The Countdown Continues…
10 Reasons to Attend the Jazz Festival

The Healdsburg Jazz Festival kicks off officially on Friday June 4, and continues for a week and two weekends with headliners and sidelights, events large and intimate. Some of our stars are flying in from the Big Apple, some from L.A., but some are our friends and neighbors. Which brings us to another of 10 Reasons to Attend the Healdsburg Jazz Festival…

Reason No. 8: Local Talent

Who would have thought that a small agricultural town on the north end of the Santa Rosa Plain would turn into a hotbed of jazz talent? And we’re not just talking about your friendly neighborhood Dixieland band or barbershop quartet, either. Our local talent includes singers, guitarists, horn players of professional calibre who taken the stage and recorded CDs with the biggest of names.

Saturday June 5: One of our favorite places in town is Flying Goat Coffee, a laid-back, roasty hang-out with legendary lattes. They have hosted occasional music shows for us, and this year we have two Saturday night concerts in this cozy café featuring the Bennett Friedman Quartet. Friedman is a hard-swinging saxophonist who has been a mentor and mainstay at Santa Rosa Junior College, where he’s taught music for over 30 years. When he plays the Goat he’ll be backed by Sonoma guitarist Randy Vincent and area bass ace Chris Amberger, as well as Lorca Hart on drums. It’s sure to be an education — and a celebration of local talent. Tickets are only $10 for the 7 pm and 9 pm shows, and they’re going fast!

Monday June 7: Now that Windsor’s own Julian Lage is well into his Grammy-nominated career, it’s time for another young buck to assume the mantle of local jazz prodigy. We didn’t have to wait long: Kai Devitt-Lee showed up less than 2 years ago and has come to epitomize the local jazz scene: youthful, energetic, aggressive, with talent to spare. The 16-year old guitarist holds down multiple area gigs every month, and for the Festival he’ll be featured at the Michelin-starred Dry Creek Kitchen for a Jazz and Wine dinner on Monday night. There’s no cover, but the Charlie Palmer menu and the popular Kai Devitt-Lee Trio means that advance reservations are strongly recommended.

Wendesday June 9: Another local guitarist has been workshopping his talent hereabouts for years, but this Festival is the first time he’s fronted his own band at the Raven Theater. Christian Foley-Beining brings a quartet to the stage as the opening act on Wednesday night, but don’t be late: the German-born guitarist (and local leathersmith) has begun a fruitful association with legendary woodwind virtuoso Paul McCandless, whose fusion band Oregon was one of the leading improvisational groups of the 1970s, blending Indian ragas, Western classical, space music and jazz into a unique sound.

But Christian’s not the only local talent on the Raven stage that night. The George Cables Trio headlines, and the piano-driven threesome will be enhanced by vocalist Shea Breaux Wells, another Healdsburg resident. She was a surprise hit at the 2008 Festival, and turned her local debut into opportunity by burning the CD “Blind Date” with George Cables, Billy Hart, Craig Handy and other musicans she met at the Festival. With the expressive improvisations and evocative colorations of Cables and his trio, Shea is sure to shine again. Tickets for this Wednesday June 9 show are a real bargain — just $15 general, $10 for students and seniors.

Saturday Afternoons: You don’t have to get all dressed up for the Raven Theater to see our local legends-in-the-making. Just stroll downtown to one of the winery tasting rooms that have partnered with us to present Jazz & Wine Pairings on both Festival Saturdays, June 5 and June 12. You’ll find Herb Gibson at Murphy-Goode, Gary Johnson at Topel, and Bay Area duo Mad & Eddie Duran at Ferrari-Carano.

It’s part of what makes the Healdsburg Jazz Festival the biggest little jazz festival in the West. Watch out, Reno!

