CALIFORNIA ROCK NEWS

Tower of Power played the first night of their Holiday & Hits tour at the Fred Kavli Theatre in Thousand Oaks, CA Saturday night, Formed in Oakland, CA in 1968 T.O.P. is still band leader/tenor saxophone Emilio Castillo and Stephen ‘Doc’ Kupka (Baritone Sax) who have been there through every lineup change and on all the albums, David Garibaldi who also joined in 1968 and his fourth tenure with the group began in 1998. Roger Smith has been the keyboardist since 1998, since 2000 Adolfo Acosta has played trumpet and flugelhorn, since 2002 Tom E. Politzer has played baritone, alto, and tenor saxophone, Jerry Cortez has been the guitarist since 2010, bassist Marc van Wageningen began filling in for original bassist Francis ‘Rocco’ Prestia in 2018 and after his passing in 2020 became his replacement. The newest members are lead vocalist Mike Jerel (The Voice) who came after Marcus Scott (2016-2021) and trumpet/trombone player Dave Richards following Harry Kim who replaced Sal Cracchiolo (2010-21). Jerel also plays keyboards and trumpet.

T.O.P. had a set of hits like “We Came to Play,” “Soul With a Capital S”, “You Ought to Be Having Fun,” “Don’t Change Horses (In The Middle of the Stream). T.O.P. also played a few songs of their upcoming Christmas E.P. their first in their 55 year history. Each time they played a song from the album producer Joe Vannelli who produced the last 4 T.O.P. albums played keyboard and Richards put on a Santa hat. The Christmas songs included “Sleigh Bells” “O Holy Night,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and an original “It’s Christmas (A Long Way from Home). If there’s one group that can take Christmas classics that have been recorded numerous times and make them their own songs with a funk vibe it’s T.O.P. During “Diggin’ On James Brown” Jerel also sang part of James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” one of the songs he sang on the voice. At the end of the show the “eternal question” was asked “What is Hip?” and the closer was “You’re Still a Young Man.”