anthologysd.com

…After my sailing experience, I was up for a little more adventure and was recommended to go to Anthology, the city’s premier dinner theater. Here, you can order dinner or drinks and then enjoy your meal while a live band plays. Now this is a very modern, upscale place - not the oldschool dark and dingy jazz club. Anthology has a house band that plays on Tuesday nights., but on the weekend there are often headliners who sell out the venue. I attended the Candy Dulfer concert and really enjoyed the concept of being entertained while enjoying some appetizers and wine. Anthology has got to be one of the all-time greatest date spots, so check it out when you are in town.

…
By Hayley, Editor En Route of EstatesWest.com • May 28th, 2009

Click here if you have trouble watching the video below.

Known for its outstanding live music and equally impressive menu selections, Anthology has become a popular hot spot in San Diego’s nightlife scene. Owners Marsha and Howard Berkson talk about their vision and some of the exciting, upcoming shows this summer. We’ll also chat with comedian Joe Piscopo who’s performing live at Anthology this weekend!

—

Travel like a Local explores all the fun and interesting things to see and do in beautiful San Diego. Whether you’re looking for a good hotel deal, searching for a new restaurant or nightclub or just want something fun to do with the family, our show covers it all! Produced by the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau and hosted by long time television news anchor Darlynne Reyes Menkin, this 30 minute travel show explores the best and brightest of San Diego. Every Friday at 1:30 p.m. on SignOn Radio.

Click here for more about the ‘Travel Like a Local” program on SignOn Radio.

NBC San Diego News

Comedian and former Saturday Night Live star Joe Piscopo sat down to discuss his shows this week at Anthology.

If you have trouble watching the video below, please click here.

If you can’t watch the video segment below, click here.

Comedian Joe Piscopo is playing Anthology in Little Italy on Friday and Saturday, and he dropped by KUSI on Thursday morning to give us a preview of what we can expect.

For ticket info, visit www.anthologysd.com

Yelp.com’s Hottest Spots in SD
Reported by: Elex Michaelson
Email: elex.michaelson@sandiego6.com
–
Ruggy said there is one place with near acoustic perfection in San Diego, Anthology in Little Italy. “The best sound in San Diego” he said.

The room is meant to transform you into another time and place–an “old-school” Chicago jazz hall.

Co-owner and Chicago native Marsha Berkson said “my husband has always dreamed of opening a music venue. I thought he was opening a dive bar and this is what I got.”

“From the minute you walk into this venue, your jaw drops, you are taken into a different place” she continued.

The room was designed with sound in mind, and Berkson said 98 percent of views have perfect sight lines.

The first few floors are set for dinner and music. The top floor is general admission to listen to the music.

Still, the venue feels intimate. “We’ve had hundreds of Grammy Award winning artists and they say this is one of the few places like this in the world…We’re very proud that San Diego has this very unique spot what artists consider in the world.”

Every Tuesday night, the house band plays jazz and R&B.

On the third Wednesday of every month, local favorite Charles McPherson plays saxophone.

Other than that, the artists rotate.

In June, Anthology plans on debuting a lounge menu where everything is under $10

–

Click here for the full article.

From Parlor to Parking Lot

By Josh Board (San Diego Reader) | Published Wednesday, May 13, 2009
–
Alison Brown went from playing banjo outside of Shakey’s Pizza in La Mesa to performing with Alison Krauss + Union Station, being named the Banjo Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, and starting her own label, Compass Records.

I asked Alison a few questions about her instrument and her days in San Diego.

How did you become a banjo player?

“There’s not much that was cool about the banjo in the mid-’70s. Most students at La Jolla High School were more into being surfers and surfer chicks than banjo pickers. But I was really drawn to the sound of the instrument when I first heard Earl Scruggs’s Foggy Mountain Banjo album, and when we moved from Connecticut to San Diego in 1974 I fell in with the San Diego Bluegrass Club.

“There was a really vibrant bluegrass community in Southern California in the ’70s. There used to be banjo/fiddle contests nearly every weekend. The first contest I ever entered was in Old Town. The next one was at Balboa Park. I’ll never forget going to Lou Curtiss’s shop Folk Arts to collect my prize for the banjo contest; I still have the hand-drawn picture of a banjo with the words ‘First Prize!’ that he sketched for me on a piece of manila paper while I waited.

“I also have very fond memories of the parking-lot jam sessions at the Shakey’s Pizza parlor in La Mesa. Lots of great local bands — Pacifically Bluegrass, Pendleton Pickers, Damascus Road — played sets on stage while several circles of pickers jammed outside in the dark, scattered among the parked cars. That’s really where I cut my teeth on the bluegrass repertoire.

