When it comes to mid-career musicians seeking greener pastures, the Bay Area too often looks both undernourished and overgrazed. Rather than serving as a magnet for artists hitting their stride, the region tends to export talent, an often heartbreaking dynamic driven by the Bay Area’s prohibitive cost of living and relative dearth of opportunities. So when a bona fide mover and shaker decides to relocate here, it’s something to celebrate.
Baritone saxophonist Martín Perna, the founder and guiding spirit of the pre-eminent U.S. Afrobeat bandAntibalas, moved to Berkeley last year and has been gradually establishing himself on the local scene. But that’s not to say that he’s given up the Brooklyn band that inspired dozens of horn-laden combos across the country to explore the driving Nigerian sound pioneered by Fela Kuti.
Celebrating Antibalas’ eighth album “Fu Chronicles,” released by Daptone Records on Friday, Feb. 7, and the start of its third decade, the band hits the region with four shows as part of a national tour, scheduled for Moe’s Alley in Santa Cruz on Wednesday, Feb. 12; the Independent in San Francisco on Friday and Sunday, Feb. 14 and 16; and Oakland’s New Parish on Saturday, Feb. 15. In many ways the dates serve as a Bay Area coming-out party for Perna, who’s been keeping a low profile as a player.
“I’ve connected mostly on the education front, running a jazz band at Oakland High sponsored bySFJazz和the Oakland Public Conservatory,” said Perna over coffee at a West Berkeley cafe. “Teaching totally swallowed me up. It’s good to be going on tour. I get to recalibrate my role.”
Perna made the move west when his wife, Courtney Desiree Morris, landed a tenure-track position at UC Berkeley in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. Even with a plum gig as a financial anchor, they’re struggling to find suitable housing that’s not a soul-crushing commute to campus. It’s a situation that’s all too familiar, and uncoincidentally the new Antibalas album is a paean to pre-gentrification Williamsburg, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the band came together in 1998. Landing in the Bay Area, Perna recognized the same economic forces long targeted by the activist ensemble.
“Something I put in the first record is that if we keep on embracing capitalism, it’s not going to turn out well,” Perna said. “Every single person who doesn’t have a house is proof that capitalism needs to be tweaked.”
Coming from a family of artists and activists, Perna gravitated naturally to Afrobeat, a style forged in the brutal cauldron of Nigerian politics. Inspired by Fela Kuti’s scathing and infectiously grooving denunciations of government corruption, Antibalas added the trombone-powered salsa dura sound of Eddie Palmieri into the mix.
While drawing on a myriad of influences, the band has played an essential role in spreading the Afrobeat message. Rather than staying in the pit, the Antibalas horns were featured on stage for the Tony Award-winning Broadway production “Fela!” They’ve also toured with Brooklyn Beninese superstarAngelique Kidjo, supplying the brass for her brilliant reappropriation of Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light.”
Through it all Antibalas has maintained deep ties to Nigeria via lead singer and percussionist Duke Amayo, who has also performed with Afrobeat scions Femi and Seun Kuti, Afrobeat drum pioneer Tony Allen, and Bay Area hip-hop troubadourMichael Franti和先锋。乐队任职时间最长的一个成员fter Perna, Amayo has increasingly taken a leadership role on- and offstage, contributing most of the songs on “Fu Chronicles,” while launching a green school project featuring solar panels and a rooftop garden with rainwater harvesting in Ikeja, the capital of the state of Lagos.
The band’s influence is magnified by the far-flung Antibalas family, as dozens of musicians who have played in the band over the past two decades remain in an extended orbit.
“Everybody who’s ever been in the group is still part of it,” Perna says. “It’s a profession and a labor of love. We’ve had a pay freeze since 2005. Ticket prices can’t go any higher or we’d be playing only for people of a different income bracket. We kind of subsidize people’s good time.”
Trombonist Aaron Johnson spent about a decade performing with Antibalas before he moved to the East Bay in 2013. After three years booking the SFJazz Center’s Joe Henderson Lab, he recently took over as talent buyer forSweetwater Music Hallin Mill Valley, day gigs necessary for a player with a family. Warmly welcomed onto the Bay Area scene byJazz Mafiahoncho Adam Theis, who recommended him for gigs, Johnson knows exactly what Perna is up against.
He figures if anyone can execute a mid-career transplant, “it’s Martin, who’s always been an idea person who can make things happen,” Johnson said. “As soon as he got out here he was calling me saying, ‘I want to start a brass band. Let’s start a monthly vinyl night.’ He’s looking to create that community and give it a place to be in public.”
Antibalas:8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12. $28-$32. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. 831-479-1854.www.moesalley.com; 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14. 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 16. $30-$35. The Independent, 628 Divisadero St., S.F. 415-771-1421.www.theindependentsf.com
Antibalas andTaylor McFerrin:9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15. $30-$35. The New Parish, 1743 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 510-227-8177.www.thenewparish.com