Ickes, Hensley return to Santa Cruz area with concert

Ickes and Hensley have forged separate careers as guitarists, each recording with lengthy lists of notable musicians, but have always found time to combine their talents with frequent collaborations and tours. Ickes has been known as a master of the dobro and he was named Dobro Player of the Year 15 times by the International Bluegrass Music Association. He was also a member of the bluegrass band Blue Highway for 21 years and has performed with the likes of Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard. Hensley made his debut at the age of 11 at Nashville’s famed Grand Ole Opry, shared the stage with Johnny Cash not long after and has played with the likes of Charlie Daniels, Peter Frampton and Old Crow Medicine Show. The two began playing together after Hensley moved to Nashville.

“We’re always pushing ourselves musically into different frontiers,” Ickes told the Sentinel in 2024. “I feel like we’re on this journey together to see how good we can get, see how many different things we can do at once.”

The show is 7 p.m. Thursday at Kuumbwa Jazz, 320 Cedar St. Doors open at 6:15. Tickets are $39 for general admission and $52 for Gold Circle members. For more information, go to KuumbwaJazz.org.

Strong winds will blow for 33rd Harmonica Blowout at Moe’s Alley

The familiar sounds of harmonicas blowing and other instruments playing will be heard as Mark Hummel’s annual All-Star Harmonica Blowout returns to Moe’s Alley Sunday afternoon.

Hummel, a Grammy nominated and Blues Music Awards-winning Bay Area harmonica player and leader of the Blues Survivors, brought the first Harmonica Blowout to the Ashkenaz in Berkeley in 1991. In the ensuing years, the festival has come to other Northern California venues, including in Santa Cruz, where it has been a mainstay at Moe’s Alley for a number of years. Musicians who have played Harmonica Blowouts in years past have included Huey Lewis, John Mayall, John Hammond and Jerry Portnoy. This year, Hummel has assembled lineup that includes Curtis Salgado, a soul vocalist who has performed with the Robert Cray Band and Santana; Sweet Marta, a Spanish blues singer and harpist who is making a name for herself across Europe and North America; Austin-based drummer Wes Starr; The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Elvin Bishop guitarist and pianist Bob Welsh; the blues duo of Nick Moss and Dennis Gruenling as well as their bassist Rodrigo Mantovani; and Hummel himself. It is a lineup that should make for a varied afternoon.

The concert is 3 p.m. Sunday at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way. Doors open at 2. Tickets are $40 in advance and $45 the day of the show. This is a 21-and-older concert. For more information, go to MoesAlley.com.

‘Peter and the Wolf’ headlines SC Symphony’s Family Concert

No one is ever too young to appreciate orchestral music, and the Santa Cruz Symphony will demonstrate that once again with its annual Family Concert Sunday, featuring a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.”

The program will kick off with “The Orchestra Rocks,” part of Carnegie Hall’s Link Up initiative to teach kids the basics of playing music using pieces ranging from “Dance of the Adolescents” from Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” to Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” This will give way to the main presentation of the program, “Peter and the Wolf.” Prokofiev wrote the composition in 1936 as a way to teach music to children, using the story of a Soviet pioneer who meets a duck and another bird whom he strives to protect from a cat and then a wolf. Each character is represented by different orchestral instruments, making it a popular piece in elementary music programs and was even adapted into a Disney cartoon in 1946. For kids just getting into music or adults who have loved it all their lives, this should be an afternoon well spent.

The concert is 2 p.m. Sunday at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St. Tickets are $26 for adults, $13 for children ages 3 to 17 and free for toddlers 2 and younger if held in their guardian’s lap. Seating is general admission. Tickets can be purchased at SantaCruzTickets.com.

Grunge progenitors The Melvins to play Catalyst

Pretty much every left-of-the-dial hard rock subgenre from the late ’80s onward, from grunge to doom metal, owes a debt of gratitude to The Melvins. Audiences can see the origins of their favorite genres when the band plays the Catalyst Club Tuesday.

Formed in Montesano, Washington, in 1983, The Melvins provided a fusion of punk and metal that laid the groundwork for what would become the dominant sound of the Evergreen State in the late ’80s and early ’90s: grunge. Kurt Cobain was one of the band’s early fans, and drummer Dale Crover even drummed with Nirvana for a bit (and when the time came for Nirvana to have a new permanent drummer, he introduced them to Dave Grohl). However, it was not just grunge that The Melvins had a major impact on, as their sound can be heard in legions of sludge metal, doom metal and stoner rock bands, with Tool, Faith No More and Mastodon citing them as influences. The Melvins are currently embarking on a spring break tour in support of their upcoming 28th studio album “Thunderball,” set to be released in April. Crover and lead singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne will be joined by Redd Kross bassist Steven McDonald to make up their current lineup.

The concert is 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Catalyst atrium, 1101 Pacific Ave. Doors open at 7. Tickets are $32.12. This is a 16-and-older show. For more information, go to CatalystClub.com.

This week’s calendar was compiled by Nick Sestanovich.