Oakland's Fingerpicking Champ to Play Crystal Lake

It doesn’t take long to figure out how Oakland resident Mark Sganga earned the 2009 International Fingerpicking Championship.

It would be hard, for example, to imagine a one-guitar, acoustic instrumental cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a venture usually reserved for multiple (heavily distorted) instruments and screaming vocals. But on his album Sgangri-La, he covers the power-trio’s parts all with one live guitar track.

He’ll have some help when he performs Saturday night at Crystal Lake, but the technical prowess isn’t lost in the mix.

Born in Brooklyn and a graduate of Ramsey High School, Sganga studied music at William Paterson University under the “old guard of jazz,” including Bucky Pizzarelli, and for the last 23 years has been an Oakland resident.

Next month he’ll be in Kansas, and he’s toured internationally as well as playing a solid regiment of jazz clubs and festivals around Bergen County and New York City.

But the lake in Oakland has a special attraction.

“At one time, when it started off, the Beach Club was in arrears and we did it to fill their coffers,” he says, and since then Crystal Lake has been a regular summer stop on his schedule.

"I love Oakland and I love Crystal Lake."

Sganga, who has four albums out, one pending release, and another in the works, has plenty of original material: jazzy numbers with a touch of Latin American sounds and percussion.

In typical fashion, Saturday’s concert will bring in a mix of sounds to back up Sganga, with blues bassist and singer Larry V’Alvero and percussionist Larry Eagle, who played on Bruce Springsteen’s Pete Seeger tribute album, to compose the rhythm section.

The show, which is 18 and over, kicks off at Crystal Lake at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will be available at the door for $10.