25th Anniversary San Francisco jazz Festival

35+ CONCERTS IN VENUES THROUGHOUT SF—INCLUDING PREVIEW CONCERT WITH JOHN McLAUGHLIN SEPT. 22

This fall, SFJAZZ celebrates 25 years of top-notch jazz with 35+ shows over five weeks—encore performances by Festival veterans, debuts by rising stars, only-in-San Francisco double bills, newly commissioned works and much, much more. This silver anniversary edition of the “crown jewel among American jazz festivals” (Chicago Tribune) also showcases artists from far-flung corners of the globe including Brazil, Belgium, Portugal, India, Cuba, Cape Verde, Senegal, and Israel, to name a few. Combine that global panache with some of the finest musicians on the American jazz scene, and it makes for a gripping schedule of world-class music that can only be found in San Francisco.

“It is the diversity and adventurous sprit of the Bay Area that makes San Francisco Jazz Festival possible,” said SFJAZZ Executive Director Randall Kline. “This anniversary is really a celebration of the many music fans from San Francisco and beyond who have joined us for the past 25 years of music.”

Silver Anniversary Encores

Expect the unexpected when Ornette Coleman takes the Masonic Center stage on October 28. The alto saxophonist has defined the shape of jazz to come for almost 40 years, and his groundbreaking work is more highly revered than ever. In 2007 Coleman was honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His latest album, Sound Grammar, was named “Jazz Album of the Year” in the 2007 DownBeat Critics Poll, which also honored Coleman as “Jazz Artist” and “Alto Saxophonist of the Year.” The magazine justly described the tireless Coleman as “a searcher through and through.”

In a special pre-festival concert, guitarist John McLaughlin (9/22) returns to the electric roots and fret-board magic—captured on Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew and his own debut Extrapolation—that made him a six-string legend. The trailblazing guitarist continued to break down the boundaries between rock, classical Indian music, and jazz with his Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti (with whom he appeared at the 2000 San Francisco Jazz Festival). Fans of both McLaughlin’s high-wire electrified side and Eastern-steeped melodies will delight in his newest album, Industrial Zen, which All About Jazz calls “a perfect confluence of his divergent interests.” Guitarist and Tonight Show Music Director Kevin Eubanks opens the show with his own scintillating quartet.

The first time Miles Davis heard Ahmad Jamal (10/21), he was “knocked…out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrased notes and chords and passages.” Jamal’s innovative approach to the piano trio liberated his sidemen from simply keeping a beat, creating an “orchestral” approach that the Village Voice described as “perhaps the first to really explore the sounds of silence and make them sit up and sing.” 

In an only-in-S.F. meeting of space and sound, Pharoah Sanders (10/17) reprises his sold-out 2006 Sacred Space concert at San Francisco’s magisterial Grace Cathedral. From his distinctive, distinguished silver beard to his plaintive, soulful sound, Sanders “symbolize[s] the flammability and spirituality of what's called the jazz avant-garde” (San Francisco Chronicle). Following his mid-sixties tenure with John Coltrane, Sanders continued to explore Eastern and African sounds on his albums Karma, Summun Bukmun Umyun, and Elevation. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman has called Sanders “probably the best tenor player in the world.”

Toots Thielemans has lent his joyous, heartfelt harmonica sound to countless recordings and film scores—everything from his standard “Bluesette” to the Sesame Street theme. Though his instrument is a rarity in jazz circles, it is his inimitable expressive ability that has garned Thielemans the “#1 Miscellaneous Instrument” ranking year after year in the DownBeat Critics Poll. He appears at the festival in a Brazilian mood with two close musical comrades—and a band that debuted at the 2005 S.F. Jazz Festival— pianist Kenny Werner and guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves, who calls Thielemans “full of passion and love and the most expressive, soulful, flowing improviser I’ve been fortunate enough to know and share the stage with.”

Two exceptional fall shows will take advantage of the jewel-box setting and unparalleled acoustics of the Florence Gould Theatre at the Legion of Honor. Guitarist John Abercrombie (11/3) brings the genre-crossing, all-star band featured on his recent album The Third Quartet: violinist Mark Feldman, bassist (and Bill Evans veteran) Marc Johnson, and drummer Joey Baron.  The quartet’s genre-crossing sound “mixes chamber-improv and quiet free-jazz delicacies with elegiac ballads and now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't swing” (Guardian, U.K.).

On his new disc, Mirror, Grammy-winning pianist Jacky Terrasson (10/28) delivers his long-anticipated first solo set. France’s Jazz Magazine calls the album “a self-portrait of the artist in full maturity.”  The “brilliant and spontaneous” (The New York Times) pianist will draw from that same repertoire in a solo piano performance exclusively for SFJAZZ Members at the fall Festival’s SFJAZZ Members-only Concert.

Double Bills, Singular Artistry

Throughout its 25 years, the San Francisco Jazz Festival has been known for innovative double bills and themed shows that reflect the eclectic tastes of San Francisco. The Silver Anniversary Festival honors that tradition with a number of intriguing pairings and Festival exclusives. 

