The Heavy Pets to rock the North Beach Bandshell for the holidays

Craving a bit more energy from your holiday music than the traditional “Jingle Bell Rock” can deliver? The Heavy Pets has a rocking solution.

The Fort Lauderdale-based jam band that blends jazz, blues, funk, disco and reggae with straight-up rock ’n’ roll brings its third annual Holiday Ball to the North Beach Bandshell on Dec. 21, with the bluesy Roosevelt Collier Band also sharing the bill.

Any doubt that this show will pack a punch is squelched by Relix magazine, which dubbed The Pets “a living, breathing force of nature.”

“I think you just gotta go and hear it,” says guitarist and vocalist Jeff Lloyd, when asked to sum up the band’s sound. “We’re a rock ’n’ roll band at the core, and are high-energy and dance-y. We do a lot of different things on the records, but for the most part our live shows are pretty high-energy.”

Heavy Pets fans will hear plenty of tracks from the group’s fourth full-length studio album, “Strawberry Mansion,” including “Higher,” “Second Sky” and “Rainy Days.”

“You can expect to hear a bunch of songs from the latest record, and we’re gonna probably dive deeper for some older cuts as well,” Lloyd says. “And then you never really know what’s gonna happen. The general format of the show is that each band is gonna play a set, and then we’ll do some kind of collaboration between the two bands to finish out the show.”

Can fans expect any new music or traditional holiday tunes at the show? Lloyd plays it cool: “I’d rather that be a surprise.”

Pedal steel guitar master Collier, a Miami native who describes his mix of blues, gospel and rock as “dirty funk, swampy grime,” got his start playing in the House of God Church in Perrine, Fla., alongside his uncles and cousins in The Lee Boys. He and The Heavy Pets have performed together often, so it was only natural that the two musical forces would join for a proper tour.

“Over the years, we’ve gotten the opportunity to play with [Collier] so many times – he’s come on the road with us and toured with us, and he’s used some members from this band as his backing band,” Lloyd says. “So then finally, earlier this spring, we decided to make it official and do something together, and we did a small run around Florida, and now we’re trying to bring the Florida jam scene to the south of Florida.”

The jam scene has treated The Heavy Pets well, as the band has performed at popular festival circuit concerts such as Bonnaroo, Gathering of the Vibes, Summer Camp Music Festival, Wakarusa Music Festival, Langerado and more. Unlike many other groups, its members don’t mind the label “jam band.”

“Not at all,” Lloyd says. “I do think it kind of pigeonholes you, and so some people, rightfully so, have an aversion to that term, or anything that they think is construed as ‘jam band’ music. That kind of goes for any genre of people – people naturally think that they already know what they like and don’t like, but I think if people give us a chance, we’ll have a little something for everybody.”

Whenever the term “jam band” is mentioned, two groups invariably come to mind: Phish and the band that inspired the whole movement, the Grateful Dead. And yes, The Heavy Pets is heavily influenced by both.

“We’re a bit younger, so initially Phish was a huge influence when we were first getting this thing started,” Lloyd says. “But [the Dead] was certainly an important part and a big inspiration, and let’s face it, a lot of music that you hear today in our scene – there wouldn’t even be that scene if it wasn’t for the Grateful Dead, so you gotta give credit where credit is due. This whole festival scene – whether people know it or not, it’s all about [late Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia].

“I’m always impressed by festival-goers, whether it’s their first one or 50th one,” he continues. “I think people go with a sense of wonder, and letting things happen and letting the music take them places. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure situation, from minute to minute at a festival. And something that people don’t know is just how much work goes into putting those things on, so kudos to the people that throw these events, because it’s really amazing what they do.”

In keeping with the holiday giving spirit, the Holiday Ball represents more than music. Attendees are encouraged to bring canned food and unwrapped toys for charity.

“It’s both a show and a fundraiser, and a community event,” Lloyd says. “We always do a toy drive and a food drive, and it’s something that we take great pride in doing. It’s a party that will make people move and dance, but the Holiday Ball is our chance to do a little more with it.”

Proceeds and donations from the show benefit both The Rhythm Foundation’s Miami Beach Youth Music Festival in early 2020 and the Miami women and children’s shelter, Lotus House.

“Just being part of a community that’s given so much to us, we’re just trying to give whatever we can back to it,” Lloyd says.

What: The Rhythm Foundation presents The Heavy Pets Holiday Ball

When: 7 p.m. Dec. 21

Where: North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach

Cost: $20 advance; $30 day of show

More information: rhythmfoundation.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Top photo: The band includes, from left, Mike Garulli, Jeff Lloyd, Jim Wuest, Jamie Newitt and Tony D’Amato. (Photo courtesy of Romy Santos)

Music and poetry with Patti Smith at Miami’s Arsht Center

The incomparable Patti Smith is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and as a musician is best known for hits including “People Have the Power,” “Dancing Barefoot” and “Because the Night.” But she considers herself first and foremost a writer and a poet, with music happening almost by accident.

Smith says that her immensely influential 1975 debut album, “Horses,” widely considered one of the top 100 rock albums of all time, was inspired entirely from her poems, and that she’s “not really a musician.”

Fittingly, then, her upcoming event at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County – in partnership with Books & Books and the Miami Book Fair – has a heavy focus on her literary prowess. Smith is scheduled to appear Dec. 17 in support of her latest memoir, “Year of the Monkey,” a surreal, skillful blend of poetry and prose that she humbly describes as a personal journal that “evolved into something.”

Smith, 72, spoke with Artburst Miami about “Year of the Monkey,” plus the inspiration behind her 2010 memoir, “Just Kids,” which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and documents her relationship with legendary photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died from AIDS in 1989; and the punk-rock scene of 1970s New York, which spawned iconic acts including Blondie, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Television and, of course, herself.

Q: What can your fans expect from this event?

A: I love doing these book events. I’m doing this one by myself, and someone will ask me questions for a little while, and then we’ll do “Ask the Audience” for people who have questions. And I’d like to sing a couple of songs, and make it as diverse as possible, to show that there’s something for everyone. I like to read to people, and sometimes things are funny and I like to hear the people laugh. And I will sing – if I don’t have a guitar, I’ll sing a cappella, but I’ll sing a few songs. I’m not much of a guitar player – I mean, I can play a few chords – but people seem to enjoy singing along. It’s really fun to do “Because the Night,” and all the people sing along to the choruses, and it feels more communal.

Q: What inspired “Year of the Monkey”?

