Performances Magazine Playboy Jazz Festival 2018

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SATURDAY/SUNDAY, JUNE 9/10 CONTENTS Greetings

4

A Tribute to Hugh M. Hefner

6

Board of Directors

8

Young, Gifted, and Latin: Three Artists Play from the Source

12

Back to Oakland: Tower of Power Celebrates 50 Years of East Bay Grease

16

Food + Wine At-A-Glance

18

We Celebrate and Remember...

20

Summer à la Jazz

22

George Lopez

24

Saturday Program and Artists

26

Crossing Boundaries: Lucinda Williams and the Lines of American Song

33

The World of Playboy Jazz

34

Sunday Program and Artists

36

Four Decades of Sunshine: Playboy Jazz at 40

44

General Information

47

HOLLYWOOD BOWL APP & WI-FI

Check out our free Wi-Fi and download our new Hollywood Bowl app!

Make the most of your experience with free Wi-Fi and the new Hollywood Bowl app. It's easy!

Just connect to our free Wi-Fi network and follow the instructions. With the app, discover upcoming events, manage your tickets, order from Food + Wine, and much more! Available for iPhone and Android.

2 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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R u s n akO n l ine.com

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GREETINGS

Vern Evans

WELCOME TO THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL! Dear Friends: Welcome to the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl! This is the 40th year of this much-loved program, and in celebration of this birthday we’re happy to bring you a festival that is rich with some of the world’s greatest jazz musicians, and celebrates a huge diversity of musical styles and backgrounds.

You will enjoy Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin, Anthony Hamilton, Snarky Puppy, the Ramsey Lewis Quintet, Jazmine Sullivan, Charles Lloyd and The Marvels with special guest Lucinda Williams, and the 50th Anniversary of Tower of Power. All the concerts of course will be hosted by George Lopez.

This year’s Jazz at the Bowl series also has some incredible highlights: Seal, TajMo: The Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ Band, The Pink Panther in Concert with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted

by Thomas Wilkins, Gregory Porter with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Savion Glover, Queen Latifah, Common, George Benson, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra presenting Spaces, a new “animal ballet” by Wynton Marsalis. All of this adds up to another dazzling array of concerts across the full spectrum of jazz and blues.

And don’t miss some other major jazz related events at the Bowl: Jennifer Hudson with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Thomas Wilkins, our annual Smooth Summer Jazz mini-fest, and our Fireworks Finale where Harry Connick, Jr. will help us celebrate the 300th birthday of New Orleans.

Jazz and blues have always been a thrilling part of each year’s Hollywood Bowl season, and this year is no different. I wish you many happy evenings under the stars!

Simon Woods Chief Executive Officer Los Angeles Philharmonic Association

I am delighted to welcome you all to our wonderful Hollywood Bowl. The summer 2018 schedule is jam-packed with a wide assortment of exhilarating performances, chosen to entertain the tastes of the wide variety of people who live in and visit our eclectic and diverse County.

The Hollywood Bowl is the largest natural outdoor amphitheater in the country and one of the prized treasures in the County’s world-renowned collection of arts venues.

For nearly a century, residents and visitors have gathered at the Hollywood Bowl to experience incredible performances under the stars, hike to the top of the Bowl to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, or catch an early morning orchestra rehearsal.

I am the proud steward of many great public institutions throughout L.A. County, but the Hollywood Bowl is especially near and dear to my heart. For as long as I can remember, I have been coming to the Bowl each summer to enjoy good food and great music with friends and family. There are few things I enjoy more than a summer night at the Bowl. So, whether you are a long-time or first-time concertgoer, add to your collection of Hollywood Bowl memories by making some new ones tonight. Believe me, they will last you a lifetime!

Thank you so much for being part of the Hollywood Bowl audience. I am proud and grateful to have the opportunity to represent and serve the Supervisorial District that can call itself home to this great Los Angeles icon!

Sheila Kuehl Supervisor, Third District County of Los Angeles

4 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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5/23/18 5:08 PM

IN MEMORIAM

HUGH M. HEFNER 1926-2017

BY JOHN HENKEN

A media and cultural pioneer, Hugh Hefner was a leading voice behind some of the most significant movements of the 20th century, advocating for free speech, civil rights, and sexual freedom. He founded Playboy in 1953 and made it one of the most recognizable lifestyle brands in history.

“Playboy was born to a jazz beat,” Hefner wrote. “Jazz and big band music filled the Chicago apartment where I created the first issue of Playboy in 1953 and later served as the soundtrack to the magazine’s offices and late-night parties. Jazz was sophisticated and sexy, exactly how I envisioned Playboy.”

So, in 1959 Hefner celebrated the new magazine’s fifth anniversary with the first Playboy Jazz Festival, a three-day, five-show epic at Chicago Stadium. Twenty years later, he revived the Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, where it has lived ever since.

“JAZZ IS THE MOST PERSONAL OF ARTS, AND IF WE BRING OUR PASSION TO IT, WE ARE REWARDED.” —HUGH HEFNER “Jazz touches us,” Hefner wrote in the program for the 1982 Festival. “That’s what it sets out to do. It is the unimpeded, spontaneous, and honest expression of what a musician feels at a precise moment in his life. Jazz is both the soloist’s art and an ensemble art. If its sounds are those of humans in distress – and we are paying attention – we feel the pain. If the effect is joyous – and we are listening – we are joyous. Jazz is the most personal of arts, and if we bring our passion to it, we are rewarded.”

For 40 years now, that has been what happens every June at the Hollywood Bowl.

Thank you, Hef!

Hugh Hefner and Ella Fitzgerald backstage at the first-ever Playboy Jazz Festival at the Chicago Stadium in 1959

6 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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LA PHIL BOARD

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIR

DIRECTORS

Jay Rasulo*

CEO

Simon Woods

VICE CHAIRS

David C. Bohnett* Jerrold L. Eberhardt* Jane B. Eisner*

David Meline* Diane Paul*

Gregory A. Adams Marilyn Anderson Julie Andrews Wallis Annenberg Thomas L. Beckmen Lynn A. Booth Reveta F. Bowers Linda Brittan Andrea Chao-Kharma Christian D. Chivaroli, JD Mark Houston Dalzell* Mari L. Danihel Donald P. de Brier* Kenneth M. Doran Louise D. Edgerton Lisa Field Joshua Friedman Jennifer Miller Goff Ellen Goldsmith-Vein Lenore S. Greenberg Linda Griego Carol Colburn Grigor Pierre Habis Teena Hostovich Jonathan Kagan* Sarah Ketterer

HONORARY LIFE DIRECTORS Lawrence N. Field Frank Gehry

Darioush Khaledi Ronald Litzinger Bowen H. “Buzz” McCoy Margaret Morgan Younes Nazarian Becky Novy Leith O’Leary William Powers Barry D. Pressman, M.D.* Dudley A. Rauch* Ann Ronus Jennifer Rosenfeld Laura Rosenwald Nancy S. Sanders* Eric L. Small Jay Stein Lisa Stevens Christian Stracke* Jason Subotky Ronald D. Sugar* Jack Suzar Sue Tsao Alyce de Roulet Williamson Irwin Winkler Marilyn Ziering

Ginny Mancini Rocco C. Siciliano

*Executive Committee Member as of May 15, 2018

8 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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Hippest & Coolest

>

THE JAZZ EVENT OF THE SEASON Hosted by MARCUS MILLER • ROBERT GLASPER • DON WAS JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA with WYNTON MARSALIS • CÉCILE McCLORIN SALVANT KURT ELLING • DAVID SANBORN • TERENCE BLANCHARD • R+R=NOW Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Christian Scott, Derrick Hodge, Taylor McFerrin, Justin Tyson • CHRISTIAN SCOTT • JASON MORAN • JOSÉ JAMES CANDY DULFER • KANDACE SPRINGS • ERIC MARIENTHAL Music Director • WYCLIFFE GORDON • BEN WILLIAMS BILLY KILSON • NIKI HARIS • AARON PARKS • LOGAN RICHARDSON • GEOFFREY KEEZER • DAMION REID VICENTE ARCHER • SULLIVAN FORTNER • FABIAN ALMAZAN • DAVID GINYARD • ALEX HAN • CHARLES ALTURA NASHEET WAITS • OSCAR SEATON • TARUS MATEEN • LAWRENCE FIELDS • LUQUES CURTIS COREY FONVILLE • MALCOLM GIL • ALONZO BODDEN Comedian • More to be announced