Art of the Solo Guitar

A tribute to the late Jimmy Wyble
Dedicated to the memory of Taku Sakashta

Oscar Castro-Neves, Romero Lubambo, Sid Jacobs, Bobby Vega, Ricardo Peixoto, Randy Vincent, Christian Foley-Beining, Kai Devitt-Lee and Kevin O’Neal (with vocalist Patrice Quinn)

Morning Workshop | Benefit Auction

Location Healdsburg
Time: Noon to 3 pm
Tickets $15.00, $10.00 for students and seniors (65+)
Event sponsors: Healdsburg Guitar Festival, Allied Lutherie

Following the morning workshop in the “Art of the Solo Guitar,” the afternoon concert will feature a stellar lineup of guitarists performing solo pieces dedicated to the late Jimmy Wyble. Many of these musicians will be playing their guitars or bass guitars made in Healdsburg by Tom Ribbecke and crew. Expect some surprises and a grand finale.

The event will be held at the beautiful grounds of Tom Ribbecke’s private “Barn” workshop, located on five pastoral acres off Limerick Lane. Tom will conduct tours, discuss and show works in progress, and answer questions about the art of building contemporary guitars. The highly acclaimed luthier has spent his long career perfecting his craft and pushing the limits of design. With the help of Bobby Vega, bassist extraordinaire, Tom developed a new instrument they named the Halfling.™ The heart of the design is an unusual soundboard in which the bass side is flat, and the treble side is arched.

The lineup for this special concert is still evolving. Among the new additions are Kevin O’Neal with vocalist Patrice Quinn (left), and local teen star Kai Devitt-Lee, along with other area favorites such as Randy Vincent and Christian Foley-Beining. Who knows who will show up the day of the event? The only way you’ll know is if you’re there! 

Bring a picnic, a blanket and umbrella and enjoy the afternoon listening to world class musicians playing at the birthplace of the Halfling.

Art of the Solo Guitar

Morning: Guitar Workshop

Afternoon Concert | Benefit Auction

Workshop: Making Music Part of Your Life
Time: 10 am to noon
Location: Announced upon confirmed registration
Information and registration: 707 431-0125
Free to all students of primary or secondary school age with an interest in music.

Presented by Ribbecke Guitars and Jazz Masters Workshop
Instructors: Bobby Vega and Tom Ribbecke

Bassist Bobby Vega and guitar maker Tom Ribbecke aim to inspire students to learn or continue to play music by talking about their lives and experiences in the music world. Due to the cutbacks in music programs, great teachers and musicians are no longer resident in the schools to provide motivation and inspiration to young people to study music. Tom and Bobby feel it is very important to talk to aspiring music students about the many different ways they can be involved in music, and hopefully spark them to follow their dreams.

Special Drawing: Win a guitar donated by Jazz Masters Workshop!

This workshop is free. So come one, come all students and have a good time being entertained and inspired. Bring your instrument (optional). Don’t forget there’s a concert with illustrious guitar soloists to follow.

Benefit Auction now ongoing
Ribbecke Halfling Guitar

 A special benefit auction is now ongoing at eBay, with the ending time May 27, 11:45am  for a 17″ Halfling Archtop with a retail value of $7500. Bidding started at $2000.
» Follow this link to learn more, bid or buy from eBay.

Check the Ribbecke website for more information on the Halfling, or place your bid at  the eBay auction page.

Oscar Castro-Neves | Leny Andrade & Romero Lubambo |  Claudia Villela  | Brasilia

“Stars of Brazil”

Sunday June 6 – Bossa Nova on the Green

Location: Recreation Park
Address: Piper at University, Healdsburg
Two shows: 12:30 – 6:30 pm
Tickets: $30 General, $20 Students or Seniors (65+), Children 10 and under free

Oscar Castro-Neves Quartet

“Oscar can capture the soul of Brazil in a few guitar chords, all the joy and sadness.”
—Toots Thielemans

As a teenager growing up in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves helped shape the rising bossa nova movement, and he’s been at the center of Brazilian and American popular music ever since. While he’s lived in the United States for more than three decades, his musical world is still defined by his Rio upbringing.

A master guitarist, effective vocalist, and brilliant arranger/composer Castro-Neves made his mark at 16, when a chance encounter with singer Alaide Costa led to her recording a hit version of his seminal bossa nova “Chora Tua Tristeza” (Cry Your Sadness). He was one of the featured artists at the legendary 1962 Carnegie Hall concert that introduced the bossa nova pantheon to North America, performing alongside Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto. Later in the decade he helped spread Brazilian music throughout the U.S. as the guitarist and music director of Sergio Mendes’ tremendously popular band.

