Freebie of the week: Fleet Week, which returns this week, remains a high point in the Bay Area events calendar. Begun in 1981, the weeklong celebration of men and women who serve in America’s armed forces and related services unfolds across San Francisco with a dazzling mix of military might, civic pride and entertainment. Many people know about Fleet Week’s headliners: the eye-popping aerial maneuvers performed by the Blue Angels pilots, the stately Parade of Ships through San Francisco Bay and the annual Fleet Fest bash held on Piers 30/32 Saturday and Sunday. Lesser known, perhaps, is the bounty of free concerts staged by some of the armed forces’ excellent musicians at sites and venues throughout the city. Through Monday morning, you can catch the Navy Band Southwest Woodwind Quintet, the NBSW Brass Band, the First Marine Division Ceremonial Band and other outfits in a variety of shows and settings, sometimes accompanied by a choir or a drill platoon, sometimes on their own. Information and a complete schedule of the concerts–not to mention the aerial shows Friday through Sunday and the Parade of Ships on Friday–can be found at fleetweeksf.org
Revisiting an idea: Thought-provoking and keen-witted analyst of our modern world, nonfiction author Malcolm Gladwell first captured our attention nearly 25 years ago with “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” which stayed on the best-seller lists for an amazing eight years. Not long ago, he set out to revise the classic tome and came to an abrupt halt, realizing that the march of time had produced such a sweep of significant events that he needed to begin all over and reapply his concept. The result is “Revenge of the Tipping Point” (Little Brown and Company, $32, 368 pages), bearing a just-lit match on its book jacket and the subtitle “Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering.” The book begins and ends with the superspreading opioid crisis, noting that doctors prescribing oxycontin became the spark that lit that flame, and also examines the genesis and the impact of the COVID epidemic. Gladwell speaks about the book with entrepreneur and podcaster Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and former chairman of Etsy, at a City Arts & Lectures event at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco. Purchase tickets ($54 and $75) at cityarts.net; a book is included at the higher price.
A cross-cultural partnership: Two Western musicians with roots in the East–one in Lebanon, the other in Japan–have joined forces for a high-concept collaboration called “Broken Branches,” a 2024 Grammy Award-nominated album that explores mixed identities and the close cultural and musical links through the ages between the East and the West. Now Grammy Award-winning tenor Karim Sulayman and multiple award-winning guitarist Sean Shibe will be playing works from the album at a San Francisco Performances-hosted recital at the Presidio Theatre, 99 Moraga Ave., in San Francisco’s Presidio, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Described as a “musical traversal of the Silk Road from the Middle Ages to the present,” the diverse program presents works by Henry Purcell, John Dowland, Claudio Monteverdi, Toru Takemitsu, Benjamin Britten and more, including traditional works in the Sephardic and Arab Andalusian genres. Tickets are $45 and $60, available through sfperformances.org. For a brief excerpt from their program, go here.
‘Angels’ lands in Marin: Tony Kushner’s Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Angels in America” is a little like the “Schindler’s List” of the theater world–an epic, challenging and tough take on AIDS and homosexuality in the United States in the 1980s. While some folks may feel like it’s something they’re supposed to see, upon taking it in, they find it powerful and moving, working on many levels at once. Oakland Theater Project’s new production of “Angels in America” is now being presented in collaboration with Marin Shakespeare Company, with performances at Marin Shakes’ new indoor theater at 415 Fourth St. in San Rafael. Part 1, “Millennium Approaches” runs through Oct. 26; “Part 2: Perestroika” plays Friday through Oct. 27. Parts 1 and 2 run back-to-back on Oct. 19 and 26. Not only is “Angels” a powerful work buoyed by some of the finest writing the drama world has seen, Oakland Theater Project has a knack for tackling meaty productions in innovative ways. Tickets are $10-$60; go to oaklandtheaterproject.org/angels
Mad about Monk: With his songs characterized by melodic dissonance and playful rhythmic and improvisational nature, Thelonious Monk helped define the challenging, almost rebellious, nature of jazz music during the 20th century. He remains one of the genre’s most recorded composers, with “’Round Midnight” and “Straight, No Chaser” among his catalog’s iconic classics. His sound, his look (fine suits, a dapper hat and sunglasses) and his popular habit during performances of getting up from the piano to dance a bit if the spirit moved him, all helped define one of jazz’s indisputable stars and an icon of the last century. No surprise, SFJAZZ Center’s Thelonious Monk Festival this week offers talented and distinctive artists. On Thursday, pianist and composer John Beasley, whose angular music and nimble playing has earned him fans from Miles Davis to Steely Dan, brings his Monk’estra band to Miner Auditorium at 7:30 p.m.; tickets are $35-$115. On Thursday and Friday, extraordinary pianist Sullivan Fortner, known for his work with Cecile McLorin Salvant, plays four solo shows in the SFJAZZ John Henderson Lab ($30 tickets are going fast). On Saturday, Los Angeles keyboardist Diego Gaeta presents a concert of reworked Monk classics at 7 p.m.; tickets are $25. On Sunday, Spanish composer and pianist Marta Sánchez presents her distinctive take on Monk’s music at 6 and 7:30 p.m.; tickets are $25 at sfjazz.org.
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