A: I didn’t really plan to write “Year of the Monkey.” It was New Year’s Day and I found myself by myself in a beach town on the West Coast, and I was supposed to be with a friend, who had a bad accident. And so I found myself alone, and a lot of times I didn’t have any books or anything with me, and often I will write just to keep myself company. So I began writing and roaming about, and the book just evolved. For a little while, the book was just my journal, my friend. I’d write every day, and it started out about nothing, and evolved into something. And so much happened that year, 2016 – I turned 70; I lost my friend who had the accident, Sandy Pearlman; and I spent a lot of time with [playwright] Sam Shepard in the last year of his life. And I’d known Sam for almost half a century, so that was both beautiful and painful. And, of course, we had the election, which was difficult, to say the least [laughs]. So it was a very tumultuous year, an unexpected year, and the Chinese lunar Year of the Monkey is traditionally supposed to be a bit of a mischievous year. So as the year evolved, so did my manuscript.

Q: As a creative artist, do you go through life prepared for inspiration with a notebook and pen at all times?

A: [Laughs] Well, I almost always have a notebook and a pen. I went to the opera the other night, and I got an idea and I was scribbling in my notebook in the dark. And if I forget my little notebook, I’m condemned to use paper napkins, or money, or a receipt, or whatever I have, but I try to remember to bring a little notebook. I’m always writing. I was writing this morning – it’s just what I do. It’s the most consistent thing I’ve been doing since I was like 11 years old, and I never stopped.

Q: You have said that you didn’t write “Just Kids” to be cathartic, but to fulfill a vow to Mapplethorpe. How did he ask you to do that?

A: Robert was dying. We both knew he was dying, and after denying it to ourselves and trying to hold on to a hope that he would live, it was the first time that we mutually acknowledged it. And I asked him if there was anything I could do in the future, because I was the first person to ever write about Robert’s work. And Robert asked me if I would write our story, our story being the story of how we met and when we were young, because we really evolved as artists together. I met him when we were both 20. And no one else knew him then – no one else was there; no one else was a witness to the evolution of his process. And I was very surprised that he would ask me that, and I said, “Are you sure you want me to?” And he said yes – nobody else can do it. So I promised him I would do it. And he died that night.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share about Robert?

A: He was really funny. He was very mischievous; he was a prankster. He was very serious about his work, and he was a very hard worker. Many people write all kinds of things about Robert, and he is depicted in many, many ways. But the Robert that I know was kind, really funny, and he was a hard worker. He worked every day, and he was very confident about his work. And it’s tragic, really, that he died so young, at 42 – he had so much work to do. He had so many ideas, and he was so prolific and productive. I know he would have done many more great things.

Q: Do you think something like the punk-rock movement of 1970s New York could happen again, and what was its driving force?

A: Well, the driving force for us was freedom. To be able to do our own work, to do things that were different. At that time, I was doing poetry with three chords behind me. It wasn’t anything traditional, so we found a nontraditional place to do it, which was CBGB’s. But I think that each generation translates these things for themselves; each generation has their own way of expressing things. And I think it’s all interesting. I never think that we had the best era. I mean, I don’t listen to punk-rock records – I listen to Jimi Hendrix. So each generation should be able to feel that their time is the time: It’s up to the people to create new things, and new movements.

What: “An Evening with Patti Smith”

When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 17

Where: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, Knight Concert Hall, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

Cost: $37, includes a copy of “Year of the Monkey” (get a second ticket for $10 – does not include a book)

More information: 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Musical icon Mavis Staples heading to Miami’s Arsht Center

Ask singer Mavis Staples about retiring from touring at age 80, and she will tell you it was only a few weeks ago that she had a decisive moment.

“No way,” she says emphatically during a telephone interview from Atlanta, the first city in her 24-stop “We Get By” Tour.

She came to the realization while making a brief return home to Chicago, where she got her start singing professionally at age 11. (Her famous father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, formed the group The Staple Singers to include his children.)

“I was back [in Chicago] for two weeks, and I had cabin fever so bad I would just get in the car and go for a ride. I had been talking about maybe taking a break, but I told my tour manager when we got here that now I’m through talking about retiring.”

Her Miami concert, part of the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Jazz Roots series on Dec. 6, will mark the third stop promoting her new co-produced album with Ben Harper, “We’ll Get By.” She says she is looking forward to her South Florida return, which has been a long time coming.

“The last time I was actually in Miami was when The Staple Singers were singing strictly gospel in a caravan, with groups like The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Nightingales, and The Blind Boys of Alabama,” she says.

An American icon in music, both as the lead singer of the famous Staple Singers and as a solo artist, she has become known for her contemporary collaborations – an alchemist of American music – with everyone from Prince to Bob Dylan.

“From Curtis Mayfield to Ry Cooder, too,” she adds. And there are many, many more.

The last decade has seen her experience a modern regeneration. A successful partnership with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy earned a Grammy in 2011 for their “You Are Not Alone.” She found in him a kindred spirit to create songs for what she believes is happening in today’s America, which harkens back to her days with her father and siblings’ civil rights-era music activism.

Songs that stir that kind of fire in her soul are part of her DNA, she says. Her father was close to civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., and she remembers the family traveling with King.

“We would perform for about 20 minutes before he would speak. And he would always say to my father, ‘Now you are going to sing my song tonight, aren’t you?’ ”

That song was, “Why? (Am I Treated So Bad),” which topped the Billboard charts in 1967. She says her father wrote the Delta blues-tinged song about the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to attend the segregated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.

With the latest, “We Got By” with Ben Harper, Staples continues the messaging that she believes is as important now as it was then. She doesn’t mince words: “There are things in this that say a lot to the man in the White House.”

The songs bring back a memory as she remembers an incident in 1964, which she calls “the scariest time of my life.” Driving at night, while her siblings and father slept in the car on the way from one gig to another, she was pulled over by police.

“These men had shotguns on us. We were standing on the highway with our hands over our heads. A gas station attendant had called the police ranting racial slurs and saying that the family had robbed him and left without paying for their gas.”

They were handcuffed and put into police cars, her father in one, and the siblings in another car. It passed through her mind that maybe the family wouldn’t escape.

“Black people could just be killed. I thought they were going to lynch us.”

They were released when her father produced a receipt. “It showed that we had paid for the gas. That’s what saved us,” she recalls.

The 19-year anniversary of her father’s death on Dec. 19 arrives a little less than two weeks after she plays the Arsht Center.

