Wayne Shorter’s show last month at the Nob Hill Masonic served as a wonderful reminder of the saxophonist/composer’s contribution to American music. I sometimes forget to include him when I talk about the greatest living jazz musicians (guys like Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins), but he certainly deserves to be in that discussion.
If you missed [...]
It was a monumental year for jazz by the Bay.
Notably, we celebrated milestone anniversaries for both the Monterey (50) and San Francisco (25) jazz festivals. We also marked the opening of the new Yoshi’s in San Francisco, which fills a major gap in that city’s arts scene.
I was fortunate to attend many of this year’s [...]
An uninvited party guest put a bit of a damper on the 50th annual Monterey Jazz Festival.
Rain fell on Friday night and Saturday morning _ which, reportedly, was only the second time that wet weather has troubled the festival in its half century of existence. That’s a pretty amazing factoid _ 96 percent dry weather [...]
SFJAZZ has certainly learned one thing during its nearly quarter century of existence _ and that’s how to get the party started.
On Friday night, the nonprofit arts organization did just that when it kicked off the 24th annual San Francisco Jazz Festival in high style with Sonny Rollins at the Masonic Center.
The great tenor saxophonist [...]