JANUARY 26-FEBRUARY 2, 2019

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COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS Hilda L. Solis Mark Ridley-Thomas Sheila J. Kuehl CHAIR

Janice K. Hahn Kathryn Barger

COUNTY ARTS COMMISSION Eric R. Eisenberg PRESIDENT

Helen Hernandez VICE PRESIDENT

Constance Jolcuvar SECRETARY

Liane Weintraub EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Pamela Bright-Moon IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT

Darnella Davidson Eric Hanks Liz Schindler Johnson Bettina Korek Alis Clausen Odenthal Claire Peeps Norma Provencio Pichardo David Valdez Hope Warschaw Rosalind Wyman

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission fosters excellence, diversity, vitality, understanding, and accessibility of the arts in Los Angeles County, encompassing 88 municipalities and approximately 140 unincorporated areas, and provides leadership in cultural services.

The Arts Commission funds nearly 400 nonprofit arts organizations through a two-year $9 million grant program, implements the Arts Education Collective, the regional initiative dedicated to ensuring all students receive quality arts education in the County’s 81 public school districts, funds the largest arts internship program in the country, and manages the County’s civic art policy. lacountyarts.org.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association’s programs are made possible, in part, by generous grants from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Kristin Sakoda EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

10 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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FEATURE

YOUNG, GIFTED, AND LATIN: 3 ARTISTS PLAY FROM THE SOURCE

BY LISSETTE CORSA Jazz in the 21st century has remained true to its multicultural roots, persisting on an inward/outward journey defined by its hybridity. From its early-twentieth-century raucous ragtime heyday in New Orleans to its metamorphosis into a cosmopolitan urban sound in midcentury New York City, jazz music has always reflected the syncretic soul of America.

This is especially the case when it comes to jazz’s ability to incorporate sounds from Latin America. As revolutionary rhythms began to make their way north from South America in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, jazz’s sonic melting pot acquired new and distinct flavors. Cuban and Brazilian sounds commingled with big band and bebop to birth the Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz idioms that would dominate sales for decades.

In the 1940s, Cuban bandleader/arranger Mario Bauzá fused jazz arrangements with propulsive Afro-Cuban polyrhythms as musical director for Cuban vocalist Machito and his Afro-Cuban big band. In 1947, American trumpeter and leading bebop exponent Dizzy Gillespie collaborated with percussionist/composer Chano Pozo and recorded “Manteca,” “one of the foundational tunes of Afro-Cuban jazz and the first tune rhythmically based on the clave to become a jazz standard.” In 1962, New York saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd recorded Jazz Samba, thereby inspiring a string of bossa-nova-meets-jazz recordings, with everyone from sax player Cannonball Adderley to crooner Nat King Cole getting in on the action. Getz would go on to collaborate with Brazilian legend João Gilberto on Getz/Gilberto, an album whose continued popularity ensured the permanent association of jazz and distinctly South American rhythms and tones.

Today, jazz is a truly global music disseminated by young, visionary artists who, in following the tradition of Bauzá, Pozo, Getz, and Gilberto, insist on blurring the lines and expanding borders. Three such artists

DAYMÉ AROCENA

EDMAR CASTANEDA

performing at this year’s Playboy Jazz Festival will display their unique amalgam derived from their native countries and influences from across the globe.

Lauded by critics as the world’s next vocal jazz powerhouse, 26-year-old Daymé Arocena already draws comparisons to

legends such as Aretha Franklin, Celia Cruz, and Nina Simone. Arocena has come a long way from her days as a choir student and conductor at Havana’s prestigious Amadeo Roldan Conservatory. She’s worked with veteran Canadian flutist/bandleader Jane continued on pg. 14

12 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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FEATURE

continued from pg. 12

Bunnett, who is known for her collaborations with Cuban musicians, and the globetrotting British producer and tastemaker Gilles Peterson released her first solo album, Nueva Era, on his influential Brownswood label. Her sophomore release, Cubafonía, was hailed by NPR as “a major statement on the progress of Daymé Arocena as an artist for the ages,” and it signals the young songstress’s arrival as Cuban music’s newest global ambassador. In her hands, Afro-Cuban music and traditional jazz meld with a confluence of sounds ranging from New Orleans jazz fusion to the sounds of Cuba’s Yoruba santería ceremonies. It’s a testament to Arocena’s Havana upbringing, where in her house “every available surface was scuffed from the rumba rhythms which had been played out on them,” as she puts it.

Bogotá, Colombia, native and New York denizen Edmar Castaneda is a master harpist who took the New York City jazz scene by surprise with his mesmerizing 2006 debut Entre Cuerdas. Like Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby before him, Castaneda turns an instrument more closely associated with classical music into a hip, improvisational jazz medium. His arpa llanera, or “harp from the plains,” is a modernized, electric version

of the instrument played in the joropo music of the Colombian and Venezuelan countryside. Castaneda, who plays his instrument on the diatonic scale of seven rather than the twelve-note chromatic scale, stands out for his complex time structures while deftly weaving a dizzying array of harmonies and accents within the constructs of jazz, African and Brazilian rhythms, tango, and flamenco.

As a teenager he learned to play the trumpet when he first moved to New York and discovered the music of Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, and Jaco Pastorius, among others.

Soon enough he began a coupling of two worlds and laid the groundwork for the addition of yet another strand to the rich tapestry of the city’s jazz scene. “I never think of the harp as a harp,” Castaneda explained in an interview for Billboard magazine in 2017. “I use my right hand like a bassist, and my left hand like a guitarist or a pianist. It’s like three instruments.”

Also hailing from Bogotá, Monsieur Periné extrapolates guitarist Django Reinhardt’s gypsy jazz and swing from 1930s Paris and cross-pollinates the vibrant sounds of decades past with the contemporary styles and rhythms of South America. Chanteuse

Catalina García sings mellifluously in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English, and the trio has continued to build on the success of their two previous albums – Hecho a Mano (2012) and Caja de Música (2015). The 2015 Latin Grammy winners recently released the new single “Bailar Contigo,” the first off a still untitled upcoming album that’s expected to reflect the ensemble’s improvisational leanings in a beguiling blend of Caribbean rhythms and the chill-out cadence of bossa nova guitars decorated by Brazilian cavaquinho and Afro-Colombian drums called tambor alegre.

In keeping with its inclusive, multicultural heritage, jazz continues to thrive globally.

Rich musical traditions from Latin America and the world have played a pivotal role in its evolution, and just as the story of jazz isn’t over, neither is its continued conversation with Latin America. A new generation of sonic narrators is composing a story informed by the genre’s history while setting its gaze on the future – one where the remaining distinctions between genres have faded, making music more free. Such aesthetic freedom is jazz’s greatest legacy, making it truly an American art form – and increasingly an art form for the entire world.

MONSIEUR PERINÉ

14 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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WEST COAST PREMIERE MUSICAL ON STAGE FEBRUARY 5 – MARCH 10, 2019 WRITTEN BY

In this highly theatrical exploration into

Songs such as “Nature Boy,” “It’s a Good

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Day” and “Unforgettable” underscore

Olivier Award-nominee Colman Domingo

this innovative look at one of America’s

DIRECTED BY

and Patricia McGregor imagine Nat “King”

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nominee Dulé Hill (West Wing, Stick Fly,

FEATURING

broadcast of his groundbreaking variety

Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk)

DULÉ HILL & DANIEL J. WATTS

show and weighs the advice of his friend

as Nat “King” Cole and Daniel J. Watts

Sammy Davis Jr. to “go out with a bang.”

