Charlie Musselwhite will headline 2014 concerts that trace blues roots of jazz
Entering its 16th year as one of the nation’s premier “real jazz” music festivals, Healdsburg Jazz has announced that it will include two blues-related concerts in its 2014 season.
Blues great Charlie Musselwhite – recently named Most Outstanding Musician (harmonica) by Living Blues Magazine, and whose show-stopping performance with Ben Harper was the highlight of the White House Tribute to Memphis Soul earlier this year – will be the musical director for a special mini-festival within the 16th annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival called “Celebrating the Blues.”
Musselwhite, a Sonoma County resident and “friend of the Festival,” according to festival founder Jessica Felix, is taking an active role in the Festival, including donating CDs, harmonicas and other goods to the Festival’s online fundraising campaign through Indiegogo. He will perform both nights of the two-day “mini-fest,” as a solo artist and with his blues band as well as with each night’s guest performer.
“You might know that jazz evolved from blues,” says Musselwhite in a video accompanying the Indiegogo fundraising campaign, “so it’s only fitting to have some blues at the jazz festival.”
The first night, Saturday, May 31, 2014 — Musselwhite will perform in solo and duo formations, then with Latin jazz maestro John Santos and his Cuban-themed Son Soneros to re-create of the legendary music Musselwhite made with Eliades Ochoa (of “Buena Vista Social Club” fame) on the 1999 album Continental Drifter.
The second night of the event, Sunday June 1, will feature Bay Area jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman and his quartet. Again, Musselwhite will play along with the guest artist’s jazz quartet as well as with his own blues band, with Redman sitting in. Redman previously appeared at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival in 2010.
The Healdsburg Jazz Festival has been held every year since 1999 in the popular wine country destination of Healdsburg in Sonoma County. The Celebration of the Blues concerts will be at the Jackson Theater, located at the Sonoma Country Day School mid-way between Healdsburg and Santa Rosa.
The Festival has featured two-day themed concerts for several of its recent 10-day festivals, including Brazilian Jazz artists, vocalists and a special tribute to Charlie Haden this past summer, in 2013. Other musicians and programs for the 16th annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival, May 30-June 8, 2014 , will be announced in the spring. For further and updated information, continue to visit healdburgjazz.org.
NOTE: A special online fundraising campaign to help make these concerts possible is currently on-going at indiegogo.me/at/healdburgjazz. Your participation is encouraged – and we’ve got perks for your contributions!