If you’ve had enough of traditional Christmas carols and classical, Rich Wetzel is here to save your sanity. The trumpeter and big band leader of the Groovin’ Higher Orchestra is expanding his troops and going back to the days of jazz pioneer Stan Kenton for a concert at Tacoma Community College next week.

“Stan Kenton was a the equivalent of a rock star in his day,” explained Wetzel, “and his big band made the transition from a purely dance band in the swing era to a jazz band. Even toward the end of the dance era, he would do a jazz set where the musicians would stretch out and the audiences would listen. Later he got more experimental with instrumentation of this big band including using mellophones.”

Wetzel’s 26-piece band will do all this and more in “A Stan Kenton Big Band Christmas” next Thursday. Read more »

Welcome to the Twelve Tacoma Artist Gifts of Christmas! Inspired by both the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song and fellow features writer Sue Kidd, who’s offering you her own “Twelve Tacoma Foodie Gifts of Christmas” on her TNT Diner blog, I’ve come up with 12 alternative gifts for Christmas: no partridges in pear trees, but something a lot more uniquely local.

So here’s Day 4 –

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Four pottery bowls, three CDs, two baby heads and a deck of Tacoma playing cards.

Tacoma’s full of potters, and while they …

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This Saturday you can revel in everything Victorian as the Dickens Fest returns to Tacoma’s Stadium District. Expect horse-and-carriage rides, a costume contest (that includes yourself!), a beard contest and performances on two stages that include magic and puppet shows, singers, storytellers, youth actors in “A Christmas Carol,” instrumentalists and spoken word artists.

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 8; Ball 6-9:30 p.m. Free. King’s Stage, 218 St. Helens Ave; Queen’s Stage, Titus Will showroom, 633 Division Ave, Tacoma. dickensfestival.net

Welcome to Day 3 of the Twelve Tacoma Artist Gifts of Christmas! Here’s the background: Inspired by both the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song and fellow features writer Sue Kidd, who’s offering you her own “Twelve Tacoma Foodie Gifts of Christmas” on her TNT Diner blog, I’ve come up with 12 alternative gifts for Christmas: no partridges in pear trees, but something a lot more uniquely local.

So here’s Day 3 –

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Three CDs, two baby heads, and a deck of Tacoma playing cards.

And not just any CDs, of course, but ones by Tacoma bands. Three local groups have released new recordings in the past year – Kareem Kandi, Goldfinch and the Midnight Salvage Co – all different enough to suit your most finicky musical friends.

Kareem Kandi is one of the regions best sax players and a great band leader to boot, plus teaching at SOTA and Pierce College. The Kareem Kandi Band plays the kind of smooth jazz you’ll want to listen to all holiday long, and their latest CD “See What I’m Sayin” (released April this year) features Kandi on sax, Rob Hutchinson on bass and Julian Macdonough on drums for an acoustic sound that goes from the laid-back “Love in all its forms” to the upfront “Hustlin’”. $8 online at kareemkandi.com

Goldfinch need no introduction: They’ve been heading up the Tacoma indie rock scene for years now with their raw sound and emotion. Read more »

Don’t forget the brass this Christmas – musical brass, that is. The brass, wind and percussion of the Tacoma Concert Band are presenting their first holiday concert in over 20 years this Sunday in the intimate acoustics of the downtown Rialto Theater.

Featuring mezzo-soprano Dawn Padula, voice professor at the University of Puget Sound, as guest artist, the program ranges through Christmas, Chanukah and holiday music arranged by composers from Leroy Anderson, Irving Berlin and Adolphe Adam to Charles Gounod and J. S. Bach, including and several arrangements recorded by Mannheim Steamroller.

The concert will also be recorded …

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Hard to believe that the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation has been presenting its annual Foundation of Art Award for five years now, but it’s true – and the community-funding non-profit is celebrating the anniversary with a show at downtown Tacoma’s B2 Gallery spanning 40 nominees and winners from the award’s past five years. The result is a cohesive exhibit that skims over some of Tacoma’s best artists and their recent work, including this year’s winner glassblower Oliver Doriss.

Doriss’ piece is just to the left of the entrance, and it’s a bit of a surprise. Leaving his usual chunky vases and forms for a figurative 2-D work, the glass artist (and Fulcrum Gallery owner) has riffed on a moody, New Age-type landscape, with a circular glass blue moon rippling with silver metal and green enamel hanging over a triangular arch of brown “earth.” The arch gets sophistication from the thick, jagged edges, and the whole thing sparkles with a metallic, otherworldly sheen, but the size and serenity looks created for decorating a wall rather than the boldness of Doriss’ other work (this award is given on the basis of a body of work, not just one piece.) Read more »

Welcome to Day 2 of the Twelve Tacoma Artist Gifts of Christmas! Here’s the background: Inspired by both the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song and fellow features writer Sue Kidd, who’s offering you her own “Twelve Tacoma Foodie Gifts of Christmas” on her TNT Diner blog, I’ve come up with 12 alternative gifts for Christmas: no partridges in pear trees, but something a lot more uniquely local. (For previous ‘gifts,’ see the older posts.)

So here’s Day 2 –

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Two baby heads, and a deck of Tacoma …

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Welcome to the Twelve Tacoma Artist Gifts of Christmas!

Inspired by both the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song and fellow features writer Sue Kidd, who’s offering you her own “Twelve Tacoma Foodie Gifts of Christmas” on her TNT Diner blog, I’ve come up with 12 alternative gifts for Christmas: no partridges in pear trees, but something a lot more uniquely local. So what’s Tacoma known for, creatively? Here’s a hint: It’s not generic Northwest Native American salmon designs or anything resembling Dale Chihuly, who lives in Seattle and markets internationally.

No, what makes the Tacoma arts scene special is the gritty or the unusual: graffiti murals, letterpress books, indie rock, rain-soaked poetry, films that laugh at local stereotypes, weirdly-shaped blown glass, sumi-e tea bag painting, theater or opera or classical music that tweaks your expectations in high-quality ways, jewelry made of insects or bones. If you’re going to buy someone a local, artist-made gift, you ought to look at this list for inspiration (except, maybe, the graffiti).

So here’s my take on the Twelve Days of Christmas gift list, inspired by art made in the 253. And it even scans like the original. Just please don’t sing it over and over again.

Disclaimer: Yes, I am fully aware that the traditional twelve days of Christmas refers, in fact, to the 12-day period from December 25 to January 6, or Epiphany, when the Wise Men arrived to present the original Christmas gifts to the infant Jesus. But hey, if I published this list beginning on Christmas Day that wouldn’t exactly give you a lot of shopping time now, would it?

So here’s day 1: On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: A deck of Tacoma playing cards.

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