New Works, New Artists

25th Festival Packed with Intriguing Debuts

From the Gold Rush to “Web 2.0”, San Francisco has long been on the forward end of the cutting edge. Each year, the San Francisco Jazz Festival embraces the city’s zeitgeist by presenting a thrilling mix of trend-setting sounds from brand-new national and international artists to premiere performances of new works by world-renowned artists.

Festival Commissions and Original Works

When Jason Moran, one of jazz’s most acclaimed young pianists, pays tribute to quintessential modernist Thelonious Monk, don’t expect half-measures. “Monk is the reason I started playing piano,” said Moran. “I owe him all the investigation I can do.” Moran kicked off his exploration of Monk’s music with a full-scale reinterpretation of the pianist’s “Town Hall Concert” for the SFJAZZ 2007 Spring Season’s “Monk Project.” Now Moran is back with the West Coast debut of his multimedia performance “In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall 1959” (11/2). Moran has scoured Duke University’s extensive Monk archive, and envisions this new work, commissioned by SFJAZZ and Duke University, as a sweeping tribute to the pianist’s legacy.

Kronos Quartet (10/25 & 10/26) have championed new work since their formation over 30 years ago. Their fall Festival program display Kronos’ range as performers and eclectic tastes with three collaborative pieces: percussionist, composer, and fellow Nonesuch artist Glenn Kotche—also the drummer for superstar rock band Wilco—and the world premiere of his new composition “Anomaly”; multi-instrumentalist Walter Kitundu’s Charles Mingus-inspired “Cerulean Sweet”; and Korean vocalist and performance artist Dohee Lee’s mysterious, metaphysical “Sinawi.”

In a double bill of acclaimed Bay Area—based composer/instrumentalists, Marcus Shelby and Jon Jang bring two original works inspired by powerful women to the Great American Music Hall on October 19. “Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land” is an epic oratorio featuring Shelby’s Jazz Orchestra and four voices that enact the story of the great abolitionist leader. The Jon Jang Seven and special guest Min Xiao-Fen, a world-renowned pipa (Chinese lute) virtuoso, honor local schoolteacher Alice Fong Yu—the first Chinese American schoolteacher in San Francisco Unified School District—with Jang’s composition “Unbound Chinatown: A Musical Tribute to Alice Fong Yu.”

Another Bay Area legend, powerhouse percussionist and dedicated educator John Santos, teams up with the Bay’s finest student musicians, the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars, to premiere his major work “Traditions in Transition,” a suite exploring the past, present, and future of Afro-Latin music.

Debut Artists

On October 20, Bimbo’s 365 Club hosts one of salsa’s biggest stars, Cuban singer Issac Delgado, for the “Cuban Dance Party” of the year. This long-overdue Festival debut comes on the heels of his recent defection from his native country, and the release of a new album, En Primera Plana, which the Orlando Sentinel calls “an exuberant demonstration of salsa and Latin dance music.” This is an extraordinary opportunity for Bay Area audiences to experience Delgado’s signature timba sounds in the proper setting—on the dance floor at one of San Francisco’s most storied nightclubs.

Happy Apple and Kneebody (11/7) draw on influences ranging from indie rock, funk, blues, and jazz, and pop. Both bands come to the Festival behind exciting new releases: Happy Apple Back on Top features more of the "razor-sharp soloing, whirlwind intensity and bountiful storylines" (All About Jazz) that are the band's trademark, while Kneebody's Low Electrical Worker is rooted in the quintet's intuitive communication and virtuosic musicianship.

It is only in recent years that Chava Alberstein’s U.S. reputation has begun to match her celebrity in Israel, where she is a living legend. This platinum selling recording artist, whom The New York Times describes as “a thoughtful songwriter with folky roots, peaceable instincts, [and] a voice filled with compassion,” gives a special winter concert December 9 at Herbst Theatre.

Hailing from Israel but now a vital part of the “Downtown” NYC scene, Anat Cohen is one of the most promising young instrumentalists in jazz. DownBeat named her the “#1 Rising Star Clarinetist” in their annual Critics Poll, an honor seconded by the Jazz Journalists Association award of “Up and Coming Clarinetist.” Cohen is also a talented saxophonist and composer influenced by Afro-Cuban, Asian, and European Classical music.

Brazilian singer CéU earned a “Best New Artist” nomination at the 2006 Latin Grammys for music that “traverses the rich musical terrain of her country while updating it with hip-hop and electronic touches” (Billboard Magazine). The first international artist in Starbucks/Hear Music’s “Debut CD” series, CéU displays a genre-hopping sensibility that “segues easily from pop to reggae to dub in velvet, jazz-accented vocals” (Newsweek).