Castro-Neves went on to a prolific career as a freelance performer and studio musician, collaborating with a mind-boggling array of artists, including Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand and Quincy Jones. He’s had a particular affinity for jazz, recording with Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz and more recently Toot Thielemans, with whom he tours regularly.

His Healdsburg band features a dazzling cast of musicians whose bossa nova-steeped repertoire offers a sensual journey to the heart of Brazil.

His Healdsburg band features a dazzling cast of musicians whose bossa nova-steeped repertoire offers a sensual journey to the heart of Brazil, including saxophonist Gary Meek, who has toured and recorded extensively with Brazilian icons Flora Purim and Airto while also co-leading the popular Brazilian jazz combo Fourth World with pianist Jose Neto. Sri Lankan electric bass expert Hussain Jiffry, an ace LA studio player with a vast and impressive resume, and Puerto Rican drummer Walter Rodriguez, a protégé of Alex Acuña, make up the supremely flexible, stylistically encompassing rhythm section.

Leny Andrade and
Romero Lubambo Duo

“The Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald of Brazilian music.”
—The New York Times

On a scene bursting with sumptuously talented singers, Leny Andrade has long stood out in Brazil with her warm, burnished contralto and her lithe, flowing phrasing. While she’s never attained the crossover success of Elis Regina, Andrade is widely hailed as Brazil’s greatest living jazz singer, a gifted improviser who combines bossa nova’s luscious melodic sensibility with a compelling sense of swing.

Often described as Brazil’s Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan, the jazz singer she resembles most is Carmen McRae. Like Carmen, she puts her relatively small range to masterly use as a storyteller with a well-honed sense of drama. She caresses the rounded Portuguese vowels with such expressive care one needn’t understand the language to sense a song’s narrative. She’s also a supremely inventive scat singer fluent in samba-jazz, a self-invented style that requires rarified rhythmic agility.

Now at the peak of her powers, the Rio de Janeiro native won a Latin Grammy Award in 2007 for her ravishing duo CD “Ao Vivo” with pianist Cesar Camargo Mariano. For her Healdsburg appearance she collaborates with another superlative Brazilian jazz musician, New York-based guitarist Romero Lubambo. Lubambo is probably best known for his work with Trio da Paz and his series of stunning duo projects with vocalist Luciana Souza, but he’s also recorded two gorgeous duo sessions with Andrade, 1994’s “Coisa Fina” and 2006’s “Lua Do Arpoador.” Together, the spin enthralling samba jazz tales full of subtle dynamics and spontenious invention.

Claudia Villela Band

“Claudia Villela is a musical conjurer, a captivating performer who rarely needs more than one song to transform unsuspecting audiences into passionate fans.”
—Boston Globe

Claudia Villela’s voice gets all the attention, and it’s easy to understand why. Her glorious five-octave instrument is one of the wonders of jazz, lithe and startlingly beautiful in every register. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, she is a supremely inventive scat singer with a vivid vocabulary of sounds, an aural conjurer who can evoke the hollow thump of a tabla drum, the muted trumpet of Miles Davis, the insistent twang of a berimbau, the ethereal call of a flute, or the distortion-laden licks of Jimi Hendrix. But it’s a serious mistake to let her gorgeous voice overshadow her other musical talents.

Based in Northern California since the mid-1980s, Villela has evolved into an expressive pianist and percussionist and an ingenious composer and lyricist with an astonishing body of original material, as well as a repertoire of jewels from the Brazilian songbook.Whether writing at the piano or generating spontaneous tunes in the studio, as on her lavishly praised 2004 duo session with piano legend Kenny Werner, “DreamTales” (Adventure Music), Villela possesses a rare gift for melodic invention, coupled with a rhythmic sensibility steeped in Brazil’s vast treasury of syncopation.

While once described as the best-kept Brazilian secret in North America, Villela finally attained widespread recognition with the 2003 release of her masterpiece “InverseUniverse” (Adventure Music), a program of dazzling original pieces created with her longtime collaborator, Rio-born guitarist Ricardo Peixoto, who will be joining her on stage for this gig. The exquisite harmonica contributions of guest star Toots Thielemans fulfilled Villela’s ambition of working with jazz’s foremost aficionado of Brazilian music.