“I am so grateful for him. My father played such a big part in my life. I’ve been singing these songs 70 years. I’m so happy with what my father started,” she says. “I still talk to him and I say,’ ‘Pops, it’s paying off, it’s working.’ Yep, God had a plan for old sister Mavis, for me to keep singing. My voice is stronger than ever.”

She says the Friday night show will feature new songs, of course, but knows there are some fan favorites people will come to hear.

“You want ‘I’ll Take You There’? You got it,” she promises.

What: “Ain’t No Stoppin’ the Blues,” part of the Arsht Center’s Jazz Roots series, featuring Mavis Staples with opening act Charlie Musselwhite Band

When: 8 p.m. Dec. 6

Where: John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

Cost: $45-$125

More information: 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org/jazz

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Kaleidoscope MusArt to feature ‘The Persistence of Memory’

Salvador Dali’s surrealist 1931 masterwork, “The Persistence of Memory,” features clocks in a desert landscape melting over a corpse and a tree branch. For their same-titled Dec. 5 program, two of Kaleidoscope MusArt’s co-founders, Inesa Gegprifti and Redi Llupa, propose that the music of Bach, Mozart and Schubert blends together like a pancake stack of Dali’s runny clocks.

Since its inception in 2016, KMA has deepened Miami’s music scene as an independent organization offering innovative programs of rarely heard classical music, from neglected Beethoven gems to 20th-century, avant-garde work.

After graduating, this group of University of Miami musicians easily could have transitioned to cities offering more robust performance opportunities. Instead, they decided to make Miami home.

Artburst Miami caught up with the two pianists at the bright and roomy office of Naoko Takao, who is the Frost School of Music’s associate professor of keyboard performance and one of two performers on Dec. 5.

For Gegprifti and Llupa, KMA was founded to get outside the classical music canon. Last spring, the group headlined the first performance of composer George Crumb’s full Makrokosmos cycle since it debuted in 1980. Those who were there know these musicians aren’t shy with music that forces the pianist to have one hand on the keyboard, the other plucking the strings and, yes, singing at the same time.

As Gegprifti sees it, “the classical music canon is not monolithic. It is a continuous flow of ideas, and supporting new compositions keeps classical music alive. Not all of it will remain centuries from now, but even Beethoven had plenty of works that did not stand the test of time.”

And performing new music with established works offers the ear a chance to shake free of arthritic listening habits.

“When things in the world around me change, something I am looking at also appears new and different,” Gegprifti adds. “The same thing happens with music, especially if you build that intention with an audience.”

For this reason, KMA regularly asks noted lecturers to prepare audiences for what they’re about to hear with pre-concert talks.

“Certainly, the composition is a very important part of the composer’s life. However, the audience, too, is part of the event and part of its history,” Gegprifti says.

When KMA programs feature new or neglected works, Llupa says, they follow the lead of others, such as romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856), who energetically promoted the new music of his time.

“My mentors were very open-minded,” Llupa says. “I remember a lesson I had with one, pianist Menahem Pressler [founder of the Beaux Arts Trio], who emphasized how when he was young, he played contemporaries like the work of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. For Pressler, it was very important that a musician always be in touch with new music.”

KMA’s Dec. 5 performance headlines the works of Bach, Mozart and Schubert – on first glance, pretty standard classical fare. But the group has added a twist: The program includes rarely performed pieces featuring four hands for piano, including György Kurtág’s transcriptions of selected movements of J.S. Bach’s cantatas.

“Mozart was the first person to write four-hand music for the keyboard, and the Sonata in D Major (K. 381) is one of the first two pieces that were written for four hands. Schubert, an admirer of Mozart, took the form further,” says Takao, who will perform that evening with Kenneth Slowik, curator of the Musical Instrument Collection at the National Museum of American History and artistic director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society.

Then, bubbling with laughter, the three abruptly shatter the serious vibe of classical musicians by speculating on how many break-ups these four-hand pieces have caused (Llupa and Gegprifti are married). Turns out that two pianists on one bench working the same set of keys pose a surprising set of challenges.

As Takao explains: “The timing of these works is so specific. When that doesn’t gel, the result is nightmarish. Ensemble errors are common, and they come from two pianists playing together on the same instrument and the fact that only one of the performers, usually the secondo, works the pedals. Nor do you have your own range on the instrument.

“Also, the two people are doing the same attacks, and these need to be aligned,” Takao continues. “Just by ourselves we have a hard enough time making all these things work.”

What: Kaleidoscope MusArt presents “The Persistence of Memory”

When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5

Where: Coral Gables Congregational Church, 3010 De Soto Blvd.

Cost: $5-$25

More information: kaleidoscopemusart.com/echoesoftime

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Top photo: Four of the co-founders of Kaleidoscope MusArt are, from left, Akina Yura, Inesa Gegprifti, Maria Sumareva and Redi Llupa. (Photo courtesy of Kaleidoscope MusArt)

Miami’s Olympia Theater to feature ‘Simply Simone: A Tribute to Nina Simone’

At the height of the civil rights movement, “Mississippi Goddam” and “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” made Nina Simone a musical icon – but also got her banned from U.S. airwaves. The outspoken “High Priestess of Soul” went into self-imposed exile in the early ’70s, remaining an enigma for decades.

But lately, finding the real Nina Simone has become the subject of a documentary and biopic, books and a musical.

The public has been introduced to the many faces of the legendary singer:

The young musical prodigy, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, who grew up poor in North Carolina, dreaming of becoming a concert pianist – only to see those dreams crushed by racial prejudice.

The gifted vocalist with unique phrasing and pathos, who performed in clubs and bars and took a stage name to hide her new job – that of playing “the devil’s music” – from her strict Methodist minister mother.

The social activist who wrote protest songs such as “Mississippi Goddam,” decrying the murders of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and four young black girls in a Birmingham Baptist church.

The troubled artist who struggled with bipolar disorder and depression but always remained committed to her music.

For Miami jazz and culture aficionado Keith Clarke, the best place to find Simone is in her songs, those she wrote or covered – and made her own. Upon her death at age 70, in 2003, Simone had collected a catalog that covered just about every genre under the sun: jazz, pop, classical, blues, rock, gospel, spirituals, soul, funk, folk and protest.

“There is a certain magic in mentioning Nina Simone,” said Clarke about his favorite singer. “I think she stands for truth, justice and equality, and she’s going to give it to you whether you want it or not.”

