10 SJ Jazz shows not to miss.
After a year lost to the pandemic San Jose Jazz’s Summer Fest is back, and if the threeday event isn’t bigger than ever it’s retained everything that makes it one of the West Coast’s premier jazz events.
The action still revolves around the Sobrato Organization Main Stage at the north end of the Plaza de Cesar Chavez, where headliners like Ozomatli, Goapele, Pete Escovedo, Common and Morris Day and the Time will hold forth.
But instead of the dozen or so locations that made past Summer Fests an almost overwhelming experience, this year’s offerings have been distilled onto four venues in addition to the main stage, two outdoors — the Adobe Fountain Blues/Big Easy Stage and the CEFCU Latin Tropical Stage — and two indoors — the Hammer and Montgomery theaters.
With the rise of the highly contagious delta variant, SJZ announced last week that anyone attending an indoor stage must show proof of vaccination or a negative test for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their arrival at the festival. Masks will also be required at indoor venues. Patrons should check SJZ’s website for updates in the days before the event.
Whether your taste runs toward straightahead jazz or soul, R&B or timba, you can find some of the style’s finest practitioners at Summer Fest. Women instrumentalists are particularly well represented this year.
Here are some of the acts I’m looking forward to most.
7th Street Big Band
Led by drummer Gabby Horlick, San Jose’s 7th Street Big Band has turned into a proving ground for some of the region’s best young players and arrangers. For the prime-time slot kicking off Summer Fest, the band’s versatile vocalist Juanita Harris will be joined by well-established singers Amy D. and Ren Geisick, rising force Joy Hackett, and jazz/ hip-hop artist Jonathan Borca. DETAILS » 5:15 p.m. Friday, Main Stage
Judith Hill
With a resume that includes stints with Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Prince, singer, songwriter and guitarist Judith Hill is a soul powerhouse who dominates the stage. Her tightly coiled six-piece band includes her two most fundamental influences, with her father Robert Lee Hill on bass and her mother Michiko Hill on keyboards.
DETAILS » 7 p.m. Friday, Main Stage
Mimi Fox B-3 Trio
Guitarist Mimi Fox digs into the classic organ trio format with Brian Ho on B-3 and drummer Lorca Hart, putting her own spin on a sinewy sound perfectly suited for his stinging single-note lines.
DETAILS » 9 p.m. Friday, Montgomery Theater
Jamie Baum Septet+
New York flutist Jamie Baum is an ambitious composer with an orchestral vision. Her Septet+ is so talent-packed it could fill out its own jazz festival, with heavyweight improvisers such as guitarist Brad Shepik, pianist John Escreet, and trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, a Berkeley High grad with a tart, gleaming tone and a surfeit of canny melodic ideas. DETAILS » 5:30 p.m. Saturday; Montgomery Theater
Helen Sung Quartet+
Part of a brilliant wave of musicians from Houston’s High School for the Performing & Visual Arts, pianist-composer Helen Sung has released a series of consistently inspired albums, including a collaboration with poet Dana Gioia.
Her Quartet+ adds capaciously creative San Francisco violinist Alisa Rose to an all-star combo with saxophonist-flutist John Ellis, drummer Kendrick Scott and bass maestro Reuben Rogers. DETAILS » 7 p.m. Saturday, Hammer Theatre Center
George Brooks and Arjun Verma
Berkeley saxophonist George Brooks has collaborated with
many of the most acclaimed artists in North Indian classical music, creating a breathtaking body of work encompassing original compositions and traditional ragas. He and sitarist Arjun Verma, a disciple of Ali Akbar Khan, perform music commissioned last year by San Jose Jazz and Silicon Valley’s arts presenter Mosaic America, joined by guitarist Gyan Riley and tabla expert Nilan Chaudhuri.
DETAILS » 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Montgomery Theater
Sons of the Soul Revivers
Anyone needing a bracing jolt of the Holy Spirit can find spiritual sustenance with Sons of the Soul Revivers, a gospel music combo that draws on the classic quartet sound of the 1940s. Featuring the Vallejo-raised brothers
Walter Jr., James and Dwayne Morgan, the Sons are an awardwinning combo that has found new audiences after three decades with releases on the Little Village Foundation label. DETAILS » 1 p.m. Sunday, Adobe Fountain Blues Stage
Tony Lindsay Ray Charles Project
Ray Charles transformed the sound of Sunday morning worship into Saturday night revelry, a tradition ably upheld by Tony Lindsay’s celebration of Brother Ray. Best known for his long tenure with Santana, Lindsay is a tremendous soul singer, and he’s joined in the front line by veteran, gravel-voiced vocalist Glenn Walters and guitarist-vocalist Chris Cain, a blues star who leads his
own quartet Friday night on the Fountain Blues/Big Easy Stage. DETAILS » 1 p.m. Sunday, Montgomery Theater
Doug Carn Jazz Organ Fellowship Tribute
Pete Fallico’s annual celebrations spotlight Hammond B-3 masters, a designation made to order for Carn, an organ innovator who started making influential albums in the early 1970s. Fallico is joined here by some of the players featured on his excellent releases on his own Doodlin’ label, including tenor saxophonist Howard Wiley and drummer Deszon Claiborne. Guitar great Calvin Keys and the vivacious vocalist Tiffany Austin round out the party.
DETAILS » 3 p.m. Sunday, Montgomery Theater
SAN JOSE JAZZ SUMMER FEST
When: Music starts 5 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday, noon Aug. 15 Where: Outdoor stages and indoor venues around Plaza de Cesar Chavez, San Jose
Tickets: 3-day passes $105$500, $30 kids ages 5-12; daily passes $35-$190, $10 kids ages 5-12; sanjosejazz.org Safety/COVID-19 precautions: Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of arrival is required for all patrons who plan to enter an indoor venue, including the Hammer and Montgomery theaters, the Break Room or VIP Pavilion. Paper or digital proof is presented at entrance and patron receives a wristband. Masks are required for all indoor venues.
Claudia Villela and Romero Lubambo
Rio de Janeiro-reared vocalist, composer, percussionist and pianist Claudia Villela has spent almost her entire three-decadeplus career in the Bay Area, and she still manages to astonish on a regular basis. As a duo partner, New York-based guitar master Romero Lubambo shares Villela’s unbridled inventiveness, which is why he can often be found accompanying vocal stars like Dianne Reeves, Luciana Souza, Leny Andrade and Diana Krall. DETAILS » 5 p.m. Sunday, Montgomery Theater
Christian Sands
At 32, Christian Sands is one the most fluent and arresting pianists of his generation, a blazing improviser with a deep command of jazz and Latin jazz idioms. Whether accompanying stars like Christian McBride and Gregory Porter or leading his own well-conceived projects, Sands never fails to leave an enduring impression etched by his ringing touch and palpable connection to the music’s dance floor roots. DETAILS » 7 p.m. Sunday, Hammer Theatre Center