Review: Healdsburg Jazz Festival,
June 3 – 12
The 2011 Healdsburg Jazz Festival ran from June 3-12, an unprecedented 10-day celebration and expression of jazz from many of the style’s most committed professionals.
A Sunday of Inspiration the only way to describe the Festival’s final day! It started out right with Sunday Morning Spirituals, featuring the soaring voice of Ruth Naomi Floyd, the great reedsman Bennie Maupin, and a surprise combo of Festival favorites under the direction of James Newton.
Then we all settled in for an 
Intimate Evening with Charlie Haden. A documentary about the surprising background and insights of American’s home grown bass legend, informal audience exchange and a brief set with Alan Broadbent, brought the Healdsburg Jazz Festival to lively conclusion.
Saturday Night was the right night for jazz — an All Star Night at the Raven. The bar was set high with the piano experiments of Denny Zeitlin, raised a couple notches by the small combo mastery of the John Heard Trio, then went through the roof with the George Cables All-Stars. You had to be there.
Friday at the Festival meant only one thing: Sangam. A confluence of three voices brought Charles Lloyd together with Zakir Hussain and drummer Eric Harland. They transported the Raven audience to a place where sound and spirit meet.
Motéma Thursday at the Festival featured a new event, an Audiophile Listening Party at Topel Winery (125 Matheson St.), then Motema Night at the Raven featured Geri Allen, the Marc Cary Trio and Babatunde Lea to showcase artists on this jazz-centric label. Check out the photos on this review on Healdsburg Patch.
No Time Out for Jazz reminds us that the Festival is an all-days event. Monday gave us Jazz & Wine Dinner at DCK, Tuesday was Jazz in the Plaza, and Wednesday we had Brazil Night at the Bakery, where Sandy Cressman gave voice to the music of South America, and Natalie Cressman to a new generation.
Jazz Weekend at “Rec Park” took us indoors to the luxurious Jackson Theater (4400 Day School Pl, Santa Rosa) to hear two shows, Saturday’s One Voice vocal extravaganza and Sunday’s Latin Jazz on the Green showcasing Brazilian All-Stars, John Santos and special guests.
Opening Night Overview featured Fred Hersch, one of the great pianists in jazz today, and the still-growing local talent of guitarist Julian Lage. Third prodigal performer was pianist Noam Lemish and trio, all on Friday night, June 3, at the Raven.
Learn the Benefits
Subscribe to RSS for site updates
Paul Taylor
on Jun 12th, 2011
@ 12:58 pm:
I moved to Healdsburg in January and discovered the Jazz Festival. I am completely knocked out by the high quality of the event but even more the motivating vision and concept that drives the organization of this festival.
Jazz is a big world, a lot of things to a lot of people and the Healdsburg festival opens up that reality. I did not attend every event but, beginning with the Latin Jazz on a Sunday afternoon, through the following week and coming to rest on Sunday morning’s Spirituals concert, its like a new page is opened up and turned in the encyclopedia of jazz.
For me, the folkloric roots of brazilian music, afro-cuban music and salsa are inextricably linked to the roots of jazz in New Orleans, and it was as fine a show of latin music as I’ve ever experienced.
Then there was the incipient spirituality in the Motema night with Geri Allen, the Marc Cary Trio and Babatunde Lea. Oh, speaking of which, I was impressed by the rapt attention and devoted following given to Charles Lloyd’s Sangam revelation with Zahir Hussein and Eric Harland.
So, ok with that, but straight ahead jazz like in night clubs and such? Denny Zeitlin, whom I remember from San Francisco in the 60s, then John Heard’s trio with George Cables’ All-Stars closing the show. And that is professional, pays your money and get the whole show just like you want it night out on the town.
But what brought it home for me, that there is a vision and understanding that the music comes from a greater world than a concert hall or a night club was Sunday morning with Ruth Naomi Floyd fronting the George Cables All Stars augmented by Bennie Maupin led by James Newtion with a featured set from Pam and Bobby Watson that came right out of church and country and neighborhood, came right out of life lived in country and city, that expressed the spirit that informs such life that lives and moves behind the show.