Singers Sarah Gracel-Anderson, Ja’Nia Harden, Toddra Brunson and Deana Butler-Rahming will give eager theater-goers a full range of her music during “Simply Simone: A Tribute to Nina Simone.” Set for  6:30 p.m. Dec. 11 at Miami’s Olympia Theater, the tribute is part of a free monthly “Lobby Lounge Jazz” series co-produced by Clarke’s Miami Jazz and Film Society and the Olympia, with support from sponsors.

Clarke had his “epiphany” after seeing “Simply Simone: The Music of Nina Simone” at Miami’s African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in March 2016. The musical featured 32 songs performed by four women portraying the iconic singer during different stages of her life.

“I was like a kid in a candy store taking it all in, thinking to myself, ‘Oh man, this is so rewarding,’” Clarke recalled. But at the same time, he wondered, “How can I get this into my jazz series?”

While he loved the musical, Clarke felt Simone’s songs deserved a wider audience. With permission from the play’s director Teddy Harrell, Jr., and the musical’s creators Robert Neblett, David Grapes and Vince Di Mura, Simply Simone was adapted to a concert format – minus the dialogue, set and costume changes. The tribute debuted at the Olympia in October 2016. “We had the largest crowd we ever had for the lobby lounge series,” Clarke recalled.

The jazz impresario felt the time was right to bring the show back to the Olympia, a 1926 theater that has attracted new audiences amid downtown’s redevelopment.

“It’s the times we live in,” he said. “If you don’t have a compassionate voice speaking on behalf of humanity, then what do you have?”

Channeling Simone’s humanity are the same four singers who portrayed the legendary singer in the 2016 musical when it was staged in Miami. They will be backed by a four-piece band featuring John Harden, the show’s musical director, on piano; Jason Kent, drums; Delano West, guitar; and Ryan Reid, bass.

The four female artists say they have developed a connection to Simone through her songs.

“’The King of Love is Dead’ was an emotional song for me. It talks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and all that he fought for: peace, love and unity. And how his death was a turning point in the world,” said Gracel-Anderson, who played the young Simone in the musical. “It was a transitional song in the show. It showed the point where she turned into a real-life activist.”

Brunson, the activist Simone, goes solo on “Mississippi Goddam” but sings “Young, Gifted and Black” in harmony with the other vocalists. “I feel so good when I sing these songs. I feel accomplished and important, proud and empowered.”

Harden loves performing Simone’s first big commercial hit, Gershwin’s “I Love You, Porgy.” She portrays the young entertainer when she was rejected by Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, presumably because of her skin color. A few days before Simone’s death, the prestigious school awarded her an honorary degree.

“It’s been an honor playing Ms. Simone,” Harden said. “I loved her adaptability in making the music her own, adding in classical piano repertoire with what was at the time popular music. It is a testament to the way black people adapt, in my opinion.”

Butler-Rahming plays Simone in her later years, battling personal demons and hard times but never giving up on music. She sees the singer’s perseverance as a testament to her purpose in life.

“What I love about playing Nina is that her strength has given me strength as a performer to never stop when it seems like the odds are against you,” Butler-Rahming said. “Why? Because – and this is from a quote I read – ‘difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations.’”

What: “Simply Simone: A Tribute to Nina Simone”

When: 6:30-9 p.m. Dec. 11; doors open at 6 p.m.

Where: Olympia Theater, 174 E. Flagler St., Miami

Cost: Free

Contact: 305-374-2444; olympiatheater.org; miamijazzsociety.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Top photo: From left, Ja’Nia Harden, Toddra Brunson, Sarah Gracel-Anderson and Deana Butler-Rahming pay tribute to the late great singer Nina Simone. (Photo courtesy of “Simply Simone”)

Latin Grammy winner Nella brings her talents to South Florida

There is something elusive about the sound of singer-songwriter Nella, the Best New Artist winner at last week’s Latin Grammys. Hers is a sort of world music, sung in Spanish, with an elegant soulfulness that often includes a hint of “quejío” flamenco, a flamenco cry. But the phrasing also suggests something else, layers hidden underneath, organic rather than studied. It all sounds familiar and fresh.

Then you find out that Marianella Rojas, Nella, is a flamenca born in Isla Margarita, an island in the Caribbean Sea off the northeastern coast of Venezuela, and educated at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she majored in performance, composition and production. It was during that time that she performed folk music from Latin America with jazz and pop influences, “part of the process of rediscovering myself,” she says. “Once you leave your country, your roots start knocking at your door.”

That’s also when she met Spanish Grammy-winning producer, songwriter and guitarist Javier Limón, and discovered the work of Afro-Spanish singer Buika, rooted in “copla” and flamenco.

Limón – who has worked with several major singers including Buika, flamenco star Estrella Morente and Portuguese “fado” diva Mariza – heard Nella sing “La Negra Atilia,” a Venezuelan merengue, a cappella, and was impressed. He ended up writing words and music for all but one song in Nella’s debut recording “Voy” (roughly translated as “On My Way”), which he also produced and released on his label in May.

“I feel these songs as if I had written them myself,” says Nella, about their partnership. She added that she has put her songwriting “on pause.”

Her repertoire now includes songs from her debut recording but also what she calls “Venezuelan jewels” such as “La Negra Atilia,” and classics by the legendary singer and songwriter Simón Díaz, such as “Tonada de Luna Llena” (Song of the Full Moon).

Their collaboration also resulted in Nella’s contributing the title track in “Everybody Knows,” the Asghar Farhadi movie featuring Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo Darin, which opened the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

Fresh from her performance with Spanish pop superstar Alejandro Sanz at the Latin Grammy awards show in Las Vegas, Nella is finishing her first major tour of the United States with two performances in South Florida: on Nov. 22 at the Amaturo Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale; and Nov. 23 at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center in Cutler Bay.

She is appearing backed by a trio featuring Gilad Barakan, on guitar; Paulo Stagnaro, percussion, and Daniel Torres on bass.

She spoke with Artburst in Spanish from New York earlier this year and, most recently, before a rehearsal for the awards show from Las Vegas. The following responses are compiled from those different conversations.

Q: What has the nomination of a Latin Grammy meant to you? 

A: I have dreamt many things, and like any artist, I’ve had dreams of a Latin Grammy. But when it actually happens, it’s hard to believe, especially in an important category like “Best New Artist,” and considering the music I make, it makes me feel very proud.

Q: So, what was your first thought when you got the nomination?

A: To work much, much harder. When I learned about [the nomination], I didn’t go out to celebrate. I thought, ‘I gotta work harder. This music is reaching many people.’