“And I tuned in every Sunday night to Wayne Rice’s Bluegrass Special on KSON. He’s still on the air and probably has one of the longest running bluegrass radio shows in the country. So, as it turned out, San Diego was a great place to learn to play bluegrass, even though that might sound a little counterintuitive.”

…
Click here for the rest of the article.

SHE’S GOT THE CHOPS (AND THE PACKAGE IS NOT BAD EITHER)
You can’t judge an album by its cover.

Case in point: The color photo that adorns Melissa Morgan’s “Until I Met You,” which shows her in a form-fitting purple dress and high heels. The angle of the photo shows off her shapely legs as she prepares to get out of a vintage Porsche convertible.

The knee-jerk response would be to assume this New York native is yet another talent-free, wannabe pop-soul diva whose assets don’t include her singing or more than a shred of musical ability. The reality is quite different.

Morgan, who performs Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Anthology (anthologysd.com), is a gifted, classically trained jazz and blues singer who can seduce and captivate with her voice alone. At 28, she combines the poise and maturity of a seasoned veteran with the infectious verve of a fresh new talent.

Produced by young trumpet phenom Christian Scott, who also performs on four tracks, “Until I Met You” is one of the most assured and enjoyable debut albums by any jazz singer in recent memory. Morgan has clearly been inspired by such greats as Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and Nancy Wilson, but she’s savvy enough to build upon her musical influences, not just mimic them.

Witness how deftly she puts her stamp on such disparate songs as “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby,” a 1944 hit for saxophonist (and unsung proto-rock pioneer) Louis Jordan, and Etta Jones’ oh-so-sly 1962 gem “Cool Cool Daddy.” Then there’s Cecil Gant’s blues-drenched 1944 breakthrough hit “I Wonder,” which finds Morgan assuming a come-hither tone that’s both playful and sultry, and the Count Basie instrumental romp “Corner Pocket,” which she reshapes into “Until I Met You’s” alluring title track by slowing down the tempo and adding lyrics.

Yet, while Morgan has a strong, flexible voice, she wisely refrains from showboating (a welcome display of restraint other singers would do well to emulate). I haven’t yet heard her perform live with her quartet, which includes young pianist Gerald Clayton, but “Until I Met You” suggests she is destined for bigger things.

‘SHE HAS AN INCREDIBLE HEART AND IS SO SOULFUL’
Diane Moser only lived in San Diego from 1977 to 1979, but that was more than enough time for this unusually eclectic pianist and composer to make an indelible impression on her fellow musicians here.
That’s why so many notable jazz artists, including saxophonists Charles McPherson and Daniel Jackson, are banding together on her behalf Tuesday at 7 p.m. at downtown’s all-ages Dizzy’s (dizzysjazz.com).

The lineup also includes violinist Yale Strom, former Ray Charles trumpeter Mitch Manker, drummer Duncan Moore, saxophonist Tripp Sprague, multi-instrumentalist Dave Millard, singer Elizabeth Schwartz, the versatile Miles Davis tribute band ESP and bassists Mark Dresser, Rob Thorsen and Gunnar Biggs.

Their goal: To raise funds to help cover the medical expenses of the New York-based Moser, who requires expensive daily medications as she recovers from the removal of a gastrointestinal tumor.

“She’ll be on this medication for about six months, at $100 a day,” said Dresser, who befriended Moser here in the late 1970s. “She has an incredible heart and is so soulful. She embodies the real spirit of jazz – fun, humor, adventure, entertainment, swing and taking chances.”

Moser came to San Diego in 1977 from Iowa City as part of a musical migration that also included Manker, Moore, singer Ella Ruth Piggee, ESP pianist Lynn Willard and ex-ESP drummer Will Parsons.

An unusually versatile pianist and composer, Moser has also collaborated with such diverse artists as Diamanda Galas, Bert Turetzky, Jeannie Cheatham, Andrew Cyrille, Marty Ehrlich and former Jimi Hendrix percussionist Juma Santos. She is as comfortable leading her acclaimed Jazz Composers Big Band, which she founded in 1997, as she is recording in an intimate, piano-and-bass setting with Dresser on their upcoming CIMP Records album, “Duetto.”

“Very few musicians have much in the way of medical coverage,” Dresser said. “We just want to make sure Diane gets the treatment she needs.”

–

Who made you God?
By George Varga
POP MUSIC CRITIC
2:00 a.m. May 7, 2009
San Diego Union-Tribune
Click here for the original article

Please click here if you can’t watch the video below.

Arturo Sandoval performs again tonight as Anthology. Don’t miss this show!

BUY TICKETS