The Countdown Continues…
10 Reasons to Attend the Jazz Festival
The Healdsburg Jazz Festival is fast approaching — it all kicks off officially on Friday June 4 with Jazz Night at the Movies in Healdsburg’s historic Raven Theater. Host for this unusual evening of archival film is Mark Cantor, a Bay Area film historian who has joined us several times before, including at the second Healdsburg Jazz Festival in 2000. Which leads us to the next of 10 Reasons to Attend the Healdsburg Jazz Festival…
Reason No. 9:
Return of Old Friends
We appreciate the fact that once many of our favorite jazz artists have played at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival they want to come back. There’s nothing like the comfort and camaraderie of familiar faces, and once again we’re happy to welcome back these old friends — and some not so old! — for their return engagements as Festival performers.
Friday June 4: The traditions of jazz are broad and deep, like the roots and branches of a noble tree. Unlike the video-centric hip-hop generation, or even the television era of rock, jazz as an art form pre-dates trendy “music videos” back to the time of Moviolas and newsreels. This is the world that Mark Cantor explores in Jazz Night at the Movies, with his rare film clips of some of the giants of jazz in their explosive prime.
Among the artists who may be presented onscreen are Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, Art Pepper, John Coltrane, Max Roach, and the crowd-pleasing “Hot Lips” Page. What better place to see these historic celluloid flights of fancy than the Raven Theater, itself a well-preserved historic cinema? We hope to see you there for the opening night of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.
Wednesday, June 9: Other “old friends” on this year’s schedule includes George Cables, the brilliant yet soft-spoken poet of the piano. He will front a trio at the same Raven Theater on Wednesday, June 9, with solid sidemen bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Jaz Sawyer, plus the added attraction of a much newer friend, vocalist Shea Breaux Wells. She was a surprise hit at the 2008 festival, and her talents have only grown since.
Friday & Saturday, June 11-12: A good place to meet old friends (and new ones!) is the Hotel Healdsburg Lobby, where we sponsor jazz every weekend night year-round. If you’ve been with us before, during this year’s Festival you’re sure to see somebody familiar when drummer Lorca Hart leads a trio on Friday night, and Craig Handy brings his own band on Saturday. Lorca’s been with us just a couple years now, but his father Billy Hart has been another mainstay of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival through the years. And Craig Handy is a Bay Area stalwart who has performed in various guises during festivals past, including the 2007 “return” of the Cookers.
That’s not all, not by a long shot. You remember piano virtuoso Geri Allen from 2004, and she’s back again this year on Saturday, June 12 with Charlie Haden (another HJF veteran, Class of 2006) and Ravi Coltrane. And samba queen Leny Andrade returns for the third time in four years as part of the Bossa Nova on the Green lineup on Sunday, June 6 at Rec Park.
And we can’t forget the magnetic and magnanimous Tacuma King, who has done so much to keep music and the spirit of community alive in Healdsburg with his Children’s Percussion Workshops, year after year. This time the CPW opens the bill for Esperanza Spalding (whom we first saw last year!) at the Raven on Friday, June 11.