In recent years, Villela’s international reputation as a performer and composer has continued to grow through appearances at the world’s most prestigious jazz festivals and clubs. In the fall of 2008, she received a high profile commission from New York University commissioned to set poems by several Latin American poets to music. Her performance with acclaimed Brazilian singer and composer Dori Caymmi was broadcast nationally as part of National Public Radio’s “JazzSet.” In addition to Peixoto, her band for this performance includes Gary Brown and Paul Vanwanagagen.  

Brasilia

with Ted Moore and Pamela Driggs

“Pamela’s voice is a remarkable instrument, defining the bittersweet edge of the Brazilian style with deft perfection.”
—Jazziz

When vocalist Pamela Driggs fell in love with Brazilian music, she decided to go right to the source, Salvador, the capital of Bahia, the state known as the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture. After honing her command of Portuguese and deepening her knowledge of Brazil’s countless melodies and rhythms, she returned to the States and founded the Brazilian jazz group Brasilia with composer/drummer Ted Moore, who followed a similar path.

Now director of UC Berkeley’s Jazz Department, Moore lived in Rio for two years, serving as percussionist with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra while also performing with many top-flight Brazilian jazz artists. Joining forces with Driggs, they released “River Wide” (Kokopelli), which received rapturous critical praise. Driggs made her solo debut with 2000’s “Midnight Sun” (Aosis), a buoyant session featuring American standards, Brazilian classics, pop originals and bossa nova gems. She recorded her Aosis follow up, 2002’s “Itacuruçá,” in Rio with the city’s best jazz musicians.

Over the past decade she’s performed and recorded with a stellar roster of artists, including Sadao Watanabe, Herbie Mann, Nana Vasconcelos, Cesar Camargo Mariano, and Cyro Baptista. The latest incarnation of Brasilia includes bassist Gary Brown, who’s toured and recorded extensively with Flora Purim and Airto, and Driggs’ husband Romero Lubambo, the remarkable Brazilian jazz guitarist sought after by vocalists such as Dianne Reeves, Leny Andrade, Jane Monheit, and Luciana Souza for his consummate skills as an accompanist.

Jason Moran | Gretchen Parlato | Dafnis Prieto

“Keepers of the Flame”

Jason Moran Trio with special guest Bill Frisell

Location: Rodney Strong Vineyards
Address: 11455 Old Redwood Highway, Healdsburg
Time: 2 pm, gates open at 1 pm
Tickets: $45.00, $30.00 for students & seniors (65+)
Children 10 and under are free

Jason Moran emerged in the late 1990s in the quartet of altoist and ace talent scout Greg Osby, and since then the Houston pianist has developed at an exponential rate, recording a series of albums for Blue Note that are as satisfying conceptually as they are sonically, displaying his capacious intelligence, rollicking touch and road-less-traveled sensibility.

His primary vehicle for the past decade has been the Bandwagon, featuring bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits (son of the late, esteemed Freddie Waits). One of the last proteges of Jaki Byard, a startlingly original pianist, composer, saxophonist and educator who had the entire jazz tradition at his fingertips, Moran has cultivated a passionately encompassing musical approach. His lyrical side is often heard to advantage in tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s New Quartet.

Moran joins forces with another master from an earlier generation on Sunday when Bill Frisell, a remarkably resourceful improviser whose expansive sound references everything from country blues and bluegrass to West African griots and old-time Appalachian songs, hitches his guitar to the trio. From hip hop and blues to Brahms and Schumann, just about every sound is welcome on the Bandwagon.