Two generations of piano masters meet when Herbie Hancock and Gonzalo Rubalcaba perform at the Masonic Center (11/10). Keyboard legend Hancock has been a key figure in many jazz revolutions: with Miles Davis’ second classic quintet in the ’60s, leading the fusion-based Headhunters in the ’70s, and performing electro-funk on the hugely-popular ’80s album Future Shock. Hancock and his current band (featuring DownBeat Critics Poll #1 Rising Star Guitarist” Lionel Loueke) combine these disparate threads into a compelling musical vision, testament to Hancock’s prodigious instrumentalism and singular vision. Further proof of Hancock’s ear for talent is found in Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, who opens the Masonic Center show with a solo piano performance. His virtuosic technique caught Hancock’s attention at a Lincoln Center appearance in the early ’90s. Since then Rubalcaba has continued to “blend disparate strands of Cuban and American jazz tradition into a fresh, modern whole” (All Music Guide).

When San Francisco and New Orleans meet, it is time to let the good times roll! The Festival pays tribute to one of America’s most vibrant cultures with “New Orleans on Nob Hill” (10/27), a celebration of all things NOLA. The Mardi Gras atmosphere in the Masonic Center lobby will include authentic Cajun cooking, setting the stage for an evening of the Crescent City’s finest music. Equal parts cultural ambassador and musical legend, Dr. John brings a powerful dose of N’awlins funk with him wherever he goes. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band hark back to early New Orleans jazz yet their new deluxe CD, Made In New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions (self-described as a “musical, visual, and historical exploration of Preservation Hall”) proves they are doing more than just preserving culture—they are keeping it vigorous. Big Chief Bo Dollis and his Wild Magnolias, the greatest of the Mardi Gras Indian tribes, are sure to fire up the festive atmosphere.

Fans of the SFJAZZ Collective will not want to miss a double bill featuring two of the all-star octet’s leading lights, saxophonist Joe Lovano and pianist Renee Rosnes (11/8), leading their own outstanding bands. The multi-faceted Lovano, who joined the Collective this year for its inaugural summer tour of the European festival circuit, has long been renowned for “the kind of play that made one forget his prodigious technique and instead fall under the spell of his continually unfolding story line” (Los Angeles Times). Rosnes has been a stalwart of the Collective since its first year, offering her trademark balance of “delicacy and power, witty and weighted ideas, assertiveness and deference” (DownBeat).

Kurt Elling and Nancy King (11/10) are two very distinct vocalists with one integral thing in common: utter originality. Elling’s latest album, Nightmoves, earned him his eighth straight “Male Vocalist of the Year” honor in the DownBeat Critics Poll. His four-octave baritone is as supple as ever, as are his innovative vocalese treatments of jazz standards like “Body and Soul.” Nancy King was a regular on the San Francisco and West Coast jazz scene in the ’60s, but she returned to her native Oregon to raise a family. With remarkable scat chops and brilliant accompanist Steve Christofferson, her every performance is a primer on jazz vocals.

Pianist Fred Hersch performs his own double bill at this year’s festival showcasing two sides of this acclaimed pianist’s talent. The evening’s first half features Hersch’s trio with bassist Ben Street and drummer Nasheet Watts. Post intermission, Hersch welcomes esteemed sideman trumpeter Ralph Alessi, to make up his “Trio + 2.” Both groups highlight the unique qualities of Hersch’s work: “an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled among his peers” (The New Yorker).

The son of the great pianist Thelonious Monk (who would have celebrated his 90th birthday this October), drummer T. S. Monk has established a driving, distinct sound that mixes R&B, blues, hard bop, and funk. His 1997 album Monk on Monk was named “Best Jazz Album” in the DownBeat Readers Poll and he returns to the Bay Area on the heels of his and Jason Moran’s tribute to Thelonious’  “Town Hall Concert” this past spring. (Read more about Jason Moran’s commission.) “Monk acolytes, scholars and interpreters of the first order” (JazzTimes), the Bay Area-based Monk’s Music Trio open the October 24 show with their own 21st-century take on Monk’s music.

Swing aficionados and Latin jazz lovers alike will applaud the pairing of two virtuoso instrumentalists: guitarist Dorado Schmitt and clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera. Schmitt’s thrilling guitar runs and debonair charm are fitting tributes to the grandmaster of “gypsy jazz,” Django Reinhardt—as is the annual Django Festival he leads at New York’s Birdland. A Grammy-winning performer and NEA Jazz Master, D’Rivera is “one of the premier reed stylists of the last 30 years” (JazzTimes).

On Halloween, devilish delights abound on the big screen when maverick Dutch reedman Willem Breuker and his Kollektief accompany F.W. Murnau’s classic silent film, Faust. Considered one of the finest examples of German Expressionism, Faust tells an age-old story of demonic temptation and the struggle for righteousness. Breuker’s ingenious, playful score breathes wry new life into the film. 

Find more information on other unique pairings this Fall, including Ravi Shankar with Anoushka Shankar, Tinariwen and Vieux Farka Toure, Dorado Schmitt with Paquito D’Rivera, Happy Apple and Kneebody, Kronos Quartet with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, Marcus Shelby and Jon Jang, in the [New Works] and [World Music] articles.