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San Francisco Chronicle
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Jazz Festival makes bold debut with expanded format, big ambitions
With a New Orleans style brass band blasting out a second line over the traffic roaring down Franklin Street, the revamped San Francisco Jazz Festival introduced itself to Hayes Valley as a trial run for bigger parties to come. Friday the 13 th isn't an auspicious date to launch a new, three-day festival, particularly when a wave of national protests coincides with the next day's programming. But SFJazz offered a glimpse of what the future might look like in the venue-rich neighborhood given a little luck and a lot of great music. With three shows in the SFJazz Center's Robert N. Miner Auditorium, four sets in the intimate Joe Henderson Lab, and another four performances in a tent covering a parking lot on Oak Street, Friday's roster offered a successful proof of concept. The cars zooming through the intersection of Franklin and Fell streets didn't seem to faze festivalgoers, many of whom moved back and forth between the building and the nearby tent throughout the day. Playing the opening Minor Auditorium set with the SFJazz Collective, Grammy Award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling greeted the half-filled room by welcoming 'everyone playing hooky from something.' Premiering newly minted arrangements by SFJazz Collective Music Director Chris Potter, Elling delivered a bravura program of his lyrics set to tunes by the great fusion band Weather Report. Most of the venue's seats were full by the time he concluded. At the same time in the Joe Henderson Lab, velvet-smooth jazz crooner Sachal Vasandani performed in a stripped down trio with guitarist Charles Altura and Dayna Stephens on tenor sax and bass-line-supplying Electronic Wind Instrument. Whether interpreting Sade or his confessional originals, he offered a fascinating counterpoint to Elling's fine-grit tone and thickly orchestrated, percussion-driven charts. Don Was, the recipient of the SFJazz Lifetime Achievement Award at the organization's gala on Thursday, June 12, led his powerhouse Pan Detroit Orchestra through a torrid set of originals and extravagantly reimagined Motor City material. He's not a flashy bassist, but he powered the ship with authority. SFJazz Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard has made it clear that his vision for the festival extends far beyond the current footprint. The festival tent on Oak Street — closed to make room for several food trucks, a merchandise table, a beer garden and a dining area — was reimagined with a different programming focus. It featured acts aimed at broader and possibly younger audiences, including a quartet led by Snarky Puppy guitarist Mark Lettieri and a hip-hop-inflected quintet led by drummer and emcee Kassa Overall. The strategy seemed to work. Among those drawn in were 17-year-olds Keira Kennedy of Oakland and her friend Michael Norris, who said he'd never been to an SFJazz event before. Standing near the back of the festival tent during Overall's set, the two teens lit up as the drummer gave a shoutout to Bay Area legend E-40. 'It's been amazing,' said Michael, a hip-hop fan eager to check out related musical styles throughout the festival, which wraps up Sunday, June 15. Burkhard Hopper, SFJazz's director of artistic programming, was strolling the Oak Street midway with his wife, Australian pianist and jazz vocalist Sarah McKenzie, and their toddler son. Friday's ticket sales were the lightest of the weekend, while day two might stretch the Miner Auditorium's capacity, 'particularly for the Stanley Clarke and Gonzalo Rubalcaba show,' he said. There were a few first-day hiccups, starting with an understaffed check-in table. At 2 p.m. Friday, the line was slowly creeping along, but by mid-afternoon the bottleneck had been resolved. As the evening turned chilly, heat lamps by the dining tables would have been welcome. Miner Auditorium was nearly full by the time tenor sax legend Charles Lloyd took the stage with his Sky Quartet, featuring pianist Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Eric Harland. Nearly six decades after his landmark 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival set, which yielded the million-selling 'Forest Flower,' Lloyd's presence felt like a benediction for the newly reimagined festival. After dropping out of the jazz scene in the 1970s Lloyd toured with the Beach Boys and recorded in Brian Wilson 's home studio. Much as he'd beautifully evoked the spirit of his former Sangam bandmate Zakir Hussain at the SFJazz Gala the night before, he mourned the recent loss of another singular creative force by opening the set with a prayer-like rendition of 'God Only Knows.'
