John Villalobos & Friends for Javier Navarrette's Modupue Wednesday at The Annex Sessions, brought to you by SunJams and Javier Navarrette

“The Annex Sessions" Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 6-8:30pm will continue our music series held at El Cerrito Natural Grocery Company Prepared Food Annex (The Annex) 

Javier Navarrette Presents "Modupue Wednesday" with

John Villalobos & Friends

John Villalobos- tres, guitar

Hector Lugo- vocals, percussion 

Kai Lyons- tres, guitar, bass, vocal

Javier Navarrette- vocals, percussion

John Villalobos plays guitar and tres. His music draws on Jazz, Afro-Cuban, Flamenco, Rock/Blues and Hindustani. Many of you know his full Latin band. This show will display a greater variety of his musical tastes. John has played with Celia Cruz, Jackson Browne and Joan

Baez.

Héctor Lugo is a percussionist, singer, songwriter, and educator. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989 to pursue graduate studies in sociology at UC Berkeley. Shortly thereafter, he began to perform with some of the great bands and artists in the local Latin, Jazz, and Afro-Caribbean music scenes, dedicating himself to what would become the lifelong study and teaching of Latin American and Caribbean music, history, and culture.

Lugo has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists such as Bobby Céspedes and Conjunto Céspedes, Louie Romero and Grupo Mazacote, Modesto Cepeda and Cimiento the Puerto Rico, Luis “Chichito” Cepeda and the Los Cepeda Ensemble, Jackeline Rago and the Venezuelan Music Project, Larry Vuckovich, the John Santos Sextet, Salsa legend Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, Los Pleneros de la 21, Cuban son ensemble Pellejo Seco, Chuchito Valdés, Mono Blanco, Edgardo Cambón y Candela, and Zimbabwean traditional dance troupe The Chinyakare Ensemble, to name a few.

Lugo is the founder and director of the Latin-Roots band La Mixta Criolla, producing its debut album AfroTaíno (RoundWhirled records, 2011), and a founding member of the bomba ensemble Grupo Aguacero. He has written music for two plays — “Living in Spanish” and “Burnt American Dreams” — and numerous children’s and youth performances. His compositions and arrangements have been featured in the documentary film “Dolores,” about the life of the great labor organizer and feminist leader Dolores Huerta, and the acclaimed compilation “Salsa de la Bahía,” vol. 2 (Patois Records, 2015).

Lugo has designed, managed, and implemented educational and cultural arts programs in collaboration with SFJAZZ, the San Francisco Symphony, Stern Grove Festival, Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, Oakland Youth Chorus, San Francisco Community Music Center, and the

San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland Unified School Districts. He has also developed classes and workshops for children and youth at community centers such as La Peña Cultural Center, Mission Cultural Center, the San Francisco Boys and Girls Club, Youth Art Exchange, and LoconBloco, among others. He is the founder and co-director of the Bay Area Bomba y Plena Workshop which since its creation in 2000 has promoted the appreciation, study, and performance of Puerto Rican folkloric music through regular classes and workshops, master

classes with visiting artists, concerts, class recitals, and music festivals. He is the founder and co-director of Las Quenepas Youth Ensemble, dedicated to the study and performance of traditional Puerto Rican bomba and plena music and dance, and has coordinated and led study

trips to Puerto Rico for groups of children and youth from the Bay Area.

Lugo has done extensive research on Latin American history, politics, and culture, with particular emphasis on the sociology and historical foundations of Latin-Caribbean music, literature, and culture. He has lectured at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz, San

Francisco State University, Mills College, City College of San Francisco, and Humboldt State University. Mr. Lugo has a B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Literature from Haverford College, an M.A. in Sociology from UC Berkeley with specializations in social theory and the political economy, history, and culture of Latin America, and has done extensive Ph.D. level coursework and research as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkeley’s Sociology Department. In his spare time, he likes to read, cook, work with wood, and travel.

Kai Lyons is from the Excelsior District of San Francisco and was surrounded by music and community from an early age. He completed his studies at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in 2012 as the first to graduate from the acclaimed Classical Guitar Program, directed by Scott

Cmiel. From 2012-2014, on full scholarship, Kai attended the prestigious jazz program at William Paterson University of New Jersey, directed by Mulgrew Miller. He studied with Vincent Herring, Gene Bertoncini, Harold Mabern, Rich Perry, and Hal Galper. Kai received a Bachelor of Arts in Music from San Francisco State University where he studied with Andrew Speight, Michael Zisman and Hafez Modirzadeh.

Ever since returning to the Bay Area in 2015, he has freelanced extensively and also traveled frequently to New York City, New Orleans, Brazil, Cuba and the Caribbean on music trips. In 2018 he participated in Master Class: Orff-Afrique 2018 in Ghana, Africa.

