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Sights & Sounds Weekly: 9/24/15

Peter Varshavsky
Bassist, Marcus Shelby

Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene through the eyes and ears of local artists. This week our guest is Marcus Shelby. He’s a bassist, composer, and educator. Shelby talked to KALW's Jen Chien about his new composition for the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio, and to share his recommendations for three arts events happening this week in the Bay.

Lebanese-American FBI agent George Piro (Damien Seperi, right) is surprised by his interactions with Saddam Hussein (Julian Lopez-Morillas) in Hassan Abdulrazzak’s Lost Kingdom, directed by Michael French.

ReOrient, presented by Golden Thread Productions, runs now until Sunday 10/4 at Z Below in San Francisco. This annual theater festival and forum explores the Middle East with plays, panels, talkbacks, and a recital of Arab folk songs. It includes eight short plays with stories about Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, England, and the U.S.

SHELBY: We hear so much backlash with our politicians - these plays are kind of refreshing and you see another type of life.

On Saturday 9/26 at 7pm, The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol and her Quintet are at the Alameda Main Library for the Live at the Library Series. Carol is a vocalist and international recording artist with a gift for interpreting standards through her gospel, r&b, soul, blues, and jazz roots.

SHELBY: She's a complete original, but within that space you hear all the masters, the shoulders that she stands upon and has reconciled to her own style.

On Monday Nights at 8pm, the Fil Lorenz Orchestra holds court with live jazz at Local Edition in San Francisco’s Financial District. Band leader Lorenz is a saxophonist with a long running history in the Bay Area. His 14-piece classic big band plays a high-energy program of blues and bop arrangements.

SHELBY: It's a tradition, in cities, for a big band to be somewhere on a Monday night. You get a chance to see really quality musicians close-up.