Some jazz, some blues

Sometime during the first year after I landed at SN&R, a German musician named Markus Burger contacted this paper to publicize something he was working on, and I was the lucky recipient of his phone call. Burger turned out to be a sublime jazz pianist with several quite spiritual recordings, literally and figuratively, that were available on German jazz labels. He kept trying to get me to go salmon fishing, but being pretty much allergic to anything with gills, I declined.

However, Burger did talk me into visiting his “Introduction to the Music Business” class at Sacramento City College once. That class has released a couple of CD compilation albums featuring local artists, which were put together by the students and marketed as class projects. The second and most recent set, A Celebration of Divercity, came out earlier this year.

Divercity Records will host an open-mic at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 2, at Auditorium 6 on the Sacramento City College campus at 3835 Freeport Boulevard. Admission is free as long as you bring a can of food for the class’s holiday food drive.

Burger is still making jazz records, too. One recent one is Genesis, an improvised session featuring Burger and former Davis resident John Tchicai, along with Mat Marucci, Doug Webb and Adam Lane, which came out on the Cadence Jazz label. Burger also released his third duo album with Jan von Klewitz, which is coming out on the Haenssler label through Naxos Classics.

If you want to read more on Burger, check out his Web site at www.markusburger.com. Divercity Records also has a site: www.divercityrecords.com.

On a more bluesified note, the fifth annual Blues for the Cure compilation CD is out. Contributing artists include Daniel Castro; Pailer, Fratis and Taylor, featuring Stacie Eakes; Mick Martin and the Blues Rockers, featuring Dana Moret; and the Aaron King Trio. Proceeds from the disc will benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast-cancer research. A CD-release party will be held at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, December 15, at the Torch Club, 904 15th Street; the cover charge is $4. And if you don’t make it and still want to buy the CD, it will be available at Tower Records.