Sameer Gupta builds an artist hub in North Oakland

A few weeks ago, in a rare pilgrimage to the East Bay, the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church set up in a former real estate office at the corner of Telegraph and 58th Street and delivered an ecstatic benediction.

It wasn’t the first performance at the space recently rechristened as the RootStock Arts Center, but the San Francisco church’s jubilant performance of its core musical liturgy heralded the arrival of a new cultural oasis that’s already sending ripples of creative mojo around the region.

The brainchild of Fremont-raised drummer Sameer Gupta and several close collaborators, the center is a physical manifestation of a community-building ethos that Gupta honed in New York City, where he co-founded the influential Indian classical music collective Brooklyn Raga Massive. Rather than creating a venue into which he shoehorns performances, he’s developing a highly flexible space that can meet the needs of a broad spectrum of artists. 

It’s a concept partly inspired by Gupta’s early years on the Bay Area jazz scene in the ’90s, when mentors like saxophonist Bishop Norman Williams, bassist Herbie Lewis and pianist BJ Papa worked as independent artists with little institutional support. “There was no safety net for them,” Gupta said. “They were alone on their path, and a lot of musicians still feel very alone.”

In responding to the music community’s needs, the RootStock Arts Center is still very much a work in progress, and Gupta’s goal is to keep it that way. With about 3,500 square feet and a large parking lot/patio it’s an enviably flexible building that contains more than a half-dozen discreet spaces that can accommodate an array of activities. Film screenings, conferences, workshops, classes, instrument repairs, recording sessions and of course concerts are all part of the mix.

“I was looking for a space where musicians can play with a bit of backline, and a gallery in the front,” Gupta said. “The idea was to have resources they don’t have at their house, almost like a gym with access to gear. You can get access to a keyboard, teach a lesson, or pop in and spend two or three hours practicing or composing.”

On Wednesday, June 17, RootStock screens the classic 1974 blaxploitation-meets-science-fiction film, Space Is the Place, which stars legendary keyboardist, composer and bandleader Sun Ra—filmed while he was in residency at UC Berkeley teaching the course, “The Black Man in the Cosmos.” Broun Fillinis saxophonist David Boyce, a comrade of Gupta’s in the powerhouse improvisational combo the Supplicants, leads a post-screening audience discussion.

On June 20 and July 18, RootStock Arts and Bay Artists United Collective present professional development workshops for performing artists looking to take advantage of booking conference showcases, which can lead to high-profile and relatively lucrative gigs at performing arts centers. And on June 29, violinists Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy present Natural Elements, their singular synthesis of Carnatic ragas, jazz, folk and Western chamber music.

In many ways, RootStock Arts Center crystalizes the activities Gupta has pursued since he moved back to the East Bay in the summer of 2023 after an impressively productive 15-year stint in New York City. He had already forged deep ties between Brooklyn Raga Massive and the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival in presenting an epic collaboration in 2017 with Classical Revolution reimagining Terry Riley’s “In C” and a 2022 tribute to Alice Coltrane featuring bass-legend Reggie Workman.

He’s transferred that relationship to RootStock, which curates “Color Your Mind” Aug. 2 for the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. This year’s program features the brilliant Carnatic violinist and vocalist Sruti Sarathy, multi-instrumentalist Siddique Ahmed, a founding member of Afghanistan’s first rock band, and Delhi-born Suhail Yusuf Khan, a vocalist and master of the sarangi, the bowed, short-neck, three-string instrument that can sound strikingly like a human voice.

Since launching RootStock Arts as a presenting organization, he’s also partnered with the West Oakland space Wyldflowr Arts run by vocalist Tiffany Austin and saxophonist Nora Free, presenting weekly sessions that often feature musicians versed in Indian classical music. In addition he’s presented regular gigs at Medicine For Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery in the Mission. And he’s collaborated with the Berkeley Rep, presenting free Indian music performances in Michael’s Second Act Bar in conjunction with the Bollywood-inspired musical, The Lunchbox. Next up, on June 27, is “Songs of Many Lives,” a project featuring Carnatic vocalist Roopa Mahadaven and violinist/composer Sruti Sarathy.

“The dude blows my mind; he’s such a doer,” said Berkeley tenor saxophonist George Brooks, who’s spent much of his career collaborating with the world’s most acclaimed Indian classical musicians. “He moved back to the Bay Area and hit the ground running, and now he’s transformed this space from a no-vibe real estate office into a place that feels like an artist sanctuary.”

Gupta has tilled the soil, and with the RootStock Arts Center he’s ready for a thousand flowers to bloom.

RootStock Arts Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave., Oakland; rootstockarts.com.