After it's all said and done, leave the car where it is and trot toward the wharf for fireworks at about The Joe Sharino Band and its classic covers have become so familiar to Monterey audiences, some may not realize they are based out of San Jose. Among other appearances throughout the year, the band has chosen to play in Monterey for New Year's Eve four years in a row make that five this year they will be at the Embassy Suites. The head of the group that has earned the reputation of "hometown band" in three cities (San Jose, Santa Cruz and Monterey) said, "We love Monterey.
There's an amazing, relaxed, quiet kind of vibe there." Sharino added, "And the weather is so great." (We just print the quotes.
) Both of Sharino's children live in Monterey. His son Steven attends the Monterey Institute of International Studies and is currently in Cairo, Egypt. His daughter Alison performs regularly in the area, solo, and with her own band (The Alison Sharino Band) and will be featured as vocalist for the Monterey performance.
The rest of the band is made up of Andy Morales, Mark Belshaw and David Petrucci. All share in crooning duties and all play multiple instruments. Of the many honors the group has hauled in over nearly 30 years, including 15 Best Band Awards in Northern California, Sharino said his favorite is their longevity.
"Maybe the best one of all is that we're still going." People ask him if he's tired of playing "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Twist and Shout," but those people are not counting on the connection between the four guys on stage and the people in the crowd. "We get off on watching the audience," Sharino said.
"They think we get them going, but the truth is they get us going," The guys strive to let the audience know they are part of the show: "You're involved in this too. Sharino had already absorbed his lessons on being not just a musician but an entertainer in the five years he performed solo. "I was sitting on a stool playing James Taylor and no one was listening," he said.
Certainly musical diversity must be part of drawing different people in, and Sharino's song list, while heavy on the '60s and '70s classic rock, spans seven decades. Alison's Web site is posted with only slightly shorter lists, from Glen Miller's "In the Mood" to Britney Spears' "Toxic." As a kid, Sharino remembers the Fourth of July meaning beach and family and wow all those fireworks going off on the eve of his birthday.
He wondered if everyone got that kind of party when they turned a year older. In addition, the musician says, though he recognizes it's less popular to be so these days, he's "very patriotic." If you're inclined to celebrate your world patriotism, wind down Highway 1 to Big Sur and Esalen's International Arts Festival, 2 to 10 p.
m. on Wednesday. The public festival is actually part of a week-long series of workshops on filmmaking, theater, poetry, visual arts, dance and music that run July 1-6.
(Check out www.esalen.org for registration information.
) Bring a towel (swimsuit so very optional) because this could be your chance to dip into those famous hot tubs on the edge of the world. Performers from Wednesday's lineup such as Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock fame, and Jackeline Rango, here with her Venezuelan Music Project, will also be teaching the workshop's master classes. Rango has performed at Esalen before but will be teaching for the first time, sharing the techniques and spirit of Afro-Venezuelan drumming and dance, while Barnwell has taught for years there but will debut in her own musical spot at the fest.
Actor/comedian Ann Randolph, whose one-woman show "Squeeze Box" was recently adopted by the producing team of Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks, yucks it up while the surf crashes on the cliffs below. There will be art exhibits on display, including Shona stone sculpture from Zimbabwe, and "Voodoo Visions: Voices from the Crossroad" creations of Haitian folk art. The largest exhibit, however, is the stage itself hung with 20 4-by-20-foot Batik banners that creative director Jayson Fann designed with African artists on a recent sojourn to the continent.
Fann says several of the musicians have collaborated before and have a lot of respect for each other. He anticipates them sharing the stage at different points for improvisational jams, a la the blues or jazz festivals. Barnwell, who recommended others on the bill but initially declined an invitation herself because of scheduling conflicts, actually rearranged a European tour to be there with her musical colleagues.
"Ysaye is such an incredible teacher," Fann said. "As far as her background, she carries with her Sweet Honey in the Rock," which he calls the musical backbone of almost every civil rights movement documentary. "She represents a really powerful force in that she's talking about the basic principles of people in this world justice, equality.
" Barnwell meets the criteria of Fann's performers who must also be competent educators. "She can share it and articulate it," he said, speaking of her human rights message. She also puts a new face on the old idea of "singalong.
" "She can orchestrate a group of people to sing together and get them sounding amazing in a very short period of time." According to Fann, the result is "a sound that you can really only get close to with 500 people singing together." Actually, Esalen expects closer to 700 to attend the shindig.
The institute, dedicated to issues of personal growth and known to be exquisitely beautiful and often extremely expensive, will offer scholarships for youth to attend, including a camp group from Big Sur and youngsters from the Tenderloin in San Francisco who have come to them via the renowned Glide Memorial Church. (Vernon Bush of the Glide Ensemble is another of the artists performing in the festival.) Esalen's tradition of throwing some kind of party on July 4 goes back two decades, but, Fann said, "It's not any statement about U.
S. However, he does point out that the U.S.
is the most diverse country in the world, housing people from all around the globe, and the festival, now its fourth year, is "a celebration of global culture." For more Fourth of July events, turn to pages 27-29.
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