(Hamilton, Memphis) as Sammy Davis Jr.

Additional casting to be announced.

DULÉ HILL IN LIGHTS OUT: NAT “KING” COLE. PHOTO BY MARK GARVIN.

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FEATURE

BY MILEN KIROV To pioneer a new, horn-driven sound in R&B and win collaborations with the likes of Aerosmith, Elton John, and Santana is an astonishing feat. To maintain that sound for 50 years and come out in 2018 stronger than ever, touring relentlessly, with two albums of brand new material coming out within a year, is a whole other level of achievement.

Since 1968, Tower of Power have carved a path in the music world with their own brand of uncompromising funk and soul. And their trademarks – powerful horn section, airtight rhythm section, and soulful vocals – are just as hip today as they were 50 years ago.

Recently we called TOP’s founder and leader Emilio Castillo to chat about the band’s history and what’s next for the Oakland legends.

What is the feeling of having led Tower of Power for 50 years?

It’s amazing – and kind of surreal. People come up to me all the time and just marvel over it, and I tell them it’s amazing to me, too; I really can’t believe it. I am very proud that we’ve not only made it this far, but we seem to be thriving [and] better than ever. It’s a blessing.

There must have been ups and downs for the band throughout the years. Was there ever a time or a period when you thought “This is it. The band will not survive this.”?

No. We definitely had tough periods – the late ’70s and some of the ’80’s were pretty lean years for us, but we always had very loyal fans. There is a certain type of person that digs our kind of music, and we’re unique in that we own this little genre of music. We were always able to play live and we’ve always created new music, so I never got to that place of thinking “This is the end.” I never thought about stopping.

The iconic TOP sound was born almost immediately when you first started playing. Was it a result of careful planning, or

was it a natural combination of the musicians’ individual styles?

[Bassist] Rocco [Prestia] and I have been playing since we were 14 or 15 years old. We were doing cover versions of songs by different soul artists, but we were changing the rhythms, adding horn parts, tweaking the background vocals, and kind of making it our own. At first, I would make up weird beats and dictate them to my brother (who was the drummer at the time), and then I would show Rocco a bass part that fit that, and make a guitar part that fit that, and then add the horns and the vocals. It was kind of like creating a fabric.

When David Garibaldi came along, he was so advanced on the drums that he could do all the things I wanted and more.

We started throwing ideas back and forth and Rocco was almost instantaneously freed up to play all of this stuff around these weird grooves. And it kept growing over the years.

When I was 16 I saw a local band called The Spyders that had a three-piece horn section consisting of alto, tenor, and trumpet. I had never seen a section like that and hired a trumpet the next day. We already had two saxophones and we started doing section parts. And it felt so good that next thing I knew, I hired another trumpet player, and then I hired [Stephen] Doc [Kupka] on the baritone sax and we ended up with a five-horn section. And we liked this big, fat, bombastic horn section sound we created.

What is your favorite TOP album and why?

Urban Renewal. It wasn’t our biggest seller, but it felt like the album where I came into my own as a producer and the band had come into its own as having a signature sound. We were really hitting on all cylinders at every level.

Favorite concert?

Opening for Aretha Franklin at the Fillmore West for three nights in March of 1971.

Those were the nights she recorded the

Anna Webber

BACK TO OAKLAND: TOWER OF POWER CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF EAST BAY GREASE

album Aretha Live at Fillmore West. One night, I was standing backstage and here comes Aretha. As she walked by me, she said “Tower of Power… my favorite band!” and I just melted. That’s a great memory!

Are there places in the world that you play for the first time and discover that you have fans there, or places you haven’t played yet where you have a strong fan base?

We know that we have a fan base in South America because our song “So Very Hard to Go” was number one in Brazil when it first came out, and it was also featured prominently in the film City of God. We have never played down there, and I’m really looking forward to getting the band to South America. We also have tons of fans in the Philippines and are going there later in the year, and I’m hoping we will get to go back there regularly.

What’s next for Tower of Power?

I just completed two albums’ worth of material. We recorded 28 songs and [put] one album out at the end of May and the other album [will be out] within a year. Since we’re celebrating our 50th anniversary, we wanted to make the best record of our career, and that’s why I teamed up with the respected musician and producer Joe Vannelli, who is so meticulous in the studio.

Throughout the entire recording process my whole plan was to make the best record of our career, and I think we’ve done that. In a perfect world, this record will do great and will take us to the next level. If not, I’m already overpaid. (Laughs.)

16 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE

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The cast of Ain’t Too Proud–The Life and Times of The Temptations. Photo by litwin.

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FOOD + WINE

The Bowl’s culinary team – James Beard award-winning chef Suzanne Goin and partner Caroline Styne of celebrated restaurants Lucques, a.o.c., Tavern, and The Larder – are now in their third year of providing exceptional cuisine designed to make your concert experiences even more spectacular.

From supper in your box seats to portable picnic baskets, there’s something for everyone – no matter your taste.

Marketplaces

Specialty sandwiches, seasonal grab-and-go salads, cheese + charcuterie plates, snacks, beer, wide-ranging variety of approachable and delicious wines await you at all of three of our Marketplaces.

You’ll find everything you need to build a picnic from scratch or supplement one you already have.

Supper in Your Seats

Enjoy a delicious pre-concert meal served to you in the comfort of your box seats. Menu selections include Suzanne Goin’s three-course menus, family-style feasts, à la carte starters, main courses, desserts, and wine. Order by 4pm the day before your concert.

Picnic Boxes

It’s easier than ever to enjoy a picnic supper before your concert with five menus of delectable fresh-made picnic boxes from Food + Wine. Simply pre-order online by 4 pm the day before your concert, and your choice will be waiting for you when you arrive at the Bowl.

Catering at the Bowl

Give your guests the experience of a lifetime when you host your next event at the Bowl!

Our selection of seven beautiful venues is perfect for events of all sizes, from intimate gatherings to elaborate affairs.

the backyard

Inspired by the gorgeous natural surroundings of the Bowl, this al fresco space has the feel of a chic backyard in the Hollywood Hills. Two large wood-burning grills are the focus of this farmers’ market-driven restaurant serving grilled fish, chops, steaks, vegetables, salads, and raw bar items.

Street Food & Snacks

A variety of delicious options are available throughout the Bowl, including street tacos, salads, nachos, specialty hot dogs, bánh mì, gourmet pizza, rustic BBQ, artisan baked goods, sweets, and popcorn.

The Wine Bar by a.o.c.

Inspired by the original a.o.c. on 3rd St., the Wine Bar features a wide selection of Caroline’s favorite new and old world wines to be explored by both experienced and novice wine lovers, all paired with Suzanne Goin’s signature small plates menu.

Reservations recommended.

Lucques at the Circle

Fine dining for subscribers of the Pool Circle, with a seasonal made-to-order menu and an exceptional wine list, styled from the award-winning restaurant Lucques.

Kitchen 22

Kitchen 22 is the best place to indulge in fan favorites like burgers, French fries, fried chicken, specialty sandwiches, and salads.

Mobile ordering: Skip the lines! Download the Hollywood Bowl app to place an order from the comfort of your seat and skip the line at pick up. Mobile ordering is available at the Popcorn, BBQ/Pizza, and Hot Dogs/Bánh Mì Street Food Stands.

See menus, book a table, and order ahead: hollywoodbowl.com/food+wine • 323 850 1885

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CODA

Every year, we pay tribute to the members of the jazz community who have left us since the previous year’s festival. These musicians, artists, and behindthe-scenes players helped to shape jazz into the vital American art form we celebrate today.

Of course, we wouldn’t be here today without the vision of Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy Magazine who shaped the Playboy Jazz Festival in his image. What you see and hear on stage today began in the mind of Hef. We also lost a titan of the international jazz scene in Hugh Masakela, the wonderful South African trumpeter, who appeared at the 2013 Playboy Jazz Festival.

Several pianists of great vision departed this year. Geri Allen, Muhal Richard Adams, Cecil Taylor, and Willie Pickens were not only phenomenal musicians, but tireless advocates for their art.

