Will Robert Plant get the Led (Zeppelin) out in Berkeley?
It’s rock ’n’ roll legend time in the Bay Area, as the great Robert Plant hits the Greek Theatre in Berkeley tonight.
The powerful vocalist, who was enshrined as a member of Led Zeppelin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, is touring in support of last year’s critically acclaimed “Carry Fire.”
It’s the 11th solo effort for Plant and he’s backed once again by his Sensational Space Shifters, who are also accompanying him on tour.
Jim James, the frontman for My Morning Jacket, and Seth Lakeman are also on the bill.
Details: 7:30 tonight. Tickets $59.50-$159.50; www.ticketmaster.com.
Belle, Green bring big jazz talent
Maggie Belle Gehegan started singing when she lived in San Francisco, but it wasn’t until she moved to New Orleans in 2012 to pursue her nursing career that she found her musical mojo. She’s gradually built a smart band and an ebulliently personal sound that combines the foundational Crescent City sounds of jazz, funk and R&B.
Touring with a stripped-down combo sans horns, the Maggie Belle Band makes its Bay Area debut with her rollicking rhythm section featuring keyboardist Brian Scheller, bassist Max Hass and drummer Cedar Howard.
Details: 7:30 tonight, Savanna Jazz, San Carlos, $15, 415-624-4549, www.savannajazz.com; 6 p.m. Friday, Poor House Bistro, San Jose, no cover, 408-292-5837, www.poorhousebistro.com; 8 p.m. Saturday, Impulse Room, Walnut Creek, $15; 925-476-5040, www. impulseroom.com.
Meanwhile, Danny Green is proving he has the moxie and perseverance to launch a national jazz career from San Diego. It doesn’t hurt that the pianist and composer also has exquisite lyricism and a rhythmic sensibility informed by a deep love of Brazilian music.
He returns to the Bay Area following the recent release of his fifth album “One Day It Will” (OA2 Records), an ambitious project that pairs his longtime trio featuring bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Julien Cantelm with a string quartet. Sumptuously melodic but never syrupy, his arrangements continuously find effective spaces for the strings, though violinist Alisa Rose, violist Keith Lawrence and cellist Shain Carrasco only join Green’s trio at Portola Vineyards.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Red Poppy Art House, San Francisco, $15-$20, 650-731-5383, redpoppyarthouse.org; 8 p.m. Saturday, The Sound Room, Oakland, $15-$20, 510-496-4180, soundroom.org; 6 p.m. Sunday, Portola Vineyards, Los Altos Hills; $12-$24, 650-332-4959, portolavineyards.com/summer-jazz.html. — Andrew Gilbert, Correspondent
Trifonov ready to thrill with Rach 3
Since winning the first prize awards at the Tchaikovsky and Rubenstein competitions in 2011, Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov has charted a steady course to the top of the music world; there may be no more fluent — or more exciting — musician before the public today. He is an artist of wide-ranging interest — there seems to be nothing he can’t do.
Trifonov, who excels in chamber music and concerto repertoire, is also a composer; he premiered his own piano concerto in 2013. This season, which saw him win a Grammy Award for best instrumental solo album for “Transcendental,” a double album of Liszt works, he’s been playing Chopin, Schumann, Prokofiev and contemporary composer Mauro Lanza, giving the kind of energized, captivating performances that prompted the great Argentine pianist Martha Argerich to say, “He has everything and more … tenderness and also the demonic element. I never heard anything like that.”
Audiences can expect tenderness and that demonic element in equal measure this week, as Trifonov concludes his season-long residency with the San Francisco Symphony. The pianist, who played Rachmaninoff’s Two Suites for Two Pianos with Sergei Babayan in Davies Hall a few months back, returns to join music director Michael Tilson Thomas and the orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s thrilling Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor.
The program also includes Symphonies No. 6 and 7 by Sibelius.
Details: 8 p.m. today-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $15-$159; 415-8646000; www.sfsymphony.org. — Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Opera alfresco
A glass of wine, a beautiful outdoor setting and a glorious aria — for many opera lovers, summer is the time of year to enjoy gorgeous music in the great outdoors.
Livermore Valley Opera’s popular “Opera in the Vineyard” series kicks off Sunday at Nella Terra Cellars in Sunol. Bring a picnic and listen to artists from the company in a program of opera excerpts. Baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, tenor Dane Suarez, mezzo-soprano Molly Hill and soprano Shawnette Sulker will be giving their all for you, and you will have an opportunity to “sponsor” an aria of your choice for a donation. Wine is available for purchase at the event. A second concert is planned for July 15 at Retzlaff Vineyards in Livermore.
Details: 5-8 p.m. Sunday, Nella Terra Cellars, 5005 Sheridan Road, Sunol. Tickets $50 in advance, $55 at event.livermorevalleyopera.com/oiv1 — Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Sino-futurist musical ‘Soft Power’ comes to SF
The first collaboration of the theatrical dream team of great American playwright David Henry Hwang and versatile composer Jeanine Tesori, “Soft Power” is billed as “a play with a musical” with a predominantly Asian-American cast. Coming to the Curran theater in San Francisco, fresh from its world premiere in Los Angeles, it starts as a contemporary comedy and then shifts into a full-blown musical.
Set during the 2016 election, the first part of the play features a fictionalized Hwang — portrayed by Francis Jue — meeting with a Chinese producer about a possible TV show and also involves an encounter with Hillary Clinton. Then we jump about a century into the future to the 50th anniversary of a popular Chinese musical in their somewhat bizarre version of the American style, featuring a strangely mythologized version of these same events and how they changed the world.
It all promises to be completely bonkers and, if the artists’ track record is any indication, quite possibly amazing.
Details: Through July 8 at the Curran, 445 Geary St., San Francisco; $29-$175; www.sfcurran.com — Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Concerts: Kevin Hart, Chris Brown and the Pretenders
It should be another entertaining week of concerts in the Bay Area. Here are some of the top picks, including two shows by one of the most popular comedians in the
business.
Kevin Hart: We’re not sure how he finds the time to tour, given that Hart seems to put out a new movie every other week or so. But here’s an opportunity to see him in concert. He’s performing at 8 tonight at Mountain View’s Shoreline Amphitheatre ($33 and up) and 8 p.m. Friday at the Concord Pavilion ($33.50 and up); www. livenation.com.
Violent Femmes: This band’s eponymous first album in 1983 stands as one of the great debuts in rock history. You’ll likely hear plenty of that album when they perform at 7:30 tonight at Saratoga’s Mountain Winery ($39-50-$79.50, www. mountainwinery.com) and 8 p.m. Friday at Berkeley’s UC Theatre ($39.50, www. eventbrite.com). Ashwin Batish is also on the bill.
Chris Brown: On the road in support of his latest chart-topping R&B effort, “Heartbreak on a Full Moon,” Brown is performing at 7 tonight at the Concord Pavilion ($16-$191, www.livenation.com). H.E.R., 6lack, Rich the Kid and Jacquees are also on the bill.
Belle and Sebastian: Catch this terrific Scottish act, which has delivered such sparkling indie-pop gems as 1998’s “The Boy with the Arab Strap,” at 8 p.m. Monday at Oakland’s Fox Theater ($50.50$70.50, www.ticketmaster.com). Japanese Breakfast is also on the bill.
The Pretenders: The legendary rock outfit, responsible for such classics as “Brass in Pocket” and “Talk of the Town,” performs at 8 p.m. Friday at San Francisco’s Masonic ($35-$125, www.livenation. com) and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Saratoga’s Mountain Winery ($59.50-$139.50, www. mountainwinery.com). Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express are also on the bill.