Best 9: Top events for the week ahead in Santa Cruz County arts & entertainment, March 6-13

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

➤ A concert from one half of a one-hit wonder act from 60 years ago? That might have limited appeal. But Peter Asher is bringing a whole lot more to the stage when he comes to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Sunday. He was indeed one half of Peter & Gordon, who scored with the hit “World Without Love” back in 1964. But he was also part of The Beatles’ inner circle, and as a producer and manager, he shepherded Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor through the blue-jeans-and-cocaine 1970s. Asher’s new show features plenty of music, but he’s also a storyteller ready to share first-hand anecdotes from the time when music legends were roaming the landscape. I’m betting you could use a dose of nostalgia right about now. 

➤ First Friday Santa Cruz is upon us again, and venues across the county are alive and bursting with art. Some highlights include the opening of a new exhibition at the Santa Cruz Art League, Abi Mustapha’s luminous work at Hotel Paradox, the amazing painter Casey Glovin at Om Gallery downtown and a group exhibit honoring Women’s History Month at Tannery. But the beautiful thing is you’re free to choose your own tour. 

➤ There’s a wonderful gathering of poets to take place at Bookshop Santa Cruz next Tuesday. Leading the charge is Santa Cruz’s benevolent muse Ellen Bass, but not to be overlooked are Central Coast writer and dreamer Luke Johnson and ex-waitress and abortion counselor Jan Beatty. All of these poets have too many honors to count. Together, they’re a supergroup. 

➤ Most of us won’t get to see the great Branford Marsalis and his band when they play back-to-back shows at the Kuumbwa on Monday, because both shows are now sold out. So if you have a ticket, try not to gloat, but appreciate seeing one of the jazz world’s biggest names in one of its smallest clubs. That’s not to be taken for granted.

➤ Yes, the “8 Tens @ 8” festival is over — but wait, there’s more. Actors’ Theatre is presenting the self-explanatory “Best of the Rest,” staged readings of the runners-up in the 10-minute play festival. Featuring live actors with script in hand, eight more intriguing and/or funny and/or moving plays will be performed through Sunday.

➤ The Watsonville Film Festival lands at the Green Valley Cinemas, beginning Thursday night, and then pops over to The 418 Project in Santa Cruz on Sunday. This is the kind of community event by locals for locals that make our community stronger. Check out what the WFF has to offer. 

➤ Thirty years after his death, Jerry Garcia still has a hold on the imagination of many fans, especially in Santa Cruz County. Next week at the Felton Music Hall, The Garcia Project lovingly re-creates set lists not from the Grateful Dead, but from The Jerry Garcia Band. For Jerry’s completists, there is indeed life beyond the Dead.  

➤ There will be close to 20 musicians on the stage at the Rio next Wednesday, not one of them named “Glenn Miller.” But they carry on the name and the tradition of big-band excellence that The Glenn Miller Orchestra has been famous for for decades. If “Moonlight Serenade” is your jam, if you contend that “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” is a banger, then plan your outfits and get your tickets.

➤ UC Santa Cruz astronomer Nia Imara has her mind in the stars and on the canvas. Next week at Bookshop Santa Cruz, she talks about the thrilling intersection between science and art in her new book, “Painting the Cosmos,” she puts humanity right in the center of the story of the universe.