Eclectic percussion, guitar coming to Soquel
For nearly two decades, Fiddling Cricket Productions has brought local and touring artists to The Ugly Mug in Soquel, transforming the neighborhood coffee shop into a fine mid-county listening room. The series came to a halt in 2020 — along with the rest of the world — but the café is back with a regular schedule of live music.
This Saturday promises to be extra special, as local favorites Yuji Tojo, Jim Greiner and Jimmy Norris team up for a never-beforeseen collaboration.
Yuji is flat-out one of Santa Cruz's preeminent guitar players. He mixes jazz, classical, and even world music, combining those genres into unique interpretations of well-known tunes along with his own original work.
In a recent phone interview, Yuji talked about his early years. He was born and raised in Tokyo, played clubs at age 14 and was touring with a band immediately after high school. He and his band opened for artists such as Herbie Hancock, Tower of Power and Little Feat, but Yuji quickly added, “I got tired of touring pretty quickly. And then I saw the music scene in San Francisco with photos of people playing on the street, and I wanted to see that.”
He dropped everything, moved to California, and settled north of Santa Cruz. “I lived in a treehouse, which was so different from Tokyo. It was smaller, but there were SO many places to play.” Yuji reminisced about playing venues of the past, such as The Cooper House and O.T. Prices' along with “still standing” venues including The Crow's Nest and The Catalyst.
Jim Greiner is an awardwinning, internationally recognized percussionist. He's been playing drums and percussion, along with teaching and conducting workshops, since 1970. He also did a two-year residency in Africa. That experience, Jim says, made him “profoundly moved by the power of purpose-driven group drumming to build community bonds, invigorate and focus people, release stress and celebrate life.”
Yuji and Jim have played together in the past but haven't done a proper show together in over 10 years, busy as they've been with their own gigs, producing, and teaching. A last-minute show this past Christmas prompted Yuji and Jim to suggest a night at The Ugly Mug. Fiddling Cricket — and Mug owner Steve Volt — loved the idea, and they quickly “inked in” a date.
In performance, Yuji is well known as a master “looper.” This guitar technique allows a player to lay down a guitar track, immediately record and play it back, then repeat the process several times. In essence, the guitarist builds a live band and song, one track at a time.
For this show at the Mug, however, Yuji and Jim decided to do something different.
The third leg of this evening features Jimmy Norris, Santa Cruz's go-to drummer. Jimmy has played with everyone from Lacy J. Dalton, Sharon Allen and The Dusty Boots and Keith Greeninger. (And for you old punks reading this, Jimmy was even the drummer with The Humans back in the 1980s for a spell.)
Instead of looping, Jim Greiner adds, Yuji suggested to downplay the looping a bit and have Jimmy “lay down the groove” for their music on Saturday, and have him and Jim play to that. “Jimmy is such a spectacularly sensitive drummer. He's at the top of the game at what he does and inspires both the artists and the audience when he plays. I'll just serve up my part from what Jimmy lays down.”
The night promises to be a completely unique experience with three master musicians improvising an entire show. Jim says, “Yuji's going to just throw out the songs he wants to play, and we're going to accompany him. I know much of his material already. Plus, he's so good at what he does, it's easy to support and go along with him on that journey.”
Or as Jim added, “that's why we call it PLAYING music.”