Anthony Blea: Two Worlds, Four Strings

by Wesley Watkins

When most people meet Anthony Blea, they have no idea he's a violinist. Even when music comes up in conversation, the exchange goes something like this:

"Oh, you're a musician?"

"Yeah, I'm a musician."

"Oh! What do you play?"

"What do you think I play?"

"Drums."

"No."

"Trumpet."

"No."

"Piano!"

"No."

"They never ever guess violin," marvels Blea. However, in the next breath he admits, "I guess I prefer it that way. I've never been into being a predictable person."

This was true when it came to one of Blea's primary interests as a child: sports. He was the kid who team captains would always pick last for schoolyard football games because he was short. Then the game started, and it became apparent that Blea was not only coordinated, he was fast-very fa

st. He'd burn the competition. After that first game Blea was always the first pick: "I got little man."

Little man is a fitting title for the budding violinist that was hidden in young Blea's diminutive frame. Wonder kid is another. Encouraged to audition for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at age 11, Blea was awarded a full scholarship, and sports went by the wayside. "Once I got into the conservatory, [violin] took over."

He first heard violin from his grandfather, who played a style of music from New Mexico that Blea has never heard anywhere else. He was immediately mesmerized by it. "I loved the sound.... I've always loved violin. Nobody told me to love it. Nobody told me that I should play it. I wanted to do it." Yet and still, Blea-of Mexican American descent-realizes that becoming a violinist is somewhat of a freak occurrence.

"I grew up in Bernal Heights where every nationality was represented. If you were Caucasian, you were the minority.... Nobody I knew played the violin. When I went to the conservatory that's obviously where I met people who played music, but they didn't live in my neighborhood. So it was kind of like two different worlds."

Some might liken this to the two distinct genres in which Blea finds equal comfort: classical and Latin. With a Bachelor's Degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Masters from the San Francisco Conservatory, Blea has also played with legendary Cuban bassist, Israel "Cachao" Lopez, and some of the Bay Area's best Latin Jazz and Charanga bands-including his own. But for Blea, while playing across, or even within genres requires certain nuances, his dedication to the music remains the same.

"When I'm playing classical music there's a difference between playing a concerto, there's a difference when you're playing in an orchestra, there's a difference if you're playing violin duets, and there's a difference in playing string quartets. Each little difference like that brings out another angle that you need to pay attention to, or that you have to stress. It's all violin playing-that's the commonality. I'm gonna pick up a violin and I'm gonna play it. If I'm playing in a Charanga band, nine times out of ten it's going to be way too loud, and I'm going to need my electric violin for that. So because of that there's going to be less subtleties. That's not to say that there shouldn't be subtleties within Charanga music, but when you're playing with a bass and piano and timbales and congas and singers and flute, and there are people dancing, and there's a sound system, and you're having a beer, that's a different experience. But I still strive to put 100% into that experience. I'm still the same violinist and I bring everything: all my training and all my experience to all of those situations."

Compared to the field of classical music where musicians are largely tasked with reproducing centuries old compositions, one might assume that the improvisational setting elicits more of Blea's unique voice, that a larger portion of that 100% shows up at a Charanga gig because the improvising musician is composing music at the spur of the moment. However, for Blea the process of creation is not quite so dichotomous, and certainly not more important than the opportunity to create in both settings.

"Anything that I end up playing is based upon something that I've done before. Nobody's picking up an instrument and just making up something totally new. That just doesn't happen.... [In the classical setting] the notes are there, but I still have to create it at that moment. Jazz or Latin or whatever improvisational stuff, that's a lot of fun in the sense where you don't have to worry about interpreting someone else's notes that they wrote down, or if you play something a little tiny bit out of tune, it's not the end of the world. But having said that, the music that I'm improvising isn't half as great as the music that Brahams and Beethoven wrote. So to be able to do both, to me, is really the part that I enjoy because there are a lot people that play Jazz that cannot play classical-or they just don't."

In both settings, Blea knows that feeling of other consciousness that some call "the zone."

"There are musicians that have never achieved that, and they don't know what that experience is like. I've been there. I can't say it happens every time I play, but I'm always looking for it, and you become like a junkie for that once you taste it.... It doesn't have to do so much with what type of music it is. The feeling might be a little different because of the different music. You know, if you're in a club and people are screaming and dancing loud, and the band is just killin', that's a great experience. It's amazing. It's not any better or worse, it's just totally different from playing a Beethoven quartet and getting that exactly the way that you imagined it should be."

Many who have played with him feel that Blea's own infectious sound and fierce ability can inspire an ensemble toward that place. But Blea is much more humble when it comes to his craft.

"If I'm playing in a group, I feel I'm just part of the voice.... I live with myself. I see myself. I can't look at myself like other people do. I'm with me all the time, so I'm not impressed so much by what I do. But every time you go and you pick up that instrument, and you sit down and play it, you have to prove yourself again. My best performance is my last performance."