Gretchen Parlato Quartet
with Taylor Eigsti

 “A singer with a deep,almost magical connection to the music.”  – Herbie Hancock 

The title of Gretchen Parlato’s 2009 Obliqsound album, “In a Dream,” aptly captures the sustained mood of ethereal introspection that she evokes from the first track to the last. Possessing an enticingly crystalline voice and a ravishing concept deeply informed by samba ballads and bossa nova, Parlato is among the very best of a rising generation of jazz singers, an artist who has taken her own sweet time forging a highly personal sound unlike any of her peers. Her repertoire is full of unexpected gems, from translucent arrangements of Stevie Wonder’s “I Can’t Help It” and Bjork’s “Come To Me” to expertly crafted interpretations of the Wayne Shorter compositions “Juju” and “Footprints” featuring her original lyrics. Shorter was on the panel with Herbie Hancock and Terence Blanchard when she won a 2001 audition to become the first vocalist admitted to the Thelonious Monk Institute’s prestigious two-year Master’s program.

In 2004, the Los Angeles-raised singer won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition and used the $20,000 award to record her first album, an impressive self-named session featuring Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke (a close collaborator since their days at the Monk Institute). Rather than rushing to capitalize on her growing reputation, Parlato has taken her time, evolving into an astonishing whose deceptively cool sound is belied by her ebulliently playful sensibility. She’s cultivated a capaciously creative cast of collaborators, and her Healdsburg band features some of jazz’s most inventive young improvisers, including pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Alan Hampton and drummer Kendrick Scott.

At 25, pianist Taylor Eigsti has been a startlingly mature improviser for more than a decade, with a series of stellar albums to his credit. Bassist Alan Hampton is a highly lyrical player who’s worked with leading young bandleaders like saxophonist John Ellis and pianist Robert Glasper. And Kendrick Scott is one of the most dynamic drummers on a scene brimming with amazing trap set talent, an accompanist who’s toured and recorded with heavyweights like Joe Lovano, Kenny Garrett, Dianne Reeves, and Terence Blanchard.

Dafnis Prieto Si o Si Quartet
with Peter Apfelbaum

Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto’s 1999 arrival sent shock waves through the New York jazz scene. In a city overflowing with prodigious young drummers, Prieto was a sensation. Innovative bandleaders jostled to recruit him for their projects, and he became an essential part of ensembles led by visionaries such as Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Don Byron and Peter Apfelbaum. Now he’s an exceptional bandleader in his own right, with a formidable body of compositions that erase old boundaries between Latin and straight-ahead jazz. While steeped in Cuban rhythmic traditions, Prieto is at the forefront a new generation of Latin America jazz musicians eager to explore advanced jazz concepts, while developing their own compositional voices.

His band is loaded with exceptional musicians, including for this date multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum. He’s the guy who put the Berkeley High jazz program on the map back in the late 1970s with his polymorphously creative Hieroglyphics Ensemble, a band so impressive that trumpet legend Don Cherry adopted it during his stint in the Bay Area. Whether playing tenor sax, percussion or keyboards, Apfelbaum infuses everything he plays with his singular vision, which encompasses West Africa and the Caribbean as well as East Bay funk.

Prieto features Apfelbaum on his recent Si o Si Quartet album “Live at the Jazz Standard,” a sensational session that includes Cuban pianist Manuel Valera, who’s also on hand for this performance. Joining the ranks of Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Omar Sosa and Chuchito Valdés, Varela is the latest Cuban keyboard monster to shake up the American jazz scene, Valera is also an esteemed bandleader whose albums showcase the cream of the New York scene.

On bass for this afternool finale will be Johannes Weidenmueller, a first call performer with a long list of jazz greats since settling in New York City 16 years ago. He’s also been on the faculty of the New School’s jazz and contemporary music program since 1997, and literally wrote the book on metric modulation,  published by Mel Bay in 2007.

Saturday Night at the Raven

Charlie Haden with
Geri Allen  & Ravi Coltrane

Produced in association with Jill Newman Productions

and the Healdsburg High School Jazz Band

Location: Raven Theater
Address: 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Time: 7:30 pm (please note start time)
Tickets: $45 General, $65 Gold Circle

“Few artists have availed themselves of America’s creative freedom more than Haden.”
—San Jose Mercury News

Charlie Haden has forged a brilliant career out of seizing the musical moment. He returns to Healdsburg for an unprecedented trio encounter with pianist Geri Allen, with whom he first recorded more than two decades ago, and tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, the son of Haden’s late partner in sonic revolution, John Coltrane. “No matter who I’m playing with, spontaneity takes priority,” Haden says. “Making something happen that’s never happened before, that’s what I stress more than anything else. And I seek out musicians that feel the way that I do.”