We lost many wonderful singers, too, including Jon Hendricks, Wilson Das Neves, Kevin Mahogany, Chris Murrell, Dick Noel, Keely Smith, Vic Damone, Marlene VerPlanck, Bea Wain, Wesla Whitfield, and Bob Dorough, who influenced generations of students with his Schoolhouse Rock compositions; drummer Grady Tate, who performed with Charles Mingus and Cannonball Adderley – and lent his voice to a number of Dorough’s songs – also passed.

Guitarists include John Abercrombie, Mundell Lowe, Errol Dyer, and Coco Schumann, the latter of whom played with Ella Fitzgerald – and the Ghetto Swingers, a group formed in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

New Orleans funk player Charles Neville passed away, along with fellow saxophonists Larry Elgart, Andy McGhee, and Nathan Davis, as did bassist Buell Neidlinger, who played with Cecil Taylor and Archie Shepp.

Danish violinist Svend Asmussen, who recorded with Duke Ellington, and French legend Didier Lockwood both died, along with trombonists Wendell Eugene and free-jazz player Roswell Rudd. Trumpeter Thara Memory also passed.

We lost several talented drummers, including Sunny Murray, Monk accompanist Ben Riley, Janne “Loffe” Carson, and the wonderful Ndugu Chancler, who, among many other accomplishments, played the indelible drum intro to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

And we lost several people who made lasting marks on jazz from behind desks, podiums, and lenses: Joe Fields, who worked with MGM, Verve, and Prestige before starting the Cobblestone, Muse, and Onxy labels; producer and manager George Avakian; FAME Studios founder Rick Hall; conductor Maurice Peress of the American Jazz Orchestra; and photographer Pete Turner, whose colorful images produced iconic album covers for Antônio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz, and many more.

Without the tireless efforts, joy, and creativity of each of these people, jazz as we know it today would not be the same. We pay tribute to their lives and legacies today.

HUGH MASAKELA

scorpius73 / CC BY-SA 2.0

WE CELEBRATE AND REMEMBER…

GERI ALLEN

NDUGU CHANCLER

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JAZZ AT THE BOWL

SUMMER À LA JAZZ The Jazz at the Bowl series returns for another summer highlighting the vitality and excitement of jazz in its many forms.

JUNE 16

Opening Night Diana Ross

Celebrate the beginning of summer in a sensational evening with legendary icon Diana Ross, one of the greatest superstar entertainers of all time, performing with orchestra – plus our fabulous fireworks!

JUNE 17

Flying Lotus • Little Dragon • BADBADNOTGOOD • Georgia Anne Muldrow

Flying Lotus, Grammy®-nominated music producer and mastermind of the exploding L.A. beat scene, will take the Bowl on a pioneering 3D space-age voyage. Swedish electro-pop group Little Dragon turn on a dime from funk and R&B to soul and ’80s-inspired jams.

JULY 6, 7

Jennifer Hudson with Orchestra

Multi Grammy®- and Academy Award®-winning artist Jennifer Hudson makes her Hollywood Bowl debut with orchestra in this highly anticipated show. The incomparable singer brings her undeniable soul to the stage as one of the most powerful voices in music today.

JULY 18

Seal with Orchestra • Corinne Bailey Rae

The legendary British singer has always brought a keen sense of soul to his performances. On his latest release, Standards, Seal showcases his jazz chops on new arrangements of Rat Pack-era tunes.

Dynamic British jazz singer Corinne Bailey Rae kicks off the evening.

AUG 1

TajMo: The Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ Band • Melissa Etheridge • Deva Mahal

On their own, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ are two masters of the blues. Together, they’ll bring nearly a century’s worth of music-making

experience to the Bowl for a night of sweet, soulful sounds. Singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge pays tribute to legendary Memphis R&B record company Stax with a set drawn from the label’s history of fabled tunes along with her own hits. Daughter of the blues titan Taj Mahal – and undeniable vocal talent in her own right – Deva Mahal opens the evening.

AUG 3, 4

Charlie Wilson with Orchestra • The O’Jays

Uncle Charlie with band and orchestra and rock ’n’ roll’s funky favorites The The O’Jays own this hot summer night!

AUG 8

The Pink Panther – in Concert

Inspector Clouseau’s bumbling adventure plays on the big screen accompanied by the jazzed-up sounds of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

AUG 15

Gregory Porter: Nat King Cole & Me • Savion Glover

One of the finest jazz singers of his generation pays tribute to one of the all-time greats. Gregory Porter’s “thrilling presence” (The New York Times) has won over festival audiences and Grammy® voters, and he’ll fill the Bowl with sweet selections from Nat King Cole & Me, his recent album celebrating Cole’s later career. Tony® Award winner Savion Glover, described as “the greatest tap virtuoso of our time, perhaps of all time” (Variety), graces the stage with beats and rhythms from head to toe with a jazz combo.

AUG 19

Smooth Summer Jazz

The Bowl proudly presents our mini-festival of the finest smooth jazz artists, including Boney James, Third World, Norman Brown & Bobby Caldwell – Love and Soul, Pieces of a Dream, and Avery*Sunshine.

AUG 22

Queen Latifah • Common

The ever-versatile Queen Latifah returns to her throne for a soul-driven set showcasing the emotional power of her voice and her sophisticated presence as a singer.

Fresh off his second Academy Award® nomination for Best Original Song – an award he won in 2013 for “Glory” – rapper, poet, and actor Common fuses social justice and large-hearted positivity for a highly charismatic performance.

AUG 29

George Benson • Ledisi • Lean on Me: José James Celebrates Bill Withers Two Hollywood Bowl favorites return with epic jazz, grooves, and charm to spare. Plus a celebration of an R&B/soul giant!

SEPT 5 Juanes

The legendary Colombian singer/songwriter – and 20-time Latin Grammy® winner – Juanes headlines the Bowl.

SEPT 7–9

Fireworks Finale: Harry Connick, Jr., 300th Birthday Celebration of New Orleans

The beloved New Orleans native throws a party worthy of the city’s 300th birthday!

SEPT 20

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Presents Spaces, Featuring Lil Buck & Jared Grimes • Stories of a Groove: ClaytonHamilton Jazz Orchestra with special guest Gerald Clayton Trio

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra brings an “animal ballet” to life with dance collaborations, while CHJO kick off the night with a Southland premiere.

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31st Annual

AUGUST 10-12, 2018 RAINBOW LAGOON PARK East Shoreline Drive • Long Beach, California

Maysa

Eric Roberson

Kim Waters & Marion Meadows

Stanley Clarke

Cabanas available!

Marcus Miller

Kirk Whalum

Keiko Matsui

Everette Harp

Chante Moore

Doc Powell

David Benoit & Marc Antoine

Nick Colionne

Brian Simpson & Jazmin Ghent

and many more!

Acts and Times subject to change without notice

For tickets and information, contact:

Rainbow Promotions, LLC (562) 424-0013 www.longbeachjazzfestival.com #LBJazzFest

Benoit Entertainment Group, llc

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MASTER OF CEREMONIES

As a native Angeleno, George Lopez has been crossing boundaries and bridging gaps all over the world since the early 1980s. A standup comic, film and television actor, late-night host, writer, and producer, Lopez has brought his perspective as a Mexican-American artist to stages and screens for nearly four decades.

Lopez’s most recent work, The Wall, finds the 57-year-old comedian reflecting on the state of America in 2018. A brash and politically charged work, it premiered on HBO live from Washington DC, and found the comic riffing on everything from food allergies to the Trump administration. The Wall follows 2017’s standup tour The Comedy Get Down, with Eddie Griffin, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and the late Charlie Murphy.

The special was adapted as a mockumentary series for BET. Part comedy showcase and part workplace comedy, the show featured Lopez and his real-life collaborators interacting off-stage in semi-fictionalized, exaggerated fashion.

