Last year, there was a big nod toward Latin jazz, which occupies an ever-more important position in the jazz world.
This year's festival, Aug. 11-14, will still have a Latin emphasis, along with a heavy dose of straight-ahead playing. Take a look at who's on the bill: Eddie Palmieri, Poncho Sanchez, Hank Jones, Bobby Watson, Louie Bellson, Eliane Elias and many others.
But this year's festival will also put an accent on youth. It will feature three of the best-known musicians and ensembles from the new generation: Pianist Jason Moran and his groundbreaking group, Bandwagon; the Bad Plus, an acoustic trio with an in-your-face rock attitude (and a fat recording contract); and Soulive, an electric trio of Hammond B-3 organ (and other keyboards), guitar and drums, blending '60s soul jazz with funk and the new jam-band ethos.
The goal is ``to dig down and find out what's going on in the generation that's coming up,'' says Steve Saperstein, general manager of the festival and of the San Jose Jazz Society, which runs the event. ``A lot of the artists are much younger than we've had in the past, and I think that will really appeal to our upcoming generation of listeners, in the 15-30 age bracket. At times, jazz has excluded the upcoming musicians and shut out listeners, too. It's been made inaccessible: `If you haven't listened to the old stuff, then we don't want you.' There's an exclusive way that jazz has been for a while.''
Somehow this festival -- technically, the 2005 edition is titled the 16th Annual Comcast San Jose Jazz Festival, presented by Southwest Airlines -- always manages to be a populist event, blurring perceived barriers between pure enjoyment and serious music. Last summer, an estimated 165,000 people attended, relaxing in front of the Main Stage at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez to hear the likes of saxophonist James Moody and conguero Ray Baretto, or fanning out to the other downtown stages, focused on salsa, big band and other genres.
It's the biggest annual cultural event in San Jose. This year's kickoff, on Thursday, Aug. 11, will be a dinner-concert featuring a yet-to-be-named headliner at the California Theatre on South First Street. The setting itself should make for a unique event: Up until now the lavishly restored California has been used almost exclusively for opera and symphonic music.
Once the free three-day jazz weekend begins on Friday, Aug. 12, music will be heard on nine stages, including the ``Jazz Beyond'' stage at the air-conditioned San Jose Rep.
``Beyond'' -- with Moran, Bad Plus and others -- will happen at night, on Saturday, Aug. 12, and Sunday, Aug. 13, from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. This is cutting-edge stuff: Moran, for instance, is a hip iconoclast, as likely to play James P. Johnson stride as he is a tune by Afrika Bambatta or Brahms. It all gets processed through his one-of-a-kind turbo-blender aesthetic; the man's got a sound that evokes past and future and may be very different from anything you've ever heard.
What else should you pay attention to?
Pianist Hank Jones is among the most elegant and swinging pianists in jazz's century-long history. He will play with the San Jose Jazz Orchestra on the Main Stage and elsewhere with a trio. He and drummer Bellson, who will appear on the Main Stage with the Musicians' Warehouse Big Band, are national treasures, officially dubbed ``jazz masters'' by the National Endowment for the Arts. Bellson, who shuttles between homes in Los Angeles and San Jose, was once called ``the greatest musician alive'' by Duke Ellington, his employer for several years.
Main Stage acts will also include Bettye LaVette, the rhythm 'n' blues singer; vocalist Ernestine Anderson, another legend, her voice once likened by Quincy Jones to ``honey at dusk''; Soulive; pianist Eddie Palmieri's sizzling eight-piece group; the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir; Poncho Sanchez's ensemble, great to dance to; and saxophonist Bobby Watson's quintet.
Watson, who came up years ago with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, is among jazz's best composers and bandleaders, as well as a fiery improviser -- sort of an amalgam of Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane, but with an old-school whiff of the balladry of Johnny Hodges. His pianist, Orrin Evans, is sensational. His bassist, Curtis Lundy, is a flat-out swinger who came up through Betty Carter's turn-on-a-dime trios.
Just to whet your appetite further: Other heavyweights include trumpeter Ray Vega, bassist David Friesen (in a duo with guitarist John Stowell), and singers Karrin Allyson and Rene Marie. At the Rep, before it morphs into the ``Beyond'' stage at night, there will also be some great trios and other small combos, led by butter-touch pianists Jones, Elias, and Larry Vuckovich.
It is ``really an artistic decision to keep piano trios off the Main Stage -- to have them indoors, in an intimate setting,'' Saperstein says.
He is also excited about the festival jam sessions, which will happen at a still-to-be-announced venue on Saturday and Sunday nights. Last year, some famous players dropped by, including trombonist Steve Turre, saxophonist Jane Bunnett and drummer Babatunde Lea. The jams lasted until late at night, and Saperstein thinks that's symbolic of the festival -- the way it keeps extending itself. If funding can be found, he says, future festivals may eventually go on for five or six days.
All jazz, all the time.
San Jose Jazz Festival
Aug. 11-14
Gala dinner-concert with a yet-to-be-announced headliner: Aug. 11, California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose.
Ticket: Details to be announced.
Free festival events: Aug. 12-14 on nine downtown San Jose stages.
For information: (408) 288-7557 or
www.sanjosejazz.org
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...c/11417162.htm
. Hopefully I don't get called into work that weekend. As it is, I will probably be busy with KSJS.
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