Folks at West Philly’s Calvary Baptist Church (6122 Haverford Ave.) got a sweet surprise when Grammy Award winning singer John Legend swung by to sing a tune during Sunday’s service.

Legend, who was in town to perform with Sade at the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday night, returned to his gospel roots and belted out Aretha Franklin’s “How I Got Over” with the help of the Calvary Baptist choir.

Some in West Philly may remember Legend when he was John Stephens (his given name), an a cappella performing University of Pennsylvania undergrad in the late 90s.

The video of the performance below, which was posted on Legend’s Facebook page yesterday, is fairly polished so this wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. But it’s still very, very cool.

Fellow West Philly residents Andrew Simonet (choreographer) and Manfred Fischbeck have helped put together a fascinating dance show, which begins at Drexel’s Mandell Theater (3300 Chestnut St.) tomorrow, June 17.

Sam-Gam Bam! (“sam-gam” means “flow together” in Sanskrit) is a collision of classical and experimental American and South Indian dance, a blend of traditional and modern. A classical Indian dance form, Bharatanatyam, which is featured in the show, began 2,000 years ago and represents divine mythology in performance.

The show is a product of collaboration among three Philly-based dance companies: Group Motion, Headlong, and Three Aksha. The companies are quite distinct in style, but find common ground through this presentation of dance.

The shows schedule:

June 17, 18, 23-25 – 7:30 p.m.

June 19 – 2 p.m.

Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. To buy tickets click here.
 

This might be the easiest thing you could ever do to help out an important West Philadelphia organization. A click. That’s it. There are only four days left (until June 17) to vote for West Philly’s Community Education Center (CEC) to help them get a $50,000 grant from Maxwell House. The center is competing against nine other community organizations across the country and only top five vote-getters receive the money.

During recent weeks, the CEC was fluctuating between positions 4, 5, and 6, so every vote counts. You can come back and vote every day. This week votes are hidden so it won’t be possible to know how the CEC is doing until the end. To vote, go here: http://www.kraftbrands.com/maxwellhousecoffee/drops-of-good/Pages/community-education-center.aspx

The CEC is a non-profit community based center with the focus on arts programming, music, dance and theater for people of differing backgrounds and cultures. You can read more about the center here.

You have a chance to see two gems (as in “a person or thing considered to be outstandingly good or special in some respect”) of the West Philly music scene in an intimate setting Friday night. Musicians Joshua Marcus and Emily Bate are combining for Sweet Sound of Music at Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore Ave.) beginning at 8 p.m. The suggested donation for the show is $8 and sweet teas and simple infused syrups are on the house.

Here are Emily and Joshua’s backgrounds (from the Studio 34 website):

Joshua Marcus

Joshua Marcus lives in Philadelphia, PA and has produced nine recordings under different bands and monikers in the last nine years, including Fan of Friends. This spring Marcus will release his newest recording, Reverse the Charges, on Chicago’s Contraphonic and Philadelphia’s High Two record labels. Joshua is currently working on a collaborative project to produce a folk recording dealing with current U.S. social and environmental justice struggles.

Emily Bate

Emily Bate’s spent 10 years performing, recording and touring, and singing sweetly about complicated things. She’s released three full-lengths and an several EPs. She is one half of the drag cover cabaret band Gender Mountain, with Dave End, and plays with lots of other buddies in West Philly. On this special occasion, expect some ukulele shredding, fingerpicked electric guitar, and big singing.

Sometimes when a handful of musicians with similar tastes and passions find each other, magic happens. So it is with The Oscuro Quintet, a collection of musicians who have come together from diverse backgrounds to form what might be Philadelphia’s first tango ensemble. It probably won’t surprise you to know that the group has abundant West Philly connections – four out of five members live here.

Formed in 2006, the quintet includes accordionist Shinjoo Cho, pianist Thomas Lee, violinist June Bender, guitarist Alban Bailly and bassist Ben Blazer. Together they have played a number of performances in recent years while pursuing other things (Lee, for example, is a doctoral student in perceptual science at Penn and Bender studies at Temple).

Now the group is ready to release its first record and it needs a little help. They have decided to try to raise enough money online to cover the costs of mastering the recordings, designing the album and CD manufacturing. This is a rare chance to be a patron of a unique musical ensemble for as little as $5.

Go to Oscuro’s Kickstarter page to contribute. There are premiums as well. For example, a $25 donation gets you a reserved copy of the CD. Fifty bucks gets you a CD and a free tango lesson. There is a bit of urgency. They need to raise $5,000 by June 17. They are already about halfway there.

Here is their Kickstarter video.

Tonight the Scribe Video Center (4212 Chestnut St.) will host a screening and discussion of two fascinating multimedia pieces documenting the economic downturn in the United States over the last three years. In Verse combines poetry, photography and audio footage to document the lives of people living on the economic edge.

In the piece “Women of Troy,” poet Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally and radio journalist Lu Olkowski (who will be at tonight’s screening) document the lives of young, working-class mothers in Troy, New York, which was a thriving city during the industrial revolutions but is now enmeshed in poverty.

The second piece, “Congregation,” Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey , photographer Joshua Cogan and radio journalist Olkowski document the ongoing recovery in Gulfport, Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina.

The screening begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10, $8 for students and seniors and $5 for Scribe members.

Below is an exerpt of “Women of Troy”

In Verse: Women of Troy from InVerse on Vimeo.