Jazz

The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band is a 12-20 piece “raucous, stomp-your-foot-and-belt-out-the-choruses” New Orleans-style street band based in Somerville & Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are regular Joes and Janes with day jobs who combine music with social action; slamming out the sounds of the legendary Crescent City for peace rallies, street festivals, parades, and benefits.We are also a part of the organizing force behind HONK! a festival of activist street bands that takes place every October in Somerville’s Davis Square.

The Variable Density Sound Orchestra: Minimal Density version for Porchfest, featuring the best world renowned improvising musicians: Guitarist Garrison Fewell, trumpeter Jerry Sabatini, saxophonist Jason Robinson and drummer Luther Gray! As the name implies, the VDSO is an actively changing and growing collective of jazz improviser/composers from Boston, Somerville and the world. The VDSO conducts improvisational dialogues that transcend stylistic boundaries in creative music. We believe in social justice and bringing attention to the role of collective improvisation and creative arts to illuminate the culture of today's society.

Funky jazz with a lil' bit o' Jazzy funk!

Rock

Guitarists Garrison Fewell and Eric Hofbauer play creative music, most of which is improvised, with references to such diverse elements as Congolese and Egyptian mythology, Delta blues, Astro-Physics, a muezzin's call to prayer and the sonorities of traditional instruments such as the kora and African thumb piano. The duo also adds original compositions to the mix, as well reinterpretations of music by Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk and John Tchicai.

Join library favorite Jordan Voelker for a sing along! Suitable for children through preschool, caregivers, and families. Hear tunes from the fiddle, ukulele, and autoharp. If we are lucky she will also bring her musical saw!

Jordan is a Somerville resident who plays and teaches viola and violin around Boston. She performs and records with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Callithumpian Consort, Larkin Grimm, Carter Creek Revival, and other old and new music groups.

Tenor Sax and keyboards playing a limited selection of jazz standards.