Don’t bother to hold the applause, because The Lark Theater is proudly presenting its new nonprofit partner, Marin Jazz, to the stage.
Starting this summer, the Marin art deco theater will present a lineup of musicians that’s designed to move audiences’ hearts and souls and have them tapping their toes.
Marin Jazz will show at The Lark twice this August and then once per month for the remainder of the year. Although the first show, set for 7:30pm on Saturday, Aug. 16, is nearly sold out, there are still tickets available for Marin Jazz’s second Lark Theater show, featuring Broadway Night with Brian Justin Crum, at 7:30pm on Thursday, Aug. 28.
“Marin Jazz is a nonprofit, and they teach school kids about the performance arts,” said executive director of The Lark Theater, Ellie Mednick. “Their goal is to raise money for Future Stars. [The Lark] has a youth program too, and I’m always trying to raise money for youth programs, scholarships … we have lots in common. So, we started talking about a partnership. I said, ‘Let’s take a look at your lineup.’ And then I said, ‘Would you like to call The Lark your new home?’”
“When I met Ellie … we instantly just fell in love,” said Todd Ghanizadeh, CEO of Marin Jazz. “She said, yeah, ‘You should move your program here; I’ll help you with marketing and co-present, and hopefully that’ll help.’ So, we mixed ideas together, and voilà—now we have a whole season of Marin Jazz to present at The Lark. The first event is almost sold out.”
Alongside keeping the soul of jazz alive and well through organizing performances intended to be stellar, Marin Jazz is committed to teaching children in the arts and supporting them in their creative expressions. These expressions include everything from dancing to singing to screenplay writing to performing to knowing the simple joy of growing up supported enough to comfortably explore their identity and sense of self-expression through creativity—under the guidance of those they consider the best teachers, of course.
“My parents grew up during World War II, so I grew up with swing and classic jazz in the house,” explained Ghanizadeh. “Being a dancer, I would swing dance to those tunes, and my mom would teach me to swing dance with a doorknob … my love for it comes from there.”
What began as a family culture of swing dancing with doorknobs has, with no small amount of twists and turns, culminated in Marin Jazz’s grand opening show at The Lark. First in this jazz music series lineup are vocal powerhouses Tia Carroll, Terrie Odabi and Lady Bianca in Three Ladies Sing the Blues.
“Blues for me is synonymous with women—they really sing the songs about the blues,” said Ghanizadeh. “If I were to give you a perfect sample of that, it would be Three Ladies Sing the Blues. When I interviewed them, I was so surprised by their stories.”
One such surprising story told to Ghanizadeh by a lady who sings the blues depicted a true slice of life tale, the kind one can’t make up. It all began when said blues lady was grocery shopping in Safeway, and she overheard a man on the phone with his wife. He was swearing up and down that he was in Los Angeles (note: the grocery store was not located there). In the same breath, he also swore to his wife that he was not cheating, which was also probably a fib, considering his creative take on geography. Naturally, the eavesdropping blues singer decided then and there to write a song about the encounter.
“I love how it mimics life—the blues,” said Ghanizadeh. “You can sing about cheating, social injustice, slavery, guys being no-good down and dirty and shamed, about love—you sing about anything within that genre, and that’s part of its power.”
“I love music in general,” remarked director of education at Marin Jazz, Sonia Perozzi. “I’m a vocalist, so music is my first love. But the music of jazz specifically is just so beautiful and complex. The artists are amazing. It is like Todd said; it’s hard not to love the storytelling and history of it.
“I’ve been singing, acting and dancing ever since I was four years old. I studied vocal performance, film and theater, locally and in LA. I would always gravitate toward working with children, too. The performing arts industry can be pretty brutal to kids and adults. My ultimate goal is really to nurture the arts and give the children I work with a safe space to be creative … I like to give them a safe space, basically teach and support them and let them grow,” Perozzi continued.
“So far, it’s been Sonia and I, and it’s hard to keep funding it ourselves,” noted Ghanizadeh. “Our kids need scholarships, and we wanted to put on these shows to get the community to want to help us and sponsor us so these kids can continue to grow.”
To give local kids more chances to create, grow and gather in the name of art and all that jazz, the organization is always looking for partners, sponsors, donors and art lovers who want to help the cause. And The Lark Theater is one such partner whose interest in the arts and artistic youths intersects perfectly with Marin Jazz’s mission.
“We’re very happy working with Todd and Sonia, and they’re lovely, very pleasant and so cooperative,” Mednick said. “They’re most amenable and wonderful human beings, so we’re delighted to work with them. We’re doing seven shows with them, and the first show has just about sold out. There are a total of two Marin Jazz shows in August, and about one a month lined up going forward.”
“I love what I’m doing, and I love that The Lark can give a really wide variety of entertainment now,” continued Mednick. “Some [Lark patrons] say they don’t need to go to the city anymore because we have everything they could want right here, and it’s world-class. Some even say they don’t need to go to London or New York for shows anymore. Live entertainment onstage at The Lark is working, we’re happy to say.”
To learn more about The Lark Theater and programs like Marin Jazz, visit the website at larktheater.net.
