February, Sweet and Small, Greatest Month of All

February, Sweet and Small, Greatest Month of All

“Freezing
cold winds,
biting chills, and
white snow fluffed hills
Valentines day, oh how gay!
President’s day is coming our way.
February, sweet and small, greatest month of all.” (28 Word Poem for February, Eric Lies)

“Where has that old friend gone
Lost in a February song?
Tell him it won't be long
Till he opens his eyes.” (February Song, Josh Groban)
 

Dear Friends,
After an upcoming show for Bread & Roses, “hope and healing through music,” in Oakland this month, preparations begin in earnest for our Los Angeles tour in March with John Roy Zat. We still have open dates so please let us know if there’s a stage available in your town, or even a floor. Our schedule is: March 5th at The Last Stage West in Atascadero; March 6th at Kulak's Woodshed in N. Hollywood with Severin Browne; and March 10th at Matt Denny's Ale House in Arcadia. Keep a look out for our concert with Carlos Reyes, Peruvian harp and violin, in April at a cool music spot in Oakland called Avonova. More details later.
 

Chappell’s painting of Betty Carter will be featured in the February Black History month show at Occidental Center for the Arts. Dave is preparing vintage jazz piano pieces he will play to accompany the show. It will consist of two parts: an exhibit of Black memorabilia from pre- and post- civil rights era (1960′s) from the private collection of Raynetta James followed by a juried collection of artwork from local artists reflecting their personal views about Black history. These works of art will be for sale. The exhibit will be open from February 6th to March 1st. Opening reception will be held Friday, Feb. 6th from 5-7 pm.

Due to holidays, a family visit/reunion for Chappell’s Mom’s 90th birthday, and winter colds, we missed publishing the January issue of our newsletter, and we haven’t been able to schedule as many gigs as usual. But we’ve had some fun opportunities right here in Concord to perform and try out material. Monday night January 19th we attended a terrifically groovy new open mic at Cue Productions, one of the best we've ever attended.  Old pals were there plus some great young musicians we look forward to hearing again. Several members of the Hawaiian Ukulele Club performed for the first time; all were wonderful. We also hung out with local musician Bob Loomis and friends. The song circle he hosts at his house has been great fun.

The music of Chappell & Dave Holt is featured on KC Cafe Radio …

You can listen to the free sample right away and thanks to KC Cafe radio staff, it is very cool, if I do say so myself! We’ll be doing an interview on the station soon. You may request up to 2 songs per hour, no more than 10 songs per day. If your request has already played within the last two hours, it will not be honored, and will appear in the search results with a  icon. Click the “request” button associated with the selection you would like to hear. Your selection should then play sometime over the course of the next hour. Timeliness may be affected by the number of requests waiting to be played, special programming scheduled to air, or other factors relating to the regular rotation of music playing at the time.

If you’d like to order our new CD, Stone & Fire, directly please send a $17 check (includes $2 shipping) payable to Dave Holt to 1335 Kenwal Rd., #A, Concord, CA 94521. You can also purchase downloads of Stone & Fire at CD Baby. Also our first CD, Wings of the Morning, which includes some of our true jazz tunes along with “the jazzier side of Americana” songs is now fully loaded on their site. Please be sure and preview those old songs, still fresh and lively as they were yesterday.

Many thanks to the internet radio outlets who’ve been playing our Stone and Fire cuts, Dan Herman of Radio Crystal Blue,  Uncle Shag at Longtown Sound, and Mom Hen, Jeanette Lundgren, at Mom Hens Corner.

We hope to see you at our upcoming gigs!