A near-constant presence on television sets since the early 2000s, Lopez starred in ABC’s George Lopez, which he co-created, wrote, produced, and starred in. The show ran for six seasons – from 2002 to 2007 – and is syndicated on Nick at Nite. In 2009, he launched Lopez Tonight, a late-night program on TBS, which featured appearances by Arsenio Hall, Tom Cruise, Ellen DeGeneres, Eva Longoria, Kobe Bryant, and many more. In 2014, Lopez created and starred in Saint George, a 10-episode series for FX. And from 2015-17, the comedian produced and starred in Lopez, a half-hour single-camera serial on TV Land.

Lopez has also starred in a long string of movies. In the early 1990s, he appeared in the comedy Ski Patrol and Carl Reiner’s spoof Fatal Instinct. In 2002, he starred in Real Women Have Curves, Patricia Cardoso’s adaptation of the Josefina López play of the same name. In 2005, he teamed up with Robert Rodriguez for The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl. He’s also appeared in The Spy Next Door with Jackie Chan, Balls of Fury, Henry Poole Was Here, Valentine’s Day, and other films. As a voice actor, Lopez has starred in the Beverly Hills Chihuahua, The Smurfs, and Rio franchises. In 2015, he

Justin Stephens for TV Land

GEORGE LOPEZ

starred in and produced Lionsgate’s Spare Parts, telling the true story of four undocumented Mexican-American teenagers from Phoenix who won first place in the 2004 MATE ROV robotics competition, beating out a team from M.I.T. In 2001, Lopez released his first book, Why You Crying? My Long, Hard Look at Life, Love, and Laughter, co-written with Emmy Awardwinning writer and sportscaster Armen Keteyian. The book entered The New York Times Bestsellers List top 20. In 2013, he returned to the literary scene with I’m Not Gonna Lie: and Other Lies You Tell When You Turn 50, an examination of aging.

Lopez has remained prolific on stage. His debut HBO special, America’s Mexican, premiered in 2007; he followed it with Tall, Dark & Chicano in 2009, which earned Lopez a Grammy nomination; It’s Not Me, It’s You followed in 2012. His comedy albums, Team Leader and El Mas Chingon, also earned Grammy nominations.

In 2006, Lopez received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; the year before,

Time magazine named him one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.

Lopez has earned a number of high-profile accolades. In 2003, he won the Imagen Vision Award. In 2003, he earned the Latino Spirit Award for Excellence in Television and the National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Award.

Since 2013, George Lopez has hosted the Playboy Jazz Festival annually. A lifelong music fan, he calls hosting the prestigious festival an absolute honor.

“There is a tremendous amount of love for music in our culture, of jazz and really of all music,” Lopez told The International Review of Music. And in jazz, the comedian hears a familiar language: “In fact somebody once said to me, ‘You know, your comedy is like jazz, free like jazz. You don’t play the same notes all the time.’”

And while he’s unafraid to play different notes or explore different formats – from television and film to books and standup – Lopez’s role as “America’s Mexican” keeps him in the comedic zeitgeist.

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STREAM NOW

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SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2018 In order of appearance (subject to change)

The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts Jazz

Under the direction of Bill Wysaske and Pat Bass Lorenzo Bacani, Jadon Roberson, Aiden Solomons, Diego Hernandez, Chet Oshima, saxophones • Chai Kohen, Julian Sposato, Jorge Avila, Olivia Morales, trumpets • Jose Morales, Gael Sanchez Tizo, Alex Guan, trombones • Ari Chais, Dornell Carr, piano • Caleb Ossmann, bass • Jordan Reifkind, William Brownstein, guitars • Austin Kim, drums • Jahvon Morse, Brooklyn Schmidt, Joshua Wong, aux percussions Lorenzo Bacani, Gabrielle Beauvais, Jordan Cain, Alex Castile, Karina Constantinides, Thomas Jacobs, Akira Kassulke, Jasmine Lee, Dominic Pelayo, Mazie Preite, Jacqueline Robinson, Henry Tull, Jordan Warren, vocals

Monsieur Periné

Catalina Garcia, vocals • Santiago Prieto, Nicolás Junca, guitars • Adinda Meertins, bass • Darwin Paez, drums • Miguel Guerra, percussion • Abstin Caviedes, trombone • Jairo Alfonso, saxophone

The Matthew Whitaker Trio

Matthew Whitaker, piano, Hammond B3 organ • Edward Morcaldi III, guitar, bass • Sipho Kunene, drums

Daymé Arocena

Daymé Arocena, vocals • Jorge Luis Lagarza, piano • Rafael Aldama, bass • Marcos Morales, drums

The Edmar Castaneda Quartet

With special guests Grégoire Maret and Andrea Tierra Edmar Castaneda, harp • Marshall Gilkes, trombone, Rodrigo Villalon, drums • Andrea Tierra, vocals • Grégoire Maret, harmonica

Roy Gaines & His Orchestra Tuxedo Blues

Roy Gaines, guitar, lead vocals • George Pandis, trumpet, arranger, MD • Stan Martin, Rich Hoffmann, Gary Bivona, trumpets • Ken Tussing, Robbie Hioki, Duane Benjamin, Alvin Starks, trombones • Dan Heffernan, Andy Najera, tenor saxophones • Don Roberts, baritone saxophone • Rickey Woodward, Lance Rickman, alto saxophones • Michael Saucier, bass • Bill Fulton, piano, organ • Joey Navarro, organ, piano • Charles Small, guitar • Lance Lee, drums

The Miles Electric Band

Jeremy Pelt, trumpet • Vincent Wilburn Jr., drums • Debasish Chaudhuri, tabla • Greg Spero, keyboards • Darryl Munyungo Jackson, percussion • Robert Irving, piano, keyboards • Dywane “MonoNeon” Thomas, Jr., bass • Dwayne “Blackbird” McKnight, guitar • Antoine Roney, saxophone • Brandon Paul-George “DJ Hapa” Perdue, turntables

Lee Ritenour And Dave Grusin

Lee Ritenour, guitar • Dave Grusin, piano, keyboards • Melvin Davis, bass • Wes Ritenour, drums

Snarky Puppy

Michael League, bass, leader • Jason “JT” Thomas, drums • Marcelo Woloski, percussion • Vaughn Henry, Justin Stanton, keyboards • Michael “Maz” Maher, trumpet • Bob Reynolds, saxophone • Chris Bullock, saxophone, flute • Mark Lettieri, guitar

Anthony Hamilton

Anthony Hamilton, vocals • Kenneth Leonard, MD, keyboards • Henry “Lamont” McCain, bass • Christopher Kee, drums • Howard “Showcase” Taylor, guitar • James “J Vito” Tillman, Antonio “Tony Lelo” Bowers, Corey “2E” Williams, background vocals Master of Ceremonies

George Lopez

Produced in association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association by FestivalWest Inc.

Acura is a proud sponsor of the Hollywood Bowl.

Media sponsor: Programs and artists subject to change.

Official Automotive Partner of the Hollywood Bowl

Official Airline of the Hollywood Bowl

Official Cruise Line of the Hollywood Bowl

Pianos provided by Steinway Piano Gallery – Beverly Hills.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts’ Vocal Jazz and Instrumental Jazz Ensembles are directed by Pat Bass and Bill Wysaske and are comprised of students throughout Los Angeles County. In addition to the Playboy Jazz Festival, the LACHSA Jazz Ensembles have performed regularly at the Monterey Jazz Festival and their students are annually recognized by arts organizations such as YoungArts, Music Center’s Spotlight Awards, and The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

LACHSA is a tuition-free public school and is located on the campus of Cal State LA.

MONSIEUR PERINÉ Since meeting in 2007, the Bogotá-based Monsieur Periné has established itself as an Afro-Colombian powerhouse.

