Wednesday, July 31, 2024

SFJAZZ: September, 2024

SFJAZZ will begin its 2024–25 season during the first week of September. That will include performances at the Joe Henderson Lab, with further offerings taking place later in the month. For those that do not (yet?) know, the Center is located at 201 Franklin Street, on the northwest corner of Fell Street, where the main entrance doors are located. Performance dates, times, and hyperlinks for purchasing tickets are as follows:

Thursday, September 5, Friday, September 6, and Saturday, September 7, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, September 8, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: Henderson will celebrate Season Opening Week with eight performances by OKAN. This is the duo of violinist Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magdelys Savigne on percussion, both of whom will also contribute vocal work. The name of the duo is the word for heart or soul in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria. OKAN goes beyond the Afro-Cuban genre to appropriate global rhythms from a wide variety of sources including jazz, folk, electronic pop, and classical forms.

September 12, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The theme for the following week will be Drums in the Lead. The first of the drummers will be Jaz Sawyer. His program will be a salute to drumming legend Roy Haynes. The performance will feature music from Haynes’ trio album We Three. However, if Sawyer is going to lead a trio, he has not yet named the musicians that will join him.

September 13, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The second featured drummer will be Anthony Fung. He is a graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance (which is now known as the Hancock Institute of Jazz). He will lead a quartet, two of whose members are also Monk Institute alumni, Alex Hahn on alto saxophone and bassist Luca Alemanno (the first Italian musician accepted into the Monk program). The remaining member of the quartet will be pianist Michael Ragonese. The quartet will perform music from the 2022 album FO(U)RTH.

Saturday, September 14, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday September 15, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: The final featured drummer of the week will be Mike Clark. The performances will be devoted to music from his latest Wild Hive Records album, Kosen Rufu. He will lead a quartet whose “front line” will consist of Eddie Henderson on trumpet and saxophonist Skerik. Bass will be taken by Henry “The Skipper” Franklin.

Thursday, September 19, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The theme for the third week will be Good Vibes. It will begin with a solo performance (on vibraphone) by Kyle Athayde. His influences come not only from different periods of jazz (Duke Ellington and Eric Dolphy) but also from the leading Russian composers of twentieth-century concert music, Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Friday, September 20, and Saturday, September 21, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: This will also be a solo vibraphone performance, this time by Sasha Berliner performing music from her new album, Fantome.

Sunday, September 22, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: Simon Moullier will be the one vibraphonist to lead a combo. He will be joined by South Korean drummer Jongkuk Kim and Lex Korten on piano. These are the musicians that performed with him when he made his Candid Records album Elements of Light.

Marquis Hill with his trumpet (from his SFJAZZ Web page)

Thursday, September 26, and Friday, September 27, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The theme for the final week of the month will be Soul-Jazz. Trumpeter Maquis Hill will play compositions from his new album Composers Collective. This was a band project, but any accompanying performers have not yet been named.

Saturday, September 28, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, September 29, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: This will be a duo performance by Alicia and Michael Olatuja. The latter provides bass accompaniment for the former, who is a vocalist. They will play music from their self-titles album, which is described as a “groove-heavy mix of Afro-Beat, jazz, funk, and soul.”

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