Haden found his first group of likeminded improvisers in late 1950s Los Angeles, where he became a founding member of Ornette Coleman’s radical but blues-drenched quartet. In a generation rife with bassists boasting flawless technique, Haden stood out as a player capable of expressing the deepest of emotions with seemingly simple, harmonically open lines. His gift for cutting to the heart of a composition while leaving ample space for other musicians has made Haden a galvanizing collaborator, whether anchoring Keith Jarrett’s classic 1970s quartet, caressing spirituals with Hank Jones, creating moody film noir-inspired albums with Quartet West or leading his politically charged Liberation Music Orchestra.

The brilliant pianist Geri Allen was given a boost by Haden himself in the late 1980s. The Detroit native had already earned a reputation as a fierce improviser through her edgy work with Steve Coleman and the M-Base Collective when Haden and drummer Paul Motian joined her in a searching trio that revealed her burnished lyricism. Now an esteemed master herself, Allen has recorded more than a dozen albums, including two 2006 sessions that reflect her broad, historically grounded vision. She spearheaded “Zodiac Suite: Revisited,” which brought to light a forgotten masterpiece by the seminal pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams, and released “Timeless Portraits and Dreams” (Telarc), a soaring project that effectively bridges jazz, spirituals and classical music.

While his surname attracted attention when he first started performing in New York, Ravi Coltrane has taken his time developing his own sound. Like Allen, he spent formative years with altoist Steve Coleman. He and the pianist have worked together frequently, and she performed on his second album “From the Round Box.” He’s truly come into his own in recent years, holding his own with Joe Lovano and David Liebman on the 2008 Saxophone Summit album “Seraphic Light.” Last year he toured extensively with the Blue Note 7, an all-star band assembled to celebrate the label’s 75th year, and released the luminous album “Blending Times” (ArtistShare), which features Haden’s ravishing composition “For Turiya,” a piece the bassist wrote years ago for Ravi’s mother, Alice Coltrane.

Friday Night at the Raven

Esperanza Spalding Group

Tacuma King and the
Children’s Percussion Workshop

Location: Raven Theater
Address: 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Time: 8:00 pm (please note start time)
Tickets: $45 General, $65 Gold Circle

“Whether exploding into vocalese or making her bass solo sound like a horn, she’s a spark plug who dances as she grooves through a funked-up and rocked-out repertoire.”—Billboard

From Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie to Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, jazz’s greatest figures have often served as musical ambassadors. Bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding has stepped confidently into the role of jazz’s most charismatic 21st century emissary, equally comfortable laying down grooves on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” the Village Vanguard, the White House, or Oslo’s Spektrum, where she performed at the Nobel Peace Price Concert last year at the invitation of President Obama.

With a beguiling blend of Brazilian melodies, Afro-Caribbean grooves, post-bop harmonies and lilting vocals, 25-year-old Spalding combines the imaginative flights of a serious improviser with the stage presence and musical accessibility of a pop star. Possessing a huge sound and singular sense of time, she’s already racked up an impressive array of credits, including pianist Michel Camilo, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Pat Metheny, vocalist Patti Austin, and saxophonist Joe Lovano, who has built his celebrated Us Five band around the powerfully propulsive pulse of her bass. Already a heavyweight talent, Spalding is growing by leaps and bounds with a deliciously funky sound that’s both bracingly personal and embracingly accessible.

Her latest album, “Esperanza” on Heads Up, documents her rapidly maturing conception as a bandleader who’s honed a world-jazz repertoire featuring her lithe originals and standards in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Her band for this performance includes guitarist Ricardo Vogt, pianist Leo Genovese and Justin Brown on drums.

African drum and dance master Tacuma King has been an essential part of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival since its founding in 1999. A musical charmer and master educator, King possesses a gift for teaching children musical technique, song, dance and story, with an emphasis on traditional African culture, using a variety of percussion instruments. He presents a program featuring this year’s class, offering a heartening perspective on jazz’s power to engage young musicians.