Blea's next performance will be a rare opportunity to witness his voice in both classical and improvisatory contexts all in one night of music. This Sunday, February 14^th, he will feature The Musical Arts Quintet and The Anthony Blea Latin Jazz Sextet as part of the Tu Gusto Musical Sunday series at Coda. The string quintet will play Tango and Afro-Cuban compositions by bassist Sasch Jacobsen, with occasional percussion accompaniment from Oakland's Javier Navarrette. Both Jacobsen and Navarette will join Blea for the second set which will feature the tasty Charanga grooves that Blea has been playing since the late 70s when he was a member of Tipica Cienfuegos, John Santos' first band.

"Nobody ever gets to hear me playing a mix of stuff like that. People that know me from the classical world always say, 'When is your band playing? I want to come and hear you play.' People that have only heard me play Latin stuff, most of the time they don't even know that I play classical. So for them to get a chance to hear me play classical, I think, will be cool."

Cool indeed, the understated Blea will tell you, "I just show up and play," but the short kid from Bernal Heights is able to balance two worlds of music on the four strings of his violin. Sunday night at Coda is therefore an atypical musical event where one of the Bay Area's greatest home grown tal

ents will display a breadth of artistry few can match. You won't need your theatre glasses to see this violinist, but dancing shoes might just be in order.

Anthony Blea and Friends

Sunday, February 14th

Coda Supper Club

8pm / $10

Set 1 - The Musical Arts Quintet:

Sascha Jacobsen - bass

Shain Carrassco - cello

Charith  Premarwdahna - viola

Jory Fankuchen - violin

Anthony Blea - violin

Set 2 - The Anthony Blea Latin Jazz Sextet:

Anthony Blea - violin

Sascha Jacobsen - bass

Christian Tumalan - piano

Pepe Jacobo - drums

Javier Navarrette - congas

Rolf Johnson - trumpet

Saturday

February 13
Jesus Diaz y su QBA
@ Historic Sweet's Ballroom
www.bombomusic.com

"Heartbeat for Haiti"
Benefiting What If? Foundation and Partners in Health
With
Grateful Dead's Micky Hart
Giovanni Hidalgo, Sikiru Adepoju, Rebeca Mauleon!

Along with Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Linda Tillery, Gabe Harris, Brett Dennen, Amos Lee and a traditional Haitian drumming group

@ The Filmore Auditorium
Saturday, February 13 at 8pm

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart is organizing a "Heartbeat for Haiti" benefit concert Feb. 13 at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

"Considering the horror in Haiti, the magnitude of what is going on there, this is a small but heartfelt message of hope," Hart said. "The musical community here has a great dynamic and diversity, and one way we know how to give is through music. The Haitian people are suffering, and one way to help them is to sing back to them."

Hart is bringing together what he calls "the best of the best" in the rhythm business - conga drum master Giovanni Hidalgo, Nigerian percussionist Sikiru Adepoju and Latin jazz pianist Rebeca Mauleon.

They will be joined by platinum-selling rockers Big Head Todd and the Monsters, East Bay singer Linda Tillery, West African-style drummer Gabe Harris of Fairfax and the up-and-coming singer-songwriters Brett Dennen and Amos Lee. The show will include a Haitian drumming group.

Money from the show goes to the What If? Foundation, whose mission has been to care for impoverished children in Port-au-Prince, and Partners in Health, a 20-year-old organization bringingdesperately needed medical care to those injured in the earthquake.

An authority on the subject, he chronicles Haitian music in America from the 17th century Haitian slave revolt, the only successful one in modern history, and its subsequent exodus of Haitians to New Orleans as part of the black diaspora.

According to Hart, the Haitians who settled in the Big Easy were allowed to play their music on Sundays only at Lake Ponchartrain and in Congo Square, now part of Louis Armstrong Park.

The beneficiary, The What if? Foundation, Hart has chosen was founded in 2000 by Margaret Trost, a Northern California woman who first went to Haiti to heal a broken heart after her husband's untimely death.

Before the quake, her foundation paid for 7,500 meals a week for Haitian children, funded educational scholarships and supported a summer camp in Port-au-Prince. I can't even imagine the challenges they face now.

But it helped to know that Trost's favorite Creole saying is "Piti piti na rive," which translates to "little by little we will arrive." To her, that means "every act of love makes a difference, every prayer, every gift."

And in the case of this benefit, every beat of the drum.

Information:

- What: Mickey Hart's "Heartbeat for Haiti" benefit

- When: 8 p.m. Feb. 13, 6 p.m. meet-and-greet

- Where: Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco

- Tickets: $35 and $100

- Information: www.livenation.com, www.mickeyhart.net, www.whatiffoundation.org, www.pih.org