Q: How did you get to your particular style, with such a flamenco influence, growing up in Margarita? Did you hear that at home? 

A: Noo (she chuckles) … What I listened to growing up has nothing to do with what I’m doing now. As a kid, I was involved in anything artistic that would come up: singing, acting, dancing, you name it. I took singing lessons, but I was never a great soloist. In my choir, I never got a solo feature even if I asked for it. Then at 13, my voice started to change and, without realizing, by singing in my room to recordings by Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, trying to imitate them, over and over, just for fun, without realizing it I was studying a lot. And those divas are incredible teachers, especially for what I call vocal acrobatics. I was also into the challenges of how high I could go vocally, or how well I could do certain vocal turns, and I believe that helped me develop a vocal flexibility that perhaps I wouldn’t have by just listening to Venezuelan music. Now, even when singing Venezuelan songs I don’t sound like a typical traditional singer.

When I went to Berklee, I sang jazz, pop and especially Latin American folk songs with a trio. In 2012, I met Javier, and he became a mentor for the group. But then one of the members of the group moved away, and the trio dissolved. About that time, I heard Buika, and after all the vocal acrobatics I had learned, I found the importance of interpretation, of how to say a lyric, and I fell in love with flamenco and with that honesty between singer and audience. It is something I had not found in any other genre.

Q: Javier Limón has said that when the movie, “Everybody Knows,” was released, “many people thought she was from Córdoba or Granada.” But it turns out flamenco is relatively new to you.

A: It’s something I have learned. It isn’t as if I grew up listening to this music at home. Thanks to Javier, I’ve been exposed to the best singers and musicians in Spain, and I’ve felt how, without amplification, just with voice and guitar, someone can bring you to tears by the way they say a word. That meant a lot. And then I started to search, going to the roots, and found artists like Paco de Lucía,  La Niña de los Peines, Camarón de la Isla.

It’s funny, but for a long time, my parents would ask me to sing something in Spanish, and I didn’t have a Spanish-language repertoire, so I would tell them: “Don’t you want to hear the song from ‘Titanic’? What about the song from ‘The Bodyguard.’” Now, if you ask me to sing something in English, I have to go to my hard drive (she laughs). Everything I do now is in Spanish. I came to find out that music has a lot to do with me.

Q: A very emotional song in your current repertoire is “Volveré A Mi Tierra” (“I Will Return to My Country”). How do you see your role as an artist regarding the political situation in Venezuela? 

A: I try to not get into politics. But the fact that I don’t like politics doesn’t mean that I’m not involved in what is going on in my country, which is something that by now transcends politics. I feel that having a microphone in your hand grants you a power that not everybody has, and I feel it’s my responsibility to let people know what is going on and how people are suffering.

IN BROWARD:

What: Nella

When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 22

Where: Amaturo Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale

Cost: $25-$45

More information: 954-462-0222; browardcenter.org; ticketmaster.com

IN MIAMI-DADE:

What: Nella

When: 8 p.m. Nov. 23

Where: South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211th St., Cutler Bay

Cost: $37.50-$40; $60 VIP tables

More information: 786-573-5300; smdcac.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Carmen Consoli to headline ‘Italian HIT Week’ at North Beach Bandshell

American pop-music charts offer an ever-changing glimpse at the country’s cultural landscape, its hits helping to reflect the current lingo, attitude and even political climate. But as compelling as our musical trends can be, it’s refreshing to step back and broaden one’s horizons now and then.

“Italian HIT Week: Unexpected Sounds from Italy,” presented on Nov. 16 by The Rhythm Foundation at the North Beach Bandshell, is the perfect chance to savor the taste of a different culture. The concert is headlined by Sicilian superstar singer-songwriter Carmen Consoli, who will perform material from her 11 studio albums. And it is free with advance registration.

Consoli’s eclectic style ranges from edgy pop-rock to heart-wrenching ballads to the folky traditional sounds of the Sicilian and Mediterranean heritages.

“This is a rock-music show with cello, violin, acoustic guitar and voice, and I will play my songs, my older repertoire,” Consoli says. “I’ll touch different themes, like life, love, loneliness on a digital island, immigration and different alarming themes. We talk about beauty, too, and I’ll try to translate and do little introductions before each song, just to make it clear.”

It can be fascinating to experience the differences between the two countries’ musical styles, but it’s also interesting to note their similarities.

“Of course, Italian music is different from American music,” Consoli says. “For instance, the musical scales used are different – we’ve got Arabic scales, and you’ve got pentatonic scales, major and minor. But there are things in common: passion and the urgency to say things.

“[American] blues music is very close to traditional Sicilian music. You break patterns of hypocritical behavior and society’s blindness, and it’s about suffering. There’s a strong thread that links the two societies, Italian and American,” she continues. “We culturally are very close, because we’ve been immigrants, and we’ve brought back a lot of things from America to Italy. So the American influence is very strong in my music, too. I’m a big fan of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, and I grew up listening to B.B. King.”

Consoli, who is so beloved in Italy that she was knighted in 2012, is proud to be the artist chosen to headline a concert that showcases her country’s music.

“I feel honored to represent Italy and to find Americans who want to know more about Italy,” she says. “And it’s beautiful how music can go beyond the boundaries of language.”

Her fans in South Florida assuredly have a good idea of what to expect from Consoli’s performance, but she’s approaching it with an open mind as far as what kind of feedback she’ll get from the crowd.

“I don’t want to have expectations,” Consoli says. “I only hope to give my heart to the audience and to receive their happiness. That’s the only aim of music. And you know what? To create sympathy among all people, which is an old-fashioned word now.”

Consoli, now 45, started writing songs at age 9, and knew even back then she wanted to make music as a career.

“My father was a very gifted guitarist, and he started to teach me all the fundamentals of music,” she says. “And I started writing music because I had the urge to express myself. My face has changed over the years, and my spirit and my gaze on the world has also changed. But fortunately, I don’t change my music or change my attitude toward music to become popular. I remain myself, and if it’s commercial, that’s OK, but if not, I’ll remain myself as well.”

Italian HIT Week’s opening act, Gio Evan, is quite a bit different from a typical singer-songwriter. He’s also a writer, poet, philosopher, humorist and street artist – and his show will reflect that.

“This will be my first time bringing to the U.S. the Gio Evan experience,” he says. “It will feature music, poetry, some monologues and pieces of theater – like the 360 artistic experience, the whole cultural package. I’m going to play guitar and piano, and I will have a keyboard player and acoustic bass player. So it will be an intimate version of my music, and I will also talk about my daily life experiences.”

