Next week, from Guinea, Bembeya Jazz - a hit in San Francisco at the Stern Grove concert. They opened for Oliver Mutakutzi. This time we’ll have them for two evenings, Wednesday-Thursday, July 21-22. Both concerts are at 9 p.m. Thursday there will be a lecture-demonstration at 7:30 with Dr. Zakarya Diouf and Bembeya Jazz. Tickets for the concerts are $15; dance and lecture is also $15; lecture alone is $5. Visit www.Ashkanaz.org or call (510) 525-5054.

Bembeya Jazz was created in 1961 at a time when the Guinean government was sponsoring performing ensembles, and it quickly became one of the top bands in the country. Like many African bands, Bembeya Jazz also draws on the rich artistic legacy that is continental Africa – its own Manding griot songs and folk material as well as the rhythms of Congolese rumba and Hawaiian slide guitar, played by one of the founding members, the guitarist Sekou Bembeya Diabate, who has a new CD out, “Guitar Fo” (2004).