Gyedu-Blay Ambolley & The Sekondi Band, with Mitchum Yacoub
It is beyond unlikely that Ghanaian highlife-music legend Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, 78, is performing in San Diego next week only two months after Ghanaian highlife-music pioneer Ebo Taylor, 89, performed here in May. It’s even more serendipitous — and significant — since Ambolley credits Taylor as a key artistic inspiration.
Ambolley has more than 30 albums to his credit and has blazed a highly distinctive path with simigwa music. his propulsive fusion of highlife, jazz, funk, soul and rap.
His 2022 album, “Highlife Jazz,” features Ambolley’s ebullient original songs and his delightful, dance-happy reinventions of such jazz classics as John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” Miles Davis’ “All Blues,” Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” and Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints.”
Here’s hoping he’ll include a few of them at his concert here, which will feature Ambolley and his eight-man Sekondi Band band performing his superb 1975 debut album, “Simigwa Do,” in its entirety.
The album was banned from airplay in his homeland by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, which apparently objected to its sometimes politically-charged and sexually suggestive lyrics. Thirty-eight years later, Ambolley received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 Ghana Music Awards. Although he lived for a number of years in Los Angeles,
I have no recollection of Ambolley having ever performed in San Diego before. Do you?
9 p.m. Tuesday, July 22. Music Box, 1337 India Street, San Diego. $38.30-$162 (must be 21 or older to attend). musicboxsd.com
Bassist Nathan East, left, and his son, keyboardist Noah East, recently released their first duo album, “Father Son.” (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The Cream of Clapton Band, featuring Nathan East & Steve Ferrone
Eric Clapton won’t be performing at UC San Diego this weekend, but San Diego-bred bass great Nathan East — a core member of Clapton’s band since the 1980s — will be featured.
So will drummer Steve Ferrone, who played alongside East in Clapton’s band for six years and then anchored Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers from 1994 until Petty’s death in 2017.
East and Ferrone’s concert here will be a family affair.
Cream of Clapton Band keyboardist is East’s 25-year-old son, Noah. Its guitarist, Will Johns, is Clapton’s nephew.
The group will focus on songs from two Eric Clapton albums that feature Nathan East and Ferrone, 1992’s 26-million-selling “Unplugged,” and 1991’s “24 Nights.”
The concert will open with a set by Noah and Nathan East, a UCSD alum, They recently released their gently absorbing first album together, “Father Son.”
7 p.m. Friday, July 18. Epstein Family Amphitheater, UC San Diego, 9480 Innovation Lane, La Jolla. $25-$68 (free for UCSD students). artpower.ucsd.edu
The Italian rock band Giuda returns to San Diego for a concert at the Casbah next Thursday, June 24. (Photo courtesy Casbah)
Giuda, with Lower Class Brats and Menstrual Tramps
Formed in 2007, the Rome-based band Giuda has yet to achieve the high-profile of Måneskin, the Rome-based band that formed in 2017 and went on to become the biggest Italian rock act ever in its homeland and abroad.
Both bands are heavily inspired by music of a bygone era.
For Giuda, it’s a bit of AC/DC but mainly the glam-rock of the 1970s, including T. Rex, Slade, The Sweet, Suzi Quatro and Iron Virgin.
For Måneskin, it’s The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers and White Stripes, combined with the genre-bending look of glam-rock.
While the three-man, one-woman Måneskin’s members wear lots of makeup and enjoy crossdressing on stage, the five-man Giuda has almost no image to speak of, preferring to lets its music speak for itself.
And while Måneskin’s glitzy, paint-by-numbers songs appear to be devoid of humor (or, at least, intentional humor), Giuda clearly does not take itself too seriously.
Witness such Giuda favorites as “Bonehead Waltz,” “Far Boy Boogie” and “Get That Goal,” whose soccer-stadium-chant-punctuated lyrics celebrate the band purportedly having won the World Cup.
When? Where? Against which team? Giuda isn’t elaborating, but its hard-rocking music nearly says it all.
8:30 p.m. next Thursday, July 24. The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Bvd., Middletown. $24.74 (must be 21 or older to attend). casbahmusic.com