Benefactors Dinner and Concert

George Cables Trio
with Craig Handy

and the

Healdsburg High School Jazz Band

Location: Coppola Winery
Address: 300 Via Archimedes, Geyserville
Time: 6 pm
Tickets: Limited availability, by invitation only

As a special thank you to our benefactors this year, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival will be hosting a Benefactor’s Dinner at the newly remodeled Francis Ford Coppola Winery. Supporters of the Festival will glimpse the Coppola winery before it opens to the public and dine al fresco Coppola style outside under the oaks. It is not too late to become a patron and attend this very special event.

George Cables has been a friend and favorite performer at many of our Healdsburg Jazz Festival events. For this occasion he is joined by old friend and colleague Craig Handy, a Bay Area saxophone stalwart who has toured the world leading the celebrated Mingus Big Band. The local Healdsburg High School Jazz Band will put on a special performance as well.

We would like to thank all of our patrons, sponsors, and supporters for helping bring 10 days of extraordinary music and culture to our community. For more information about this very special event, please contact the HJF office at (707) 433.4633 or contact us by email at info[at]healdsburgjazzfestival.org.

» To learn more about Patron status, please visit this page.

Wednesday at the Raven

George Cables Trio

with Shea Breaux Wells

and the

Christian Foley-Beining Quartet
featuring Paul McCandless

Location: Raven Theater
Address: 115 North Street, Healdsburg
Time: 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 General, $10 Students or Seniors (65+)

George Cables, the inimitable pianist dubbed “Mr. Beautiful” by altoist Art Pepper, has played an essential role in the Healdsburg Jazz Festival since the beginning. A creative foil for jazz’s most prodigious improvisers, including Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson and Joe Henderson, Cables combines unrelenting rhythmic drive and wry wit with a sparkling touch and evocative lyricism.

Given his lyrical phrasing, it’s no surprise that Cable is an inspired accompanist to singers, which makes his reunion with Shea Breaux Wells one of the festival’s highlights. A daring vocalist with a bright burnished sound, Wells recorded her latest album, “A Blind Date” right after her appearance at the 2008 festival. A thrilling album featuring Cables, bassist Cecil McBee, drummer Billy Hart, saxophonist Craig Handy and trumpeter David Weiss, “Blind Date” captures the volatile chemistry between Wells and some of jazz’s most powerful and expressive players.

There’s no talent letup for their reunion, with powerhouse bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Jaz Sawyer, who spent years touring with Abbey Lincoln, rounding out the rhythm section.

Christian Foley-Beining Quartet

German-born guitarist Christian Foley-Beining was inspired as a teenager by Wes Montgomery, and later studied with an impressive roster of guitar talent, including Joe Pass, Pat Metheny, Robben Ford and Larry Carlton. A fine composer and widely traveled clinician, he’s made a name for himself in the North Bay since settling in Sonoma.

He opens tonight’s double bill with a stellar band featuring veteran bassist Chris Amberger, drummer Lorca Hart and special guest Paul McCandless. A founding member of pioneering world-jazz ensemble Oregon, Paul McCandless is an expert oboist, a true rarity in jazz, who also plays English horn, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet, and pennywhistle, among other instruments.

Free Concert in the Plaza

Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco

Location: Recreation Park
Address: Piper at University, Healdsburg
Time: 6 – 8:00 pm
Free concert

The town of Healdsburg is well known for its yearly series of free concerts, Tuesdays in the Plaza. It’s been a tradition for over a decade that the official kick-off of this series features jazz from the Healdsburg Jazz Festival. 2010 is no exception, as we present the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco in what promises to be a lively summer sunset show.

Under the direction of the great flutist/arranger John Calloway, the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco (LJYE) has become a prime proving ground for gifted young musicians ages 10-18. Dedicated to preserving the traditions of Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban music, the LYJE attracts many aspiring professional musicians.

Since debuting at Masonic Auditorium with a tribute to Cal Tjader in 2001 as the opening act for Poncho Sanchez, the group has shared stages with legendary Cuban bassist Israel “Cachao” López, Cuban piano virtuoso Chuchito Valdés, and the Grammy Award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Welcome them to town with some Healdsburg hospitality on Tuesday, June 8.