Music on the Hill at St. John’s College offers free Wednesday concerts through July 23
Rehearse before a concert? Not Giacomo Gates, who will sing jazz vocals with the ensemble Straight Up at the opening performance of Music on the Hill at St. John’s College on tonight.
“We won’t work it out at all before the show,” Gates said by phone from his home in Connecticut. “I come with a list of a couple hundred tunes in my pocket. I have to see what’s happening with the bandstand, the venue and the crowd. The number of people in the audience, their ages and even the weather affect my song choices. I know we’ll do some George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.”
Six different acts are part of the Music on the Hill’s summer concert series, at the St. John’s College athletic field on Wednesdays through July. It’s free and open to the public.
Gates isn’t a stranger to New Mexico. He’s performed gigs in Farmington, Albuquerque and Santa Fe during the past few years. He was a bit of a late bloomer on the music scene. His talents weren’t introduced to the public until 1990, when he was 40 years old. Before beginning his career as a jazz vocalist, Gates drove school buses, cattle transporters and 18-wheelers. He spent 14 years in the Alaskan wilderness working in road construction, operating scrapers, loaders and bulldozers and driving spikes into railway tracks in the tundra. When he realized he needed to immerse himself in the music scene full time, he moved back to his home state of Connecticut.
“Some of my music is lyricized and some is wordless,” Gates said. “When it’s wordless, I’ll imitate instruments like the trombone, flute, bass and drums. Sometimes I’ll start with a familiar melody and go from there.”
Words are a big part of the indie folk music of Eileen Meyer, who lives in Santa Fe and will perform June 25. Talking about how her songs came into being are as much a part of the act as singing, she says. “I’m inspired by the connection with the soul, the sacred feminine.”
“My music explores internal and external experiences and is about who we are, our collective consciousness and empowerment,” she said. “I’ll be performing selections from my first two CDs and my new one, ‘Dive In and Other Messages from the Goddess.’ ’’
Playing with Meyer, who is a singer and keyboardist, are guitarist Larry Mitchell,, drummer Jeff Sussmann and bass player Maude Beenhouwer.
The Music on the Hill lineup also features Ramon Bermudez on June 18, Hillary Smith on July 9, Bert Dalton & The Brazil Project on July 16 and Wagogo on July 23.