San Francisco Chronicle
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
How the revamped San Francisco Jazz Festival aims to rival New Orleans' Jazz Fest
Brainstorming to reinvent the San Francisco Jazz Festival, SFJazz Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard didn't have to search far for an organizing concept. 'Look where I'm from, bro,' the New Orleans native told the Chronicle. 'I just played Jazz Fest, and one thing I've always loved about it is that I see people from around the world coming to New Orleans. The city comes alive. The entire area is lit up. San Francisco deserves that.' To that end — albeit on a much smaller scale — San Francisco is getting a shot of Crescent City mojo with a revamped event that packs all of the action into one weekend, a major shift from its former concert-series format. Running Friday, June 13, through Sunday, June 15, San Francisco Jazz Festival features some three-dozen performances across multiple stages at SFJazz Center and an adjacent tent covering the parking lot at Franklin and Oak streets. The sheer density of programming offers an immersive festival experience in the heart of Civic Center. In the two decades before the jazz center opened in 2013, the SFJazz organization was known as the San Francisco Jazz Festival and its flagship three-week fall concert series presented shows at venues around the city, with no real center of gravity. Once SFJazz built its own facility at 201 Franklin St., the festival became a vestige of its origins and largely blended into its year-round calendar. Now, Blanchard sees the reimagined San Francisco Jazz Festival as the spearhead of a major expansion. While starting with 'a trial run' of a single weekend, he 'envisions this thing becoming a two-week festival where we engage the whole Civic Center,' Blanchard said. 'We have a whole bunch of ideas.' With Oak Street closed for a block between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue, there's a free-access midway that will feature DJs, wine and beer vendors, Off the Grid food trucks, and art and vinyl merchants. Then there's its eye-catching lineup, a multigenerational musical roster that encompasses mid-career virtuosos including pianist Orrin Evans, trumpeter Nicholas Payton and saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin; and rising stars like pianist Jahari Stampley, trumpeter Tatiana Tate and vocalist Tyreek McDole. Los Angeles pianist/keyboardist Patrice Rushen, a force in jazz, R&B and pop since the early 1970s, is also making her SFJazz debut as a bandleader, headlining Sunday's program. Meanwhile, hip-hop steeped drummer and DJ Kassa Overall and trumpet star Theo Croker, a pillar of programming at the Tenderloin jazz club Black Cat, are artists geared to connect with both jazz heads and younger jazz-adjacent audiences. But SFJazz isn't just embracing diverse new styles — it's also honoring its roots. Revered veterans saxophonist Charles Lloyd and bassists Stanley Clarke and Dave Holland (all National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters) are featured on the bill and speaks to the institution's commitment to its titular tradition. As for Blanchard, the acclaimed trumpeter himself is providing the festival's secret sauce as 'artist at large,' roaming the various stages to sit in with different acts. 'He's not playing with his own band, so he's got the freedom to run around with his trumpet,' said Burkhard Hopper, who came on as SFJazz's director of artistic programming last October. 'A festival is supposed to have a spontaneous element.' Working closely with the German-born Hopper, a veteran music agent and concert producer who spent years bringing American jazz artists to Europe, Blanchard is looking to extend the organization's reach far beyond the city. As part of that effort, SFJazz is partnering with San Jose Jazz this summer for the first time, taking over the Montgomery Theater for the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest from Aug. 8-10. It also plans to present a concert series at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek this fall. But first things first, and that's the upcoming festival — which has one notable omission from this trial run: Bay Area jazz artists. Aside from Berkeley trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire, who's performing duo with the superlative New Orleans pianist Sullivan Fortner, and San Francisco Afro-futurist Idris Ackamoor and Ankhestra, the program is dominated by out-of-town acts. Blanchard, however, urges patience, noting that SFJazz presents local artists year-round. 'The New Orleans Jazz Fest got the same reaction,' he said about complaints from resident artists. 'I'm trying to build an international jazz festival, not disregarding local artists,' he went on. 'We want to build something that people come to from all over, and we need international artists that people recognize. When we get that going, we'll have other stages where more local artists play, but we don't have that yet.'
San Francisco Chronicle
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Summer 2025: Catch these rising stars in the Bay Area
Support emerging new artists this summer throughout the Bay Area. Whether it's music, literature or dance, there's something for everyone. Catch these fresh talents before they're part of the mainstream — because who doesn't love bragging about being an OG fan once the artists hit it big? Festival La Onda Filled with traditional, contemporary and futuristic groups and artists from across the Latin music diaspora, the inaugural Festival La Onda showed that a Spanish-language music festival can thrive in Napa. Organizers answered calls for an encore with a triumphant '¡ Vamos!' as 2025 headliners Marco Antonio Solís, Banda MS, Pepe Aguilar, Carín León and Grupo Firme will grace the Napa Valley Expo stages May 31-June 1. And since this is a BottleRock production, expect food and drink to match the elevated vibes. — Todd Inoue San Francisco Jazz Festival Since becoming only the second male artist to win the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2023, the 25-year-old Haitian American baritone Tyreek McDole has seized his moment. Performing widely in conjunction with the June 6 release of his debut album 'Open Up Your Senses,' he covers a century of jazz history, confidently delivering 90-year-old standards and spiritual anthems like 'The Creator Has a Master Plan.' Listed in the small print on the San Francisco Jazz Festival's program June 15 ($50-$150), he plays two afternoon sets in SFJazz Center's Joe Henderson Lab. Leila Mottley book launch Leila Mottley's writing commands attention. In 2022, ' Nightcrawling,' the former Oakland Youth Poet Laureate's debut novel, was an Oprah's Book Club selection. Her follow-up, 'The Girls Who Grew Big,' a thoughtful depiction of teen mothers, arrives June 24. That evening, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore in Berkeley plans to host a book launch discussion featuring Mottley and Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist ' The Man Who Could Move Clouds.' — Kevin Canfield Stanford Jazz Festival Houston native Paul Cornish, recently in the band of Berkeley tenor sax star Joshua Redman, is rapidly making a name for himself as one of jazz's most poised and exciting young pianists. On the cusp of releasing his debut album for Blue Note Records, Cornish, who now lives in Los Angeles, brings a stellar trio, featuring remarkable Oakland-reared drummer Savannah Harris, to the Stanford Jazz Festival on July 27 ($47). State of Play Festival Now entering its third year, ODC Theater's annual State of Play Festival feels like a big, friendly party where you can catch some of the dance world's most forward-thinking artists. Grouping choreographers under 'Experimenters' (works in progress), 'Curious Creators' (shorter performances) and 'Risk-Takers' (full-evening performances), the Mission District festival on July 31-Aug. 3 encourages audiences to mix and match their viewing adventure by purchasing a festival pass, which are $80-$300. Sure to be highlights this year are San Francisco dancemakers Gizeh Muñiz Vengel and Natalya Janay Shoaf. — Rachel Howard Taylor Tomlinson CBS made a major blunder canceling the delightfully quirky reboot of pop-culture game show 'After Midnight' after only two seasons. Thankfully, the show's host Taylor Tomlinson is taking her infectious brand of cheery barbs and queer observations, which she's showcased on three Netflix comedy specials on the road, with the 'Save Me' tour. Don't miss out on tickets, which start at $50, for one of her two shows on Sept. 12-13, at Oakland's Paramount Theatre.
