JCC to promote Anat Cohen.

I might hit up The Guild who are more like my competition to promote Anat Cohen. Maybe they would promote The Young Dubliners as well, which is 11/11. Maybe doing a show on 1111 means something, especially in the base 2 world of computers and its geographic nexus here.

Maybe the art center would promote Jovia because she did the soundtrack for Black Index which appeared there.

Thank you Julie Lythcott Haims for promoting so many of my shows this year.

I could also make a poster at Copy Factory on El Camino South Palo Alto Ventura – Todd Axtel.

I could hire Gene Mahoney the poster distro guru. (And I remember when “guru” was a religious term).

As its been said already let it be done. Come on!

I am Leslie DeShazor and I approve this message

edit to add: opening act for Young Dubs is Finians Call trio, who I scouted at a micro brew in Princeton By the Sea, near the Fred Herring fish-homes. And, truth be told, and not to loose lips sink ships, or flood live work spaces that look like fish, but I have something something not on books but on the hooks already for winter 2024 but I am pretending that’s not true to focus for two weeks on marketing per se, of these five shows, that I call four productions and five sets. its complicated. Africa unite. And as Malcolm P Harris says Stanford could or should give “back” to Muwekma Ohlone 8,000 acres AND we the people of Palo Alto and vicinity could buy 800 seats to Earthwise. And the First Amendment means you can swing your fist to within an inch of my nose. And you can express your oversimplified and potentially blood-libelous political solution within about 500 feet of Anat Cohen at 3700 Middlefield Road. But I hope Rev is right that music unites more than attracts a nuisance or worse. 

Thanks Matt Merewitz of Fully Altered for promoting JoVia and other thoughts. 

edit to add: Jovia’s bio: