Salt Springers — get ready to get your groove on with perennial Australian visitors OKA! The jazz-world-funk fusion trio are set to hit the stage at Beaver Point Hall July 21st. This benefit concert in support of grassroots projects in Africa features tribal grooves with Didgeristu (aka Stuart Fergie), melodious winds, strings, and harp by multiinstrumentalist Chris Lane, and the outrageous Polynesian rhythms of percussionist Charles Wall, aka Bobby Alu.
This year, OKA are celebrating seven years of Canadian summer tours. Across the country, their audiences have swollen to become some of the biggest ever at the Montreal Jazz Fest, Komasket, and Shambhala Festivals.
“There’s just something about OKA that calls people of all walks and tastes to feel the heartbeat in the music,” says organizer Andrea Palframan. “Their connection to their indigenous Pacific roots are being kept alive and well, as they incorporate traditional instruments and rhythms with trance, dance, and funk. It’s fun to watch the OKA sound sweep through an audience: when they’re peaking, the whole crowd becomes just one giant, gyrating mass of happiness.”
The Saturday evening event is a benefit concert for the Phelisanong Orphans, Disabled, HIV/AIDS and Vulnerable children’s project in Lesotho, southern Africa. Salt Spring has been part of a special community -to-community exchange with this growing community centre, with islanders funding a primary school for orphaned children, scholarships for youth, and sports and agriculture programs. The OKA show is a chance to celebrate, and sustain, programs that are lifting this once AIDS-devastated community from emergency to emergence.
The show kicks off at 8 pm with DJ Enaunda of CFSI Global Chillage fame spinning reggae, dancehall, and Afro-funk; come early and enjoy treats & eats from the kitchen, stay late but remember — if you are out to party, make a plan to play safe and arrive home alive. You can co-ordinate Ridesharing through Transitions Salt Spring at www.transitionsaltspring.ning
All ages are welcome to come out to experience OKA: share a big fat slice of summer love. Tickets are $20 at Salt Spring Books. For more information contact Andrea or Gary on 931-1919.