Soulive collaborator (and one-time member) Sam Kininger will celebrate the release of his new self-titled released with a show at the Middle East in Cambridge on December 12. On Sam Kininger the saxophone player is joined by Fred Wesley as well as Soulive’s Eric Krasno and Neal Evans, Kininger’s Lettuce bandmate Adam Deitch and The Duo [Marco Benevento and Joe Russo]. All of these individuals sans Wesley are slated to appear at the Middle East, along with Mister Rourke and the ambiguous ‘Much more.’ Kininger will also perform on Friday at Da Funky Phish in Bay Shore, Long Island (the show announced for this Thursday at the Hook in Brooklyn has been cancelled)…….

Sound Tribe Sector 9 will be on the bill for a winter Solstice Healing and Harmonizing Concert at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater on December 21. The event, to be hosted by the ‘founding father of vibrational sound healing’ Fabien Maman will incorporate music, dance and acupuncture (not necessarily simultaneously)…….

Back on the topic of expanded trios (see Soulive, above) the members of The Slip: Andrew Barr, Barr Barr and Marc Friedman will perform with pianist Ben Schwendener this coming Sunday at The Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge for ‘a night of musical exploration.’ While this Sunday’s appearance is not a Slip gig, the group will close out the year with two shows- at New York’s Factory on December 26 and in Providence at Lupo’s on the Strand (that’s a mouthful) on December 30, a show recently rescheduled from the 27th.