Besides working with his own trio, Kai has performed with Mike Clark and Donald Harrison of Herbie Hancock’s Original Headhunters, The San Francisco Ballet and the 2024 production of Carmen composed by Arturo O’Farrill, Karl Perazzo, John Santos, award-winning organist Wil

Blades and Larry Vuckovich.

Javier Navarrette has had the honor to perform with such greats as Poncho Sanchez, Los Van Van, the “Conga Kings” (Francisco Aguabella, Carlos “Patáto” Valdez, Armando Peraza and Milton Cardona), as well as with Jon Faddis, Jerry Gonzalez, Trini Lopez, Nestor Torres, Jimmy Heath, and Bobi Cespedes. In addition, Javier has had the privilege of

recording with world-renowned artists Giovanni Hidalgo,Anthony Carillo, Sandy Perez, Jimmy Bosch, José Fajardo, Orestes Vilató, Carlos Del Puerto, Dafnis Prieto, Pedrito Martinez and Andy Gonzalez. He also recorded on three Grammy nominated albums with John Santos’ Machete Ensemble and El Coro Folklorico Kindembo.

More recently, Javier has had the honor to perform on stage with Jerry Gonzalez, at the John Santos Concert, "Not In Our Name" at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. He has also had the opportunity to be a guest musician for the Stanford University Big Band.

Javier is frequently involved in a myriad of projects such as the featured artist in “Proyecto de Congueros” at Yoshis Jazz Club in San Franciso, and organizing Bomba y Plena workshops and performances with Los Pleneros de La 21, Aguacero, and La Mixta Criolla as part of the “Caminos de Mi Cultura” series at the Brava Theater in San Francisco.

Javier’s musical ventures have included touring with Los Mocosos, Bobi Cespedes, Josh Jones’ Latin Jazz Ensemble, Hector Lugo and Cacique y Congo, to name a few. Javier is currently a percussionist with Jesus Díaz y su QBA, Anthony Blea y Su Charanga, Carne Cruda, La Mission Band, Hector Lugo and La Mixta Criolla, The Cuban Cowboys and Los

Mocosos. Javier is currently working on a new project, Machina Sol, along with three other San Francisco Bay Area artists. Javier continues to create new musical ideas, in order to expand his musical knowledge. He also enjoys teaching music to the next generation.

The Natural Grocery Company is proud to present this series in partnership with SunJams and Javier
Navarrette Music Productions.

SunJams  is committed to funding children's music education in underserved public elementary schools. Your donation will help support this ongoing program.
All of the proceeds will go directly to our network of local musicians, each of whom have been severely impacted by the lack of events during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whether you donate $10, $100, or $1000 - any amount helps and will allow us to keep bringing music to our community! As always, your donation to SunJams 501(c)3 may qualify as tax exempt.

Javier Navarrette Music Productions continues to bring live music to several venues around the Bay Area. Javier has been a professional musician and music educator in the Oakland Unified School District for the past 20 years. Over the past few years Navarrette has produced outdoors events that have proven instrumental in enabling musicians to deal with some of the fallout of the pandemic and shutdown that followed.

 Follow Javier Navarrette on Facebook , Instagram and YouTube. 

COVID RELATED SAFETY MEASURES
Please be safe. Feel free to wear a mask if you prefer.

TICKETS

Tickets are encouraged, we are happy to offer you a reserved seat (limited seating available) if you RSVP with a donation that will go towards paying for the music. Tickets are NOT required for this venue, you can simply come in, order food and beverages at the Annex counter. 

The Annex 

The Annex is a lively space for shopping, dining and relaxing. As the newest part of The Natural Grocery Company, the values are the same: a passion for vibrant community, healthy organic food and respect for the planet. 

"The Annex Sessions" is sponsored by the Natural Grocery Company in its commitment to serve the local community and help in the recovery of the local art scene. 

Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week, inside the Annex you’ll find: A Cafe, Juice Bar, Deli, Wine & Beer, and more.

The Annex building itself embodies our values: a few of the sustainable features are: extensive re-use of materials from the pre-existing structure, use of recycled materials from local vendors, and reliance on the solar energy we produce here, supplemented with other clean energy sources.

DONATIONS

SunJams is committed to funding children's music education in underserved public elementary schools. Your donation will help support this ongoing program. 

In addition, we need to raise funds to continue bringing you this exciting new ( launched in April 2022) live music program. All of the proceeds will go directly to our network of local musicians, each of whom have been severely impacted by the lack of events during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Whether you donate $10, $100, or $1000 - any amount helps and will allow us to keep bringing music to our community! As always, your donation to our 501(c)3 may qualify as tax exempt. 

Please DONATE HERE

DURING THE SHOW

We will be taking cash or check donations at check-in, during intermission & at the end of the show. 

TIME

The Annex is open every day, please check their website for hours (https://naturalgrocery.com/annex/).


The show will begin at 6:00 PM and conclude by 8:30 PM.