Edmonds Center for the Arts to Welcome Michael Kaeshammer, 2/22

Edmonds Center for the Arts welcomes Michael Kaeshammer on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 7:30pm. Tickets are available at the Edmonds Center for the Arts (ECA) Box Office (425)275-9595, or online at www.ec4arts.org. Tickets are $25, $30, $35 and $15 Youth/Students.

Michael Kaeshammer has been called Canada's triple-threat combo of piano genius, vocal ability and charm. This combination has earned the Toronto based artist international critical acclaim and a loyal and growing fan base. He has piano technique to burn and to his audiences become enthralled at his acrobatic way with a grand piano.

When Kaeshammer performs, it's obvious he's having a ball, playing unmatched boogie-woogie, blues, jazz, and pop cross-over material, drawn mostly from an impressive list of standards and his catalogue of studio recordings. He has an uncanny ability to take 'a bit of musical this' and 'a touch of musical that' to create a sound that is uniquely his own - A singular brand of pop tinged jazz that owes as much to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney as to Professor Longhair and Albert Ammons on hook laden love songs like 'A Little Bit Of Love'.

But while Kaeshammer's style incorporates elements of his early influences - the New Orleans sound of Fats Waller, Art Tatum and James Booker - on tracks like 'Kisses In Zanzibar' and the high-energy, boogie fuelled romp, 'Rendezvous', he also takes his cue from one of his own all-time favorite records, Robert Palmer's Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, recorded in New Orleans with influential local funk outfit, The Meters, in 1974.

Kaeshammer's performances, on record and on stage, are an invitation to join the party. He states, "For me the performance is as much about the energy coming off the stage as the energy coming from the audience. It's about being myself, writing from the heart and showing my love for life. That's what I want to convey. After the show, people ask me, 'do you really have that much fun?' And I say 'you don't know the half of it. It's even more exhilarating than it looks'."

Edmonds Center for the Arts (ECA) is a non-profit performing arts facility located in picturesque downtown Edmonds, Washington. Housed in the historic original Edmonds High School building, ECA was remodeled and opened in October 2006 to be a cultural resource for the Puget Sound region through performing arts presentations, community partnerships and Education outreach programs.

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