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Crowd dances for Sanchez; Higa and Brown are red hot


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POSTED: Saturday, May 02, 2009

Pancho Sanchez's Latin-jazz band members tried throughout their pops concert last Saturday to get the Concert Hall crowd to stand up and dance in the aisles. They succeeded near the end of their show. ; The seven band members were introduced to a few bars of a different song for each and when it was Pancho's turn, band members insisted that folks stand up. The crowd obliged and cheered the hard-working singer-percussionist. The audience was then told to dance and they did so to wind things up. A standing ovation brought the band back and they tore into a James Brown number that had most everyone rocking. Hawaii's big-time trumpet player DeShannon Higa opened the show. The local boy has fine tone on the horn and has no trouble hitting notes high in the stratosphere. He displayed his range on “;Caravan.”; Besides the Symphony, backing DeShannon were conductor Matt Catingub on keyboard, Steve Jones on bass, Jeff Peterson on guitar, drummer Daryl Peligrini and sax players Scott Villager on alto and Larry Cook on tenor. DeShannon said his composition of “;Earth Day”; sounded “;tasty”; in rehearsal after Matt arranged it. It was tasty last Saturday, too. The highlight of DeShannon's set was hearing his wife, Rocky Brown, singing “;Forget Regret.”; They were red hot musically and fashionwise. Besides cool attire, they both wore red shoes—Rocky's with much higher heels—and DeShannon even pulled out a red trumpet for the song ...

Aladdin's Tea Party & Children's Fashion Show, a Honolulu Theatre for Youth benefit, was held at the Hawaii Prince Hotel Sunday. The finale was a children's fashion show produced by Ryan Brown of ADR Agency and directed by Audra Stevenson, with hair and make up by Paul Brown Institute of Beauty. Styles from local shops were featured. HTY Board of Trustees president Tim Bostock was smothered with leis to honor him as his term is ending. HTY's artistic director Eric Johnson led the charge to present leis. Joining him were board members and friends Kristine Altwies, Jeri Steiner, Marcia Lee, Suzanne Sato, Annie Wood, Kristi Maynard, Lori Nagata, Bonnie Fong, Erica Cornwell and Steve Trecker. Tim's wife Melanie Holt was given a bouquet. And then it was back to biz as Tim changed into Arabian sultan regalia—with turban, flowing robes, beard and ample belly—to emcee the fashion show. KGMB9's next generation modeled: Luke and Alia Hagi, children of Kim Gennaula and Guy Hagi, and Ramsay McNeill, daughter of Ramsay Wharton, were among the keiki cat-walkers. Maddy Wary, daughter of Auntie Pasto's owners Ed and Tina Wary, was another modelette ...

Escada held a reception April 23 in its shop to honor women it selected as patrons of the arts. Honored were Nora Gentry and her daughter Candes, Lynn Madden, Linda Ahlers, Kimi Matar, Judy Malmgren, Kristen Chan and Annemarie Jones. Modeling was actress-model Rochelle Ovitt. Flying here to help store manager Mariese Montano-Smith celebrate the patrons were Escada execs Kerry Kooistra Maese and Kathryn Knox ... The Hawaii State Chapter of the American Red Cross held its annual luncheon fundraiser Sunday at the Kahala Hotel & Resort. Vivian Stackpole chaired and honorary chairs were Larry and Patricia Rodriguez ...