Led by dynamic vocalist Catalina García, the eight-piece group performs a sophisticated blend of French pop, cumbia, salsa, and Gypsy jazz, its sound landing somewhere between Gilberto Gil and Django Reinhardt. After opening for Puerto Rican alternative hip-hop group Calle 13 on a tour through Spain and Mexico, the band began attracting fans all over the globe. In 2015, the band released Caja de Música, produced by Calle 13’s Eduardo Cabra, and the band’s cross-pollinated aesthetic earned them vocal admirers like Felix Contreras, host of NPR’s Alt Latino, who tweeted, “Do you know Monsieur Periné? If you don’t, you should. Amazing.” In 2016, the band took home the Best New Artist award at the 2016 Latin Grammys.

THE MATTHEW WHITAKER TRIO Lots of musicians start young, but pianist Matthew Whitaker started really young.

MONSIEUR PERINÉ

“I’ve been playing since I was three, when I taught myself ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on a small keyboard my grandfather gave to me,” Whitaker told the Huffington Post. “Nobody showed me. When I turned five, I started piano lessons.”

Whitaker took to the instrument immediately. Born three months premature and blind, he’s developed a prowess on both the piano and the Hammond B3 that has propelled him on a fantastic journey – all before his eighteenth birthday. He’s shared stages all around the world with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Jon Batiste, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ray Chew, and Christian McBride; wowed audiences on The Ellen DeGeneres Show; and took home the first-place prize on Fox’s revival of Showtime at the Apollo – something of a return performance there, as his big break took place at the legendary Harlem venue, when he won a talent contest at the tender age of nine.

Dedicating himself to musical learning, Whitaker is currently studying classical piano and drums at The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School of the Lighthouse Guild in New York City, the only community music school for the blind and visually impaired in the U.S. He also attends the Manhattan School of Music’s Precollege Jazz Program, in addition to performing throughout the United States and all around the world.

In 2017, Whitaker released his debut album, Out of the Box, in conjunction with the Jazz Foundation of America.

Featuring four covers and six originals, the album introduces Whitaker as a major young force in jazz music. You can hear traces of Whitaker’s influences – including Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, and Oscar Peterson – in his expressive playing, but also a melodic maturity that seems at odds with his youthful age. “What I enjoy best is playing music,” he says. “I am a musician who happens to be blind…I have been blessed with a God-given gift and my prayer is that I can continue to be a blessing and inspiration to others.”

THE MATTHEW WHITAKER TRIO

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

DAYMÉ AROCENA On her new album, Cubafonía, Cuban singer/songwriter Daymé Arocena draws from the rich musical inspiration of the island’s Afro-Cuban rhythms and pairs them with jazz adaptability, modern pop, and Crescent City bombast. She stirs up a potent brew, presenting her vision of Cuba as a shifting and hybridized place. Eclecticism isn’t merely a buzzword in Arocena’s social media mentions; it’s an artistic way of life for the singer, reflecting her personal view of her homeland. “We don’t have this native culture,” Arocena says. “We don’t have indigenous people, like Maya or Quechua. They made a country with people from everywhere – that’s what makes Cuban culture so different.”

Born in 1992 and raised in Havana, Arocena studied music from a young age, singing in a choir and formally studying Western classical traditions. But at home her musical training was more spontaneous and organic. Growing up in a two-bed house with 21 other people, rumba rhythms were inescapable to the young Arocena. She sang folkloric music with her family and friends, and practiced the island’s Santería religion, incorporating singing and dancing. “Music is my God and my faith,” Arocena told Vibe. “Music was my link to religion. I fell in love with Santería’s music before the Santería’s religion. The saint I have is Yemaya – like the sea, she whispers in my ears the songs that I write.”

Her debut album, Nueva Era, appeared in 2015, but the singer considers Cubafonía her first “proper” recording.

Working with a cast of Cuba’s best session musicians, she incorporates her wide-ranging tastes, spiritually connecting to the gospel sounds of Aretha Franklin, the buoyant mambo of Pérez Prado, the rumba of La Lupe, and nodding toward the modern sounds that fascinate Arocena (she namechecks Pulitzer Prize–winning rapper Kendrick Lamar and modern electronic R&B singer Anderson Paak as artists with whom she’d like to collaborate).

DAYMÉ AROCENA

Singing in a blend of English and Spanish, Arocena offers slow-jam ambiance (“Como”), shuffling dance music (“Lo Que Fue”), percussive guaguancó (“La Rumba Me Llamo Yo”), and folksy changüí, a style popular in Guantanamo (“Valentine”).

It’s music built around cultural conversation, connecting to Cuba’s African roots and extrapolating them in dozens of global directions at once.

All of this comes natural to a Cuban, Arocena says; cultural exchange is the very nature of the island. Rumba, the foundation of Afro-Cuban music, incorporates clave rhythm, connecting to Abakuá and yuka traditions and sharing a name with the Spanish “la clave,” an instrument essential to its sonic signature. What’s more, Santería is a religious hybrid, combining Catholic traditions with the spiritual practices of West African Yorubas.

This spirit of combination and reimagining guides Arocena and provides lift to her dynamic music. Using the musical heritage of her homeland as a starting point, she brings the influences she’s gathered while traveling the world to explore new musical terrain. “My body’s searching / my soul is always finding,” she sings on the beautiful “Maybe Tomorrow,” and it sums up Arocena’s process of continual discovery and openness to what tomorrow might bring.

THE EDMAR CASTANEDA QUARTET Edmar Castaneda considers playing the harp his calling – and a sacred calling at that. “I was born to play the harp,” the Colombian-born bandleader says. “It is a gift from God and like every gift from God, it has a purpose. The purpose of my music is to worship Him and bring his presence and unconditional love to people.”

Born in 1978 in the city of Bogotá, Castaneda began playing the harp as a teenager, performing the folkloric music of his homeland. He discovered jazz upon moving to New

EDMAR CASTANEDA

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

York City in 1994, and in the years since he’s established himself as an unmistakably original voice, combining Colombian styles and jazz and collaborating with a wide roster of musicians, including Rickie Lee Jones, Sting, Paco de Lucía, guitarist John Scofield, Brazilian jazz artist Ivan Lins, and many more.

His most recent recording, Live in Montreal – a duet album with Japanese pianist Hiromi – demonstrates his expressive range on the harp. Moving from dense clusters of chords to dazzling melodic figures, he bridges the gap between formal training he received under Paquito D’Rivera and improvisation. Indeed, Castaneda crosses fluidly between classical and jazz spaces: he’s written symphonic works for Orquestra Clássica de Espinho and the São Paulo Jazz Symphony Orchestra, and chamber pieces for the Israel Camerata Jerusalem and the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia.

GRÉGOIRE MARET Born in 1975 in Geneva, Switzerland, to a Harlem-born African-American mother and jazz-playing Swiss father, Maret took up the harmonica as a teenager. After graduating from the prestigious Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Genève, Maret took off to New York City to study at the New School University’s Jazz Department.

In 2003, Maret was the subject of director Frédéric Baillif’s documentary Sideman, and a year later he joined the Pat Metheny Group, appearing on the band’s 2005 album The Way Up, which won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Playing a chromatic harmonica – a distinctive instrument heard on recordings by Toots Thielemans and Stevie Wonder – Maret developed a unique musical voice, and after working with Metheny for a number of years, he brought that voice to Herbie Hancock’s band. He co-led the jazz trio Gaïa with pianist Federico Gonzales Peña and

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ROY GAINES & HIS ORCHESTRA TUXEDO BLUES Los Angeles-via-Houston bluesman Roy Gaines started off his musical life on the piano, but it wasn’t long before he found the electric guitar. “I played piano from ages six until about 14,” recalls Roy. “I switched to guitar after I saw how my brother Grady, who plays saxophone, would get all the girls by walking around the club while playing. I said, ‘Boy, I want some of those girls!’ and made the switch to guitar.”

Introduced to the music scene by Grady (who played with Little Richard’s Upsetters), Roy took a heavy dose of inspiration from the Lone Star State’s T-Bone Walker and quickly established himself as a prime purveyor of searing electric guitar, earning a reputation as a fierce player who was billed as “The 14-Year-Old Sensation” on placards.

