SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: Music Mondays at Jack London Square

It's a perfect Bay Area summer evening. The sun is shining but the fog is rolling in along the horizon. Sailboats are traveling in and out of the marina. You have live music, and you have good friends for company. It's Oakland's Musical Mondays at Jack London Square!

This evening I joined my friend Angie at Jack London Square for the FREE concert that is the Musical Mondays series. Tonight we heard The Bobby Young Project, a local blues band with both talent and energy. Bobby Young's vocalist held the show till Oakland blues singer Wylie Trass arrived and took over. This is when the musical event evolved from pleasant-way-to-spend-an-evening to a blow away! Trass enraptured the audience with his vocal renditions of of old standards and a dialogue with us listeners. Wylie is the guy in the center.

There is only one thing missing -- an audience. I was surprised at how scanty the audience was for a free blues concert in a wonderful setting. There are even board games set out, should you get bored.

Oaklanders! Support local musicians and enjoy yourselves at the FREE concert series which, given the dismal state of the city's finances, may be the last. Head down to Jack London Square for a concert every Monday in July. The stage is located next Heinhold's, which has a history of it's own, but a special meaning for me, because it is where I took my son -- a Jack London fan -- for his first legal drink on his 21st birthday.