SFJazz sets promising lineup for new season
Laurie Anderson, Chucho Valdés, Jazzmeia Horn are among the highlights
It wasn’t that long ago that the San Francisco Jazz Festival served as SFJazz’s flagship endeavor, providing a thoughtfully diverse threeweek musical repast. Since the $64 million SFJazz Center opened in January 2013, the excitement once generated by the festival seems almost quaint, as each new season in the nation’s only freestanding building designed to contemporary jazz arrives as a cornucopian flood brimming with so many heralded acts, it’s hard to comprehend.
The just-announced 2018-19 season features more than 350 concerts between Sept. 12 and May 19, kicking off with four-night runs by the incandescent 28-yearold multi-Grammy Award-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant in Miner Auditorium and DJ, producer, keyboardist, vocalist and composer Taylor McFerrin in the intimate Joe Henderson Lab with drummer Marcus Gilmore. Tickets ($30 and up) are now on sale to members and will be available to the general public on July 12 at www.sfjazz.org.
As part of the season announcement, SFJazz also unveiled its latest crop of resident artistic directors, a position that deputizes musicians as programmers, giving them the opportunity to present themselves or other artists in four-night Miner Auditorium engagements. The organization has often used the positions to deepen relationships with artists, but most of the new artists are already wellensconced in the SFJazz fold.
Cuban piano legend Chucho Valdés has been an SFJazz mainstay for decades, as has vocal star Dianne Reeves and saxophonist Joe Lovano, who spent several fruitful seasons with the SFJazz Collective. San Francisco bassist-composer
Marcus Shelby, an artist whose ambitious, historically informed works are well suited for the center, is another longtime SFJazz pillar.
The wild card here is composer, violinist and vocal artist Laurie Anderson, whose initial fall engagement puts her in dialogue with Bay Area artists such as pianist Tammy Hall (Nov. 29’s “Songs for Women”), drummer and electronics explorer Scott Amendola (Dec. 1’s “Song for Men”), and guitarist Fred Frith (Dec. 2’s “Scenes From My Radio Play”). She also performs at Grace Cathedral on Nov. 30 with guitarist Steward Herwood and violist Eyvind Kang in “Lou Reed Drones, Viola Duets.”
Gleaning a brief list of recommended concerts from the season is a fool’s errand, but here are
five that belong on your must-see, must-hear musical bucket list:
THELONIOUS MONK BIRTHDAY CONCERT >> A brilliant keyboard triumvirate will celebrate the monumental legacy of pianist and composer Thelonious Monk on what would have been the modern jazz genius’ 101st birthday. Catch newly minted NEA Jazz Master Joanne Brackeen, as playful and full of surprises at 79 as ever, and the reliably inspired thirtysomethings Kris Davis and Helen Sung performing Oct. 10 at Miner Auditorium.
JAZZMEIA HORN >> A young vocalist with enviable poise and an exceptional sound, Jazzmeia Horn has rapidly ascended since winning the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition.
Hear her perform Oct. 25-26 at the Joe Henderson Lab.
MYRA MELFORD’S SNOWY EGRET >> A pianist and composer whose music gracefully contains her volcanic and poetic impulses, Myra Melford is a master of band assemblage. Snowy Egret, which includes cornetist Ron Miles, drummer Tyshawn Sorey, guitarist Liberty Ellman and acoustic bass guitarist Stomu Takeishi, fully inhabits her emotionally expansive works. Hear them Nov. 2-3 at the Joe Henderson Lab.
LEYLA MCCALLA >> Singing in French, English and Haitian Creole, New Orleans-based cellist Leyla McCalla, a former member of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, has crafted a luminous
body of songs that distill folk wisdom and various Caribbean rhythms. Catch her Feb. 9-10 at the Joe Henderson Lab.
JACK DEJOHNETTE, JOE LOVANO, ESPERANZA SPALDING AND LEO GENOVESE >> One of the era’s definitive drummers, NEA Jazz Master Jack DeJohnette is the first among equals in this multigenerational collective quartet, which includes powerhouse saxophonist Joe Lovano, bass star Esperanza Spalding and Argentinaborn pianist Leo Genovese. It’s a band that can and will go anywhere the imagination leads. Follow yours to Miner Auditorium on April 24 to hear them live.