At 16, he set off for California, where he became a fixture of the late-night bar scene. He toured with Roy “Pops” Milton and spent time on stage and in the studio with blues greats like Chuck Wills and Ray Charles, earning a reputation as an ace sideman. Soon enough, calls started coming in for Gaines to bring his Texas-blues sound to sessions with

ROY GAINES & HIS ORCHESTRA TUXEDO BLUES

Chris Drukker

GRÉGOIRE MARET

drummer Gene Lake, and has worked with an incredible roster of players, including George Benson, Youssou N’Dour, Me’Shell Ndegeocello, Cassandra Wilson, David Sanborn, Elton John, Sting, and many more.

In 2012, Maret released his first album as a bandleader, an eponymously titled effort, featuring collaborations with vocalist Cassandra Wilson and the late Thielemans. In 2016, he followed it up with Wanted, in which he explored the stylistic possibilities of his instrument. “Who is the greatest harmonica player in the world?” jazz critic Ted Gioia wondered in The Daily Beast, suggesting that following the passing of Thielemans, the “genre-crossing harmonica hotshot” Maret offers the only real answer.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Stevie Wonder, Les McCann, the Supremes, Albert King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Quincy Jones, the Jazz Crusaders, and Big Mama Thornton.

All the while, Gaines recorded stinging solo cuts, from early singles like 1958’s raw “Skippy Is a Sissy” to his 2009 album Tuxedo Blues, recorded with the horn-packed big band joining him at the Playboy Jazz Festival. A sort of blues Zelig, his co-composition “No Use Crying” was recorded by country singer George Jones, and Gaines himself can be seen singing “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister)” in Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award–nominated 1985 film The Color Purple. In 1999, Gaines received the W.C. Handy Award and Living Blues Magazine’s “Comeback Artist of the Year” award. Gaines’ style, which finds him happy to jump from driving bop to lively swing, is nonetheless summed up by the title of his 1998 JSD Records release: Bluesman for Life.

MILES ELECTRIC BAND At the end of the 1960s and into the ’70s, Miles Davis plugged in and went electric, shocking critics and the jazz establishment.

The Miles Electric Band is a combo of world-class talents performing the boundary-shattering music from that era, a fertile creative period that found “Electric Miles” “plugged in to the zeitgeist,” trading in his “suits for hipster finery,” and opening “up his music to distortion and groove-based repetition, either transcending or dramatically repudiating (depending on your perspective) his roots in acoustic jazz,” writes James Parker in The Atlantic.

Drawing from the progressive, avant-garde-leaning streak that saw Davis creating vibrant, challenging work on LPs like In a Silent Way, Jack Johnson, and Bitches Brew, the Miles Electric Band features Davis alum Robert Irving III on keys, Greg Spero on piano, Debasish Chaudhuri on tabla, guitarist Blackbyrd McKnight, percussionist Darryl Munyungo Jackson, and drummer Vince Wilburn Jr., Davis’ nephew.

MILES ELECTRIC BAND

Individually, these players share among them a host of Grammy Awards, and have played with a wide variety of outfits, including Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many more.

Rounding out the combo are bassist Dywane “MonoNeon” Thomas, Jr., best known for having played with Prince; saxophonist Antoine Roney, who’s worked with Freddie Hubbard and Elvin Jones; and turntablist Brandon Paul-George "DJ Hapa" Perdue.

Davis’ iconic trumpet duties are handled by a rotating cast of players, which tonight includes Jeremy Pelt, who got his start with the Mingus Big Band and has since performed with Bobby "Blue" Bland, Ravi Coltrane, and the Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band, among many others.

Since forming in 2011, the band has been met with rapturous praise from critics and festival-goers. Writing about their inaugural performance at the Miles Davis Festival in Chicago, DownBeat magazine stated, “Despite boasting a host of bandleaders in the ranks, the group played with restraint and vibe over histrionics, keeping the brew on simmer.”

Having performed to great acclaim all around the globe, the Miles Electric Band stands alongside projects like the 2015 film Miles Ahead, starring and directed by Don Cheadle, as part of the Davis estate’s dedication to expanding and preserving the trumpeter’s artistic triumphs. The band’s show features archival photos and art work from Davis’ innovative electric period, imbuing this music with the vitality that Davis would have demanded.

LEE RITENOUR AND DAVE GRUSIN Individually and as a collaborative duo, guitarist Lee Ritenour and keyboardist Dave Grusin have moved between the worlds of jazz and film. Their groundbreaking collaborations – including 1983’s On the Line, the Grammy Award–winning

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Harlequin from 1986, 2000’s Both Worlds, and 2008’s classical album Amparo – harken back to their time in the ’70s, when you could find the duo jamming on Tuesday nights at the famed Baked Potato, with heavy hitters like Al Jarreau, Joe Sample, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan among the audience.

Ritenour grew up in Los Angeles and began contributing to sessions while still in his teens. Nicknamed “Captain Fingers,” he was only 16 when he sat in with the Mamas and Papas; just a few years later he was backing up Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. The guitarist has racked up 17 Grammy nominations, twice won Guitar Player Magazine’s Best Studio Guitarist award, and amassed a list of credits that includes work with Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, B.B. King, Frank Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin, and Barbra Streisand.

His solo albums yielded the Top 15 hit “Is It You” – an FM radio jazz standard – and his work with Kenny G and the Yellowjackets earned him a strong following among smooth jazz audiences. In 1991, he formed Fourplay with pianist Bob James, bassist Nathan East and drummer Harvey Mason.

His most recent album, A Twist of Rit, finds the guitarist exploring his varied back catalog.

As a composer, Dave Grusin stands as one of the most recognizable forces in cinematic music. Since starting out in the late ’60s, he’s scored more than 75 films, including The Graduate, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Tootsie, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Firm, Havana, Heaven Can Wait, and On Golden Pond. He’s earned 12 Grammy Awards and multiple nominations, and has worked as an arranger and producer with Quincy Jones, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and many more, all while recording jazz fusion and contemporary classical music.

In 1978, Grusin founded GRP Records with Larry Rosen with the mission of expanding the notions of jazz, issuing albums by artists like Earl Klugh, Dave Valentin, and Bernard Wright, as well as works by Lee Ritenour and Grusin himself. 2018 sees the

release of the documentary Dave Grusin: Not Enough Time, which will illustrate the composer’s journey from his youth in Littleton, Colorado, to his silver screen fame.

Individually and as collaborators, Ritenour and Grusin achieve a balance between the orbiting worlds of jazz and classical.

SNARKY PUPPY Snarky Puppy is ever shifting. A revolving collective with as many as 25 members in a constant rotation, the New York–based ensemble makes skirting the lines a full-time job. Stepping confidently through jazz, funk, R&B, fusion, jam-band, and pop circles, the band has created a sound as shifting as their lineup.

Consider their Grammy Award wins: In 2014, they earned an award for Best R&B Performance, and in 2016 and ’17, they took home trophies for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. Their albums live on multiple Billboard jazz charts, and their various members have contributed to work by a who’s-who of contemporary artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Erykah Badu, David Crosby, Kirk Franklin, and many more. “We’ve spent almost 15 years together, exploring and trying new things and failing, trying new things and succeeding,” de facto leader Michael League told bopspots.com about the band’s experimental and multi-pronged approach.

League formed Snarky Puppy in Denton, Texas, in 2003, recruiting many players from the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program. From there, he immersed himself in the gospel and R&B scenes of nearby Dallas. As more collaborators began filtering in and out of the group, including drummer Robert “Sput” Searight and keyboardists Shaun Martin and Bobby Sparks, their sound became progressively funkier, incorporating loose grooves into textured, densely layered compositions. In 2005, Snarky Puppy self-released their debut album, Live at Uncommon Ground, and began amassing a dedicated fan base, continuing to issue their own albums while

SNARKY PUPPY

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

consistently putting in long stretches of time on the road. All the while, members like the B3-playing organist Cory Henry, saxophonist Bob Reynolds, and percussionist Nate Werth made names for themselves on an individual basis.