Those experiences go beyond what most people have encountered. Evan spent eight years touring the world on a bicycle, traveling across Europe, India and South America.

“It was a way for me to escape the life that my parents had chosen for me,” he says. “They wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer, and I don’t fit into that kind of life. So I chose to take my time and take a trip around the world on a bicycle, and come back stronger to tell my parents that I want a life in the artistic way.”

Mission accomplished.

What: The Rhythm Foundation presents “Italian HIT Week: Unexpected Sounds from Italy”

When: 7 p.m. Nov. 16

Where: North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach

Cost: Tickets are free with RSVP at rhythmfoundation.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Nu Deco Ensemble to play Saturday at North Beach Bandshell

Whenever the Nu Deco Ensemble puts on a show, it’s extraordinary. After all, the genre-busting, hybrid orchestra has collaborated onstage in the past with artists including Wyclef Jean, Ben Folds, Macy Gray and Stephen Marley.

Its latest show is no exception. On Nov. 9, Nu Deco will perform at the North Beach Bandshell with Afro Cuban superstar Cimafunk, named by Billboard as one of “10 Latin Artists to Watch in 2019,” who will bring his dazzling style and high-energy sound to the stage.

“They’re calling Cimafunk the ‘James Brown of Cuba,’” says Sam Hyken, co-founder, composer and artistic director of the ensemble along with partner Jacomo Bairos. “He’s the complete package – amazing dancer, amazing singer, really fun music. Generally, when we’re at the Bandshell, in the spirit of that venue and the fact that the Rhythm Foundation is running it and that they are musical leaders in Miami as far as presenting world music, that’s the vibe we like to go for.”

Cimafunk, who will close the show, is far from the only highlight of the evening. The program also will feature original music by several ensemble members, kicking off with violist Jessica Meyer’s piece “Go Big or Go Home,” followed by works from Miami jazz-rock fusion band Electric Kif and Nu Deco guitarist Aaron Lebos.

“The night’s theme is really a celebration of our ensemble,” Hyken says. “Every single piece we’re performing at the concert is done or rearranged by a member of the ensemble.”

The program also will represent the musical eclecticism that’s inherent in Nu Deco’s mission. After the members’ showcase comes a collection of songs by the Grammy-winning French electronic duo Daft Punk, which is known for the dance hits “One More Time” and “Get Lucky.” The piece is put together by Hyken and is titled “Robots vs. Humans.”

“This particular suite comes from Daft Punk’s latest album, ‘Random Access Memories,’ which used a lot of acoustic instruments, so we’re not using samples or a deejay or anything of that nature in the work,” Hyken says. “We take ‘Get Lucky’ and put it into a solo cello line, and do an orchestrated version of ‘Giorgio by Moroder,’ and that’s really one of the more electronic pieces on that album. And then we do ‘Contact’ from that album.”

Fans of Nu Deco might notice that the next offering, an ode to R&B and soul legend Bill Withers – known for the timeless hits “Use Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lovely Day” and “Lean On Me” – was performed at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in April.

“At the Bandshell, we like to do some of our hits,” Hyken says. “As an orchestra, we’re always presenting a new program, but when we get to do a venue like the Bandshell in a neighborhood we’re in only once a year, we like to bring back some of the pieces that we play in our other programs. This is called ‘A Bit of Bill,’ and it’s like an overture to Bill Withers. I imagine that’s the piece, if there’s ever a movie about Bill Withers, it’d be the opening overture for.”

Hyken also is excited to present music from the Nu Deco Ensemble’s debut album, which drops the same day as the concert, and whose eight tracks run just under an hour. And, yes, its musical spectrum is quite broad.

“The album is really a great representation of who Nu Deco is,” he says. “It’s got living composers such as Nicholas Omiociolli – we’re doing a work of his that we love to play called ‘Fuse’ – and we’re also doing a work by Andy Akiho on the album called ‘Karakurenai,’ which is more of a chamber work. And then we do collaborations. We have two songs with [the album’s producer] Kishi Bashi, a song with Danay Suarez, and a song with Spam Allstars. And then we have suites of music featuring Outkast and Daft Punk.

“The only aspect that’s not on there are the classical reimaginations that we do,” he continues. “One of our rules, as an ensemble and as an organization, is that if we’re going to perform music that’s from before the 20th century, it’s going to be reimagined. So we do reimaginations of Bach and Bizet and Vivaldi, etc. And later this year at the Arsht Center, we’re doing a reimagination of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker.’”

This is Nu Deco Ensemble’s fifth season, but its musical vision has stayed consistent.

“It hasn’t really changed,” Hyken says. “I think it’s evolved in the sense that when Nu Deco started, it was really a group of classical players who were playing multi-genres of music. Now it’s evolved into a hybrid ensemble full of some of the top classical players mixed with some of the top contemporary players. And I think that has given us the most flexibility in the music we make.”

It’s that versatility and commitment to creative inspiration that make top contemporary artists want to work with the ensemble.

“What we try to do is elevate any sort of music,” Hyken says. “So any time we put our show behind someone’s music, we try to make it something that’s a new take, something to make everything feel grander and add a new life to it. We’re really strong about the fact that Nu Deco is a collaborative partner when we work with these artists, not really a backup band. We want to bring a new element, something fresh, something relevant, that the music’s never seen before.”

What: Nu Deco Ensemble featuring Cimafunk 

When: 8 p.m. Nov. 9

Where: North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach

Cost: $45

More information: nu-deco.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

 

South Beach Chamber Ensemble to present ‘Brilliance of the String Quartet’

In the mood to see exceptional classical music performed live, but not up for an intense, thunderous symphony orchestra?

The South Beach Chamber Ensemble’s (SBCE) Music in Beautiful Spaces series may be just the ticket.

The group is presenting a concert titled, “The Brilliance of the String Quartet,” that features works by Haydn, Puccini and Shostakovich, on Nov. 7 at the Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach. They performed Nov. 3 at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden.

The SBCE’s mission is at once ambitiously optimistic and refreshingly simple.

“The goal is to surprise people and delight people,” says Michael Andrews, founder, artistic director and cellist for the SBCE, now in its 22nd year. “Our vision is a world where chamber music inspires and energizes all people, creating peace, harmony, joy and unprecedented satisfaction with being alive.”

For these shows, the ensemble consists of Andrews on cello, Eric Eakes on viola, and Tony Seepersad and Ericmar Perez on violin. Its sparse size fits its intended audience.

