Bodega Seafood, Art and Wine Fest highlights diverse array of music

You may think you’ve heard of every possible fusion of musical styles, from punk to rockabilly, but this may be a new one for you.

Among the bands playing this weekend at the Bodega Seafood Art & Wine Festival is The Pascal Bokar AfroBlueGrazz Band.

“We were looking for something different,” said Janet Ciel, the event’s producer.

When this 11-piece band plays from 2:45 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Watts Ranch in Bodega, you definitely will hear something different.

Alongside the fiddle and banjo, you’ll also see and hear hand-beaten drums and balafon, ancestor of xylophone.

The solos pass from one musician to another as in a jazz or bluegrass band. You will hear the familiar call-and-answer pattern of classic blues. And there are plenty of vocal harmonies and rhythm-driven instrumentals.

“Most people don’t realize that the banjo is an instrument of West Africa,” said the band’s leader and guitarist, Pascal Bokar, a professor at the University of San Francisco, where he is known by his full name, Pascal Bokar Thiam.

“Pascal Bokar is for showbiz,” he said. “Pascal Bokar Thiam is the professor, i.e. me, and my students call me Dr. T because I have a Ph.D.”

Born in Paris and raised in West Africa, Bokar traces the roots of American popular music to the influx of Africans to North America during the slave trade years from the 1520s to the late 1860s.

That musical influence extends beyond blues, jazz, soul and rock ‘n’ roll to funk, zydeco, calypso, reggae and samba, extending to both North and South America, Bokar explained.

“We’re talking about the fundamental elements of American music,” he said. “The roots of all these aesthetics are just a replication of the dynamics that animate the music of Africa.”

Bokar’s credentials are extensive, with a bachelor’s degree from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a master's degree from Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a doctorate in education with honors from the University of San Francisco. He has written two books on musical history.

Bokar has performed with jazz great Dizzy Gillespie and many others.

“I also owned a couple of jazz clubs called Savanna Jazz, in San Francisco and then in San Carlos,” Bokar said. That lasted from the early 2000s to the onset of COVID in 2020.

The Pascal Bokar band is one of more than a dozen musical acts that will perform on three stages during the two-day festival.

Performers include Roy Rogers and the Delta Rhythm Kings and Tom Rigney and Flambeau on Saturday, and Dgiin, Wonderbread 5 and Spike Sykes and His Awesome Hotcakes on Sunday.

“We make an effort to pick bands that bring in people from the whole Bay Area,” Ciel said.

Founded in 1995, the festival typically draws between 9,000 and 10,000 people a year, she added.

Don’t let the word “seafood” in the festival’s name mislead you.

“It’s not only seafood. We have all different kinds of food, and we have a lot of great desserts,” Ciel said.

There will be 15 food vendors and nearly 100 crafts and other vendors, with 14 breweries and 26 wineries represented. The crafts are all handmade, Ciel said.

“And we have a lot of good things for kids,” she added, “with pony rides, a petting zoo and a coloring wall.”

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.