Listen, let me tell you, and I’ve been involved with other festivals in other places, it is unusual that the guiding artistic vision and conception that programs any such event so comprehensively opens up the world of jazz in all its flavors and inflections, nuances and subtlties and, at the same time, bringing in the highest class of professional musicians that carry such a sensibility that transcends mere performance.
I am so grateful to have ended up in Healdsburg and participate in y’all’s Jazz Festival. Long may it live and thrive and keep the world of jazz alive and presenting!
Hosanna Bauer
on Jul 6th, 2011
@ 2:16 pm:
We so enjoyed “One Voice” ! Indoors at The theater made for a comfy listening time. No distractions. Really clean sound. Hearing Larry Dunlap play, and Bobbe Norris sing was my highlight, because she is a family friend since the “Sausalito Days” in the 1960’s! It was a
true thrill to be invited back in the Green Room to hang out with them, and meet the other
singers, Madeline, Rhonda, and Jackie. And to see Jessica’s great accomplishment of putting
all the elements together, selflessly. It was a gas!
Curtis Thomson
on Jul 13th, 2011
@ 8:37 am:
It has been just one month since the close of this years’ Healdsburg Jazz Festival. I feel privileged to have attended and to have photographed all ten performances including the free concert in the Plaza with the SF Jazz High School All-Star Orchestra. Hope that some of these images get posted to this site in the next few months along with others some of you may have taken.
Sorting through almost three thousand images requires a little time and it’s been a busy month but I’ve finally come to the last day of the festival so I can say that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Part of that light for me, today at least, has been Ruth Naomi Floyd who played Sunday morning at the Raven with the incredible all-star line up from Saturday. Been listening to a recording she made in 2009 as I finish editing photos taken during that morning concert. (Check out the CD “Heaven in a Nightclub”. It contains most of what was heard at the Raven). It just doesn’t get any better.
One of the songs on this CD, also performed Sunday was “Lord Don’t Move That Mountain” . . . “but give me the strength to climb it.” I thought it particularly fitting as an anthem for our Thirteenth year. Miracles can happen but they require lots of strength and hard work by dedicated and passionate people. Who would have dared to dream, in those dark days of August, less than a year ago, that this small town jazz festival, which was so sadly in debt, canceled for 2011 without any assurance of its’ return except possibly as some unwieldy hybrid of a jazz/pop sideshow, would undergo such a miraculous transformation?
For what it’s worth, I offer my thanks to the many who made it possible: the jazz fans and musicians who were outraged at the festival board’s decision and expressed that outrage with their comments, the new jazz board that understands the mission of this festival, the musicians, most of whom dedicated their performances this year, new sponsors and the old ones who stayed with us, new donors as well as continuing donors, an incredible group of volunteers, and most of all, festival director, Jessica Felix, who has always had the vision for a festival in which Jazz in it’s authentic form is the centerpiece.
During the Thursday evening’s concert at the Raven I met a husband and wife from San Francisco who were sitting behind me. Said they were dedicated supporters of jazz but this was their first Healdsburg Festival. During the second short intermission, after having heard Geri Allen followed by Marc Cary, the husband tapped my shoulder and asked, “Is your festival consistently this good?”. That’s a no brainer. Well . . . . YES! And then to back me up, Babatunde Lea arrived and completely blew the roof off, although it had been significantly weakened earlier. The couple promised to return next year.
The point being, we have something very special right here in Healdsburg. We may tend to take it for granted, but others, outside of our community who love jazz are starting to get it. More to the point, a lot of donated time and money are needed to sustain the Headlsburg Jazz Festival as we look forward to the Fourteenth Annual and beyond. Consider being a volunteer. Consider being a donor. A monthly pledge of only $25 a month, if made by a hundred people is $30,000. This was the debt from last year that almost killed our festival.
World-class jazz performers fill our community with music every June. Local schools benefit from programs designed to introduce jazz to young students at a time when funding for music education is sadly being scaled back. That’s one big mountain for a small town to move but with community support and the support of good folks who love and respect jazz, we can surely climb it.