“We play in intimate, small spaces, because chamber music is for a small group of listeners, up close so they can really see the hair on the strings, the fingers on the fingerboard, and be involved in the dialogue between the musicians and really get in on the action,” Andrews says.

That intimacy is in stark contrast to a symphonic performance.

“The suite of music with an orchestra – with the winds and the brass and the percussion and huge string sections – can wash you away like a wave, in a good way,” he says. “In chamber music, it’s more like being on the beach in Miami. It washes over you gently.”

Andrews says the difference between an orchestra and a chamber ensemble can affect how a performer approaches each from a philosophical perspective.

“Each one is great, but each one has its plusses and minuses. In chamber music, you really get to stand out, because if you’re the violist or the cellist, you’re the only one on the part. And it can be very scary,” he says, with a laugh. “In an orchestra, there may be eight to 12 cellists in a section, and we’re all playing the same line with the same intensity and the same spirit, but we’re not standing out. The point of an orchestra is to blend in.”

Andrews chose the program – featuring Haydn String Quartet #71 in Eb major, Op. 33 No. 2 “Joke” (1781); Puccini’s “Crisantemi” (1890); and Shostakovich String Quartet #3 in F major, Op. 73 (1946) – in part to highlight each piece’s uniqueness.

“It really shows how diverse the string quartet can be,” he says. “Haydn was the inventor of the string quartet and is very formal, except that he also broke the rules. He made the rules and then he broke them, so ‘The Joke’ is very, very cleverly written.

“And then I was looking for something that would really contrast with Haydn, and Shostakovich is one of the monumental composers of the 20th century. His 3^rd was written in 1946 right after the war, and he had a tortured life within the Soviet system, and he tried to express himself, and he did the best he could with his music. Some of it was covert and some of it was overt, and so there’s a lot of sarcasm and wit and angst in his music. I thought that would be a really great contrast with Haydn.

“And then Puccini is mainly known as an opera composer,” Andrews continues. “But he wrote this exquisite piece called ‘Crisantemi,’ which means chrysanthemums, in memory of a good friend who had died. And it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous piece, very operatic.”

Like so many others who find great success in their professions, Andrews’ introduction to the cello seems random, almost by happenstance.

“I was in fourth grade … and we lived out in the country in Michigan on 2 acres next to farms,” he recalls. “And at that time you had an aptitude test for music, and I guess I must have done OK. In fourth grade, you could only do strings …

“The options were basically the violin, viola or cello, and my mother had played the violin growing up and she hated it – it was also very loud and noisy and screechy, and she said she didn’t want me to do that. And I had a friend who was going to play the cello, so I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll play the cello.’ I really didn’t know what I was getting into, but by high school, I knew that was what I wanted to do forever.”

What: South Beach Chamber Ensemble presents “The Brilliance of the String Quartet”
When: 8 p.m. Nov. 7
Where: Ancient Spanish Monastery, 16711 W. Dixie Highway, North Miami Beach
Cost: $15 to $25
More information: sobechamberensemble.biz

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

A new season of Jazz Roots at Miami’s Arsht Center

Jazz remains a challenging sale in South Florida. And yet, since an ambitious launching in 2008, the Jazz Roots series at the Adrienne Arsht Center has not only found its audience, but in the process has become one of the centerpieces of Miami’s cultural season.

Co-founded by the Arsht Center and the late musician, producer, record label owner and entrepreneur Larry Rosen, Jazz Roots opens its 12th season on Nov. 1 with “British Invasion – Latin Style.” It features singer and songwriter José Feliciano; trumpeter Arturo Sandoval; pianist, composer and arranger Shelly Berg; saxophonist Tim Ries; singers Lucy Woodward, Kate Reid and Fantine; and the University of Miami’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra.

The 2019-2020 season continues with concerts by:

• vocalist Mavis Staples
• pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
• singer Kurt Elling
• pianist, arranger and composer Dave Grusin (who also co-founded with Rosen the all-digital GRP record label)
• saxophonist Branford Marsalis

But smart programming and marketing is only part of the story. Jazz Roots also opened a space in the community at large by establishing a partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, which has brought thousands of high school students to concerts, soundchecks, and Q&A sessions with artists. This program is the kind of educational initiative that is enriching for students, as well as vital for the future of a demanding music genre with limited exposure on radio and television.

Berg, who is dean of UM’s Frost School of Music, has been the artistic advisor for Jazz Roots since 2016, collaborating with Liz Wallace, vice president of programming for the Arsht Center. Berg recently spoke with Artburst about the art and business of programming Jazz Roots; the uneasy relationship between jazz and entertainment; and the sink-or-swim lessons his UM music students learn on stage.

Q. The opening concert in Jazz Roots is curated and sets up the idea of an only-in-Miami event. How did this “British Invasion – Latin Style” theme come about?

A. Well, we used “British Invasion” in the title, but it’s not limited to British music from the ’60s. The reason that we’re doing it is that we have new underwriters as presenting sponsors of Jazz Roots. It’s EFG Capital, a global private banking group. Their London office has been sponsoring the London Jazz Festival, and their clients love it. They have Latin American clients of clients in Miami, so they thought: “Well, our clients would love if we sponsor something in Miami and jazz.” So I thought that for the first concert it would be fun to do a mashup of music from Britain and Latin America.

In the program, we will have songs by The Beatles, The Stones, Sting, Elton John, and Dusty Springfield. But not every piece of music will be done in some Latin American groove — although we will have things like “Crocodile Rock” as a [Dominican bolero-like] bachata, things that can be great fun. But some of it will be just the fact that it’s a Latin American artist playing British music.

Q. After three years advising the programming for Jazz Roots, what have you learned that works in jazz for South Florida audiences?

A. That with South Florida audiences, it’s not so much about the music that you play but about the performer and how well they relate to the audience in a 2,000-seat concert hall. I think that we can program just about any kind of music.

Now, does the artist have a way of engaging an audience and making it feel part of the experience? Dizzy Gillespie is a great example. Great artistry, even cutting-edge artistry, is not mutually exclusive with engaging and caring about the audience.

Q. The educational component in Jazz Roots is not limited to listening experiences for high school students but also for college music students participating on-stage performing, for example, as members of the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra. Can you talk about those two experiences and their goals?

