Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the Groundhog Day B9:

  1. It’s 85 years young for the monumental jazz label Blue Note Records, and the Kuumbwa Jazz Center is getting in on the celebration.   
  2. It’s a harmonica throwdown, as bluesman Mark Hummel leads a posse of epic harmonica players into Moe’s Alley.
  3. The artistic legacy of African Americans in music is as deep as the ocean, and Sunday’s “Prayer for Humanity” event dives in. 
  4. It’s a question that is on everyone’s mind: How Not to Age. Physician Michael Greger says he has answers.
  5. Big weekend in Aptos — the beautiful spanking-new Aptos branch of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries opens for business Sunday.
  6. Time for that mad dash through the local theater scene. The celebrated “8 Tens” festival is hitting its stride.
  7. UCSC’s Leta Miller has a galvanizing story to tell of Black musicians and their fight for fairness. She tells that story at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
  8. What’s that ruckus going on over at Streetlight Records? Smoke Chaser burns up the place with a live performance Friday.
  9. Salinas-born Jackie Greene is a NorCal fave, and Santa Cruz audiences know him all too well. His latest visit to town is next week at Moe’s.

Wallace reports and writes not only across his familiar areas of deep interest — including arts, entertainment and culture — but also is chronicling for Lookout the challenges the people of Santa Cruz...