East Bay Blues Showcase Third Anniversary Party with AKI KUMAR and STEVE FREUND

Name: East Bay Blues Showcase Third Anniversary Party with AKI KUMAR and STEVE FREUND
Start: 2025-04-05T19:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-04-05T22:00:00-07:00
Location: The Monkey House

Schedule

Sat Apr 05 2025 at 07:00 pm to 10:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

The Monkey House | Berkeley, CA

Please join us to celebrate the third anniversary of the East Bay Blues Showcase at The Monkey House with a special intimate duo blues performance by AKI KUMAR and STEVE FREUND.
Reservations are now available via [email protected] … Sliding scale donation for this performance is $20 and up.
Opening music will be performed by Raag & Norton and Up Jumped The Devil.
Doors at 7 pm. Music starts at 7:30 and ends at 10p. As always, Monkey House events are BYOB.
A masterful harmonica player, soulful vocalist, bandleader, drummer and producer, AKI KUMAR is a man of many talents and one of the most prolific artists in the SF Bay Area today. He has successfully blended retro Indian music into his presentation, making for a unique, electrifying, multi-cultural mash-up that sounds like no one else yet never loses touch with the inspiration it draws from the blues. A veteran of the San Jose music scene for two decades, Kumar was hailed as "...King of ‘Bollywood blues’ music" by SJ Mercury News (2022) and received the Metro Silicon Valley Gold Award for Best Band (2024).
Guitarist, producer and bandleader STEVE FREUND, praised by Rolling Stone for his "masterful, no-nonsense guitar work" continues to share his feeling for the blues wherever he can.
Steve has appeared on over 50 albums and produced seven. Steve began his career in Chicago as a second guitar behind Hubert Sumlin, Lee Jackson, Homesick James, Louis Myers, and many others. He spent two years working with Big Walter Horton and Floyd Jones, learning the deep blues and the idiosyncrasies that are part of the art. In 1978, he became Sunnyland Slim's main guitarist, playing just about every gig with the piano legend until the time of his death. Freund became the consummate piano accompanist working with Pinetop Perkins, Jimmy Walker, Henry Gray, Erwin Helfer and many more. He also spent nine years working with harmonica legend James Cotton.