A. Well, we continue to have the students from the various schools attend a master class, watch the soundcheck, then some of the artists speak with them after the soundcheck and do Q&A with them, and later they get to see the concert. Opportunities like that can light a spark in somebody. All of us who do this for a living had, at some point, an experience like that, which got us excited.

As for our [UM] students, they are getting to participate in the most real-world kind of experiences that any student could participate in: Playing in a major performing arts center in front of major audiences with major artists. And they are doing it on the real-life time frame of the professional world: a couple of rehearsals and, bang, you’re on.

Very often, they’re sight-reading while the artist is there in front of them. In this next concert, they may be looking at a chart they’ve never seen before, and there is José Feliciano on-stage or Arturo Sandoval. They don’t get a chance to sound like students. All those things are preparing them for their actual careers.

What: “British Invasion – Latin Style,” the opening concert of Jazz Roots 2019-2020 featuring José Feliciano, Arturo Sandoval, Shelly Berg, Tim Ries, Lucy Woodward, Kate Reid, Fantine, and the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra.

When: Opens Nov. 1

Where: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

Cost: $45 to $125

More information: arshtcenter.org/jazz; 305-949-6722

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. Sign up for our newsletter and never miss a story.

Haitian music, from the roots up

More often than not, pop music in the Western world is just another product vying for attention and shelf space. It might come in different models and packaging — the too-cool-for-school alt-rock; the bluntly sexual Reggaeton; street-tough rap — but it’s rarely more subversive than a soap commercial.

But in Haiti, as in other developing countries struggling with poverty, corruption, and failing institutions, pop music is not only entertainment and relief but also the language of defiance and change.

In the 1990s the mizik rasin (roots music) movement, blending folk and religious traditions with the tools of rock and funk, emerged as a powerful tool of resistance. The lyrics of the songs, often using oblique references and parables, a common device in the Vodou tradition, became a popular shorthand to comment, protest, and organize. Dictators banned certain songs. But then, the very esthetics of rasin, built on rhythms of Vodou rites or utilizing the vaksen, the metal horns of the rara carnival tradition, were a statement about the richness of Haitian culture.

The 13-piece strong RAM, one of the essential groups of the movement, performs at the North Beach Bandshell, in Miami Beach, Saturday at 8 p.m. The concert is a Fete Gede (or guede), known as the Festival of the Ancestors is the Vodou equivalent of Mardi Gras, the Mexican Day of the Dead, and Halloween, all in one.

RAM was founded in 1990 by Richard Morse, an American musician and hotelier born of a Haitian mother, the singer, dancer, and folklorist Emerante de Pradines, and an American father, Richard M. Morse, a Latin Americanist scholar and writer. Born in Puerto Rico, Richard Morse grew up in Woodbridge, CT. and graduated from Princeton with a degree in Anthropology. But while in New Jersey, Morse was also an active musician, playing in a New Wave band. Pushed out of the group, he moved to New York in 1984 and spent a year working with Steve Rubell of Studio 54 fame. But he wanted to get back to music, and a year later he decided to explore life in Haiti, a place he had visited as a teenager.

He settled in Port Au Prince, and in 1987, after a storybook chance encounter, Morse took over the management of the storied Hotel Oloffson — the inspiration for Graham Greene’s Hotel Trianon in his novel The Comedians — which had fallen in hard times. As part of his restoration efforts, Morse called on local artists, dancers, and musicians to provide entertainment.

The hotel became a music hub, opening its doors to bands such as Boukman Eksperyans and Boukan Ginen, which went on to become prominent in the mizik rasin movement.

RAM has recorded seven albums, and, in the process, shed most of its initial rock influences in favor of Haitian roots elements. It still performs at the Oloffson on Thursdays. Artburst spoke with Morse while on the road with his band, driving South after a show in New Jersey, all part of the US tour that will bring them to Miami Beach.

Artburst: What moved you to create RAM?

Richard Morse: There was a movement towards world music in the early 80s, a lot of people were starting to experiment with world rhythms; people like David Byrne, Malcolm McLaren, Peter Gabriel. My mother is from Haiti, so unlike most people who would choose countries that interested them, I chose to go to my mother’s country. I was discovering rhythms that had something to do with me. But it took five years to put the band together and really, what happened was that I met Lunise, now my wife, who is a dancer and a singer, and she had with her the rhythm, the drums, so basically, we added guitar and bass to the Haitian roots and started working from there.

Artburst: It sounds like you plugged right into the family tradition: Your mother was a dancer and a singer; your maternal grandfather was a troubadour.

Richard Morse: Right, and [my mother] was making the same music that we’re doing now. Each generation comes in with their own influences. We are more electric, she was more acoustic. And now my son is in the band, he plays guitar, and my daughter teaches dance workshops while we’re on the road.

Artburst: The title of RAM’s latest album, August 1791, commemorates the beginning of the revolt that resulted in Haiti’s independence. Could you talk about the music in it?

Richard Morse: Yes, we’ve done some videos after August 1791, but that’s the latest album. A lot of the songs [in it] are historical, traditional songs handed down over time. The theme is how the African-born slaves come together with the Creole-born slaves to have a revolution. And the reason behind their successful revolution was their children, the future.

Artburst: Could you talk about the relevance of music in the politics of Haiti? There are many examples, but to name one, you and RAM had problems with the military junta in 1992 because of “Fey,” not a political song but a traditional song you adapted. People embraced it as an anthem for president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which the military had deposed.

Richard Morse: Usually, dictators try to steer the population away from the music we do because there is truth in it. Military dictators frown upon that. A lot of the songs we sing can be interpreted politically because they are parables, and that’s all good … [but] you have to focus on the musical aspect for the political aspect to remain true. Once you become overtly political, it ruins the music.

Artburst: You did get involved directly in politics as an advisor when singer Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly, your cousin, became president. But then you resigned in protest for what you perceived as corruption. Last week we got news of Haitian artists joining in protest to demand the president’s resignation. How do you feel about that?

Richard Morse: I let the Haitian public know my stance against corruption and this political regime back in 2013. The statement had a lot of impact in Haiti. I’m glad that other artists are finally getting on board. I hope they’re not just following a current trend to try to save their reputations. This is a long term struggle for social justice, not this week’s fashion statement.

What: Rhythm Foundation presents Haitian rock/roots music band RAM. Dance performance by Nancy St Leger Dance Ensemble and an opening set by DJ Krazy Mix. 
Where: North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
When: Saturday, October 26 at 8 p.m.
TICKETS: $25 + fees. For tickets, or Haitian outlets or online at  https://www.rhythmfoundation.com/events/ram/