Even as they’ve grown, self-sufficiency remains crucial to their identity. In 2016, they released Culcha Vulcha through a joint partnership between their GroundUP label and Universal Music. Unlike previous albums, which more or less represented the band’s in-studio sound, the latest LP was recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas, situated in the middle of a pecan orchard just a few minutes away from the Mexican border. The resulting record is a percussive, Latin-tinged exploration of mood and groove. On songs like the synthlaced “Beep Box” and shuffling “Jefe,” Snarky Puppy tries new motifs on for size and inhabits them with a surprising grace.

Fifteen years into their history, Snarky Puppy shows no signs of growing artistically stagnant. To risk a groan-inducing metaphor, this dog relishes learning new tricks.

ANTHONY HAMILTON Though it’s not uncommon to hear fiery guitars, sensuous grooves, and even the occasional trap beat on his latest LP, What I’m Feelin’, the church is always present in Anthony Hamilton’s voice. Growing up singing in his congregation’s choir in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hamilton viewed his preacher and choir leader the way some kids might see the Avengers or Superman. “The lead singer in the choir and the pastor were superheroes because of how they made you feel,” he says. “It’s a feeling you get when you hear someone lead that just inspires.” Like gospel crossover heroes the Staple Singers before him, Hamilton has derived a sound that has earned him fans all over the globe, inspiring the faithful and secular alike.

Over the course of a career that includes seven albums; collaborations with Tupac, D’Angelo, Buddy Guy, and the

Gorillaz; a Grammy® Award–winning duet with Al Green; a high-profile duet with Elayna Boynton for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained; and even a performance for President Barack Obama, Hamilton has established himself as a modern soul icon. Since breaking out in the early 2000s with “Po’ Boys,” a collaboration with Kentucky rappers Nappy Roots, he has proved his voice to be a malleable instrument, capable of gruff preaching, tender balladry, and rhythmic punch.

What I’m Feelin’ finds the veteran singer showcasing his instrument in surprising ways, from the slow-jam grind of “I Want You” to the synthesizer-tinged “Ever Seen Heaven” to the classic snapback funk of opener “Save Me.” “I just want to be born again baby / You give me life,” he sings, invoking the prospect of spiritual redemption and the transcendent sensation of romance. In his poetic sonic worlds, the gap between cosmic and physical spaces seems to narrow – the thrill of romance and the power of spiritual redemption seem to blend and expand in his warm R&B spaces. Credit his imaginative use of sound and language, fueled by his inner life: “I was an introvert growing up,” he says. “I had a wild imagination and I would dream a lot.”

He’s spent his career translating his inner visions and dreams to the “big world” he sings about on “Ain’t No Shame.”

From his 2003 debut Coming From Where I’m Coming From to What I’m Feelin’, his voice has connected to listeners with an unadorned honesty and a recognition of the specialness of the ordinary world. Even as Hamilton bounces from funk to gospel, from red dirt soul to sultry pop ballads, he maintains a wholeness, indicating that no matter what styles he draws from, it’s the presentation of his real self that holds his albums and songs together, and his recognition of a higher power working through his music. In his songs, grace extends from the sacred to the secular, from the temple to the everyday, his view unobstructed by the division between the two, as he sings on “Amen”: “Got me saying amen / From the bed to the stove / From the church to the job / Best thing I know.”

ANTHONY HAMILTON

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FEATURE

CROSSING BOUNDARIES: LUCINDA WILLIAMS AND THE LINES OF AMERICAN SONG

BY JOSH HURST There is no quote-unquote jazz album in Lucinda Williams’ catalog – no dalliance with horn players, no jaunt through the Cole Porter songbook, nothing centered on cocktail pianos or an Ellingtonian orchestra.

Yet to spend time with any of her albums is to immerse yourself in an American roots milieu where country, folk, and blues bleed into one another, the distinctions between them often just a matter of inflection. And as Williams attests, jazz has always been a key ingredient in her own musical makeup, its influence subtle but unmistakable.

“When I was growing up, my dad was a big follower of jazz,” she recalls. “I talk a lot about growing up with country music and folk music, but jazz was also in there, constantly on rotation.” Indeed, she cites John Coltrane’s Ballads and Chet Baker’s Baker’s Holiday among her formative musical influences.

“It might surprise some people, but if you go through my songs you can sort of hear little tidbits of those influences,” she continues. Williams’ records – which encompass some of the most revered recordings in all of Americana, particularly her 1998 breakthrough Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – betray an omnivore’s delight in cross-genre pollination, and the sophistication of someone who’s absorbed and internalized jazz influences enough to seamlessly weave them into her winding folk narratives and raucous, roadhouse rock.

Jazz is there in the space she leaves between notes throughout her discography: in the cool tones and textures of West, in some of the languid grooves of The Ghosts of Highway 20, in World Without Tears’ devotion to the American standard as a form unto itself. (Not for nothing, that album even name-drops Coltrane on a roaring rocker called “Righteously.”) And now, Williams is poised to sing alongside legendary saxophonist Charles Lloyd, a jazz veteran who

shares Williams’ all-encompassing appetite for American music in all its variations.

“His music really crosses boundaries,” Williams says of Lloyd. The very first time they played together – when Lloyd sat in with her regular touring band – the two of them immediately connected, bonding over a set list that Williams says was absent of conventional jazz material. Instead, they played through some of her own compositions, and also discovered a shared love of the Bob Dylan songbook.

(Williams has been performing “Masters of War” since she was a teenager, and has sung it with Lloyd and his band The Marvels.)

Williams and Lloyd don’t merely share a songbook, though – they also share many of the same supporting musicians. Guitarists Bill Frisell and Greig Leisz are both members of Lloyd’s Marvels, as well as regular contributors to Williams’ studio albums. It was this commonality that first brought Williams and Lloyd together, and in the past couple of years they’ve performed together multiple times.

Some of these performances caught the ear of Blue Note boss Don Was, who arranged studio sessions; collaborative recordings are on the horizon, mostly consisting of Williams’ own tunes but also including select covers of Dylan and Jimi Hendrix staples.

Notoriously exacting about her own performances, Williams says it’s liberating to lose herself in Lloyd’s band – but she doesn’t necessarily approach it any differently than she would her own music. “I don’t sing any differently when I’m working with Charles,” she notes, “but I love the space it affords me. I don’t worry about figuring it out vocally. They work around me.”

Indeed, working with Lloyd has been “fairly spontaneous,” Williams says – a surprising admission from a performer who legendarily recorded and re-recorded Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in dogged pursuit of a particular vibe and feel. “Charles loves to be spontaneous, and you kind of just have to let him go,” she adds. “There is a spirituality to playing with him.” In fact, she likens some of their session work to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, an album celebrated for its trance-like, mystical sway.

As for playing to jazz audiences, Williams says her experience is still fairly limited – but based on what she’s seen, there’s not much difference between jazz crowds and her more typical listeners from the country and folk worlds.

Which is not to say that she eschews labels completely. “I think it’s good to define what things are” she says of her genre-agnostic approach to the American songbook.

“Particularly in country music. When you talk about country music these days, you have to clarify it. Are you talking about one of the new guys, or are you talking about Hank Williams?

There’s jazz, and then there’s jazz. There’s country, and then there’s country.”

On the other hand: “As an artist, the fact that I do different kinds of stuff – and I always have – is one of the reasons why I had a hard time getting a record deal to begin with. They said my music fell into the cracks between rock and country. But it’s all connected.

There’s a thread that runs through all of this.”

Williams has spent her entire career following that thread; it was only a matter of time before it led her to a jazz festival.

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2017 PLAYBOY JAZZ FESTIVAL Stefon Harris

Corinne Bailey Rae

THE WORLD OF PLAYBOY JAZZ The Playboy Jazz Festival returned to the Hollywood Bowl for its 39th season last summer, and it was a weekend for the ages.

George Lopez served as master of ceremonies for the fifth year – and even got in on the action, jamming on bass with Marcus Miller to cap the first night of the festivities!

The California Honeydrops have come a long way from playing for tips in Oakland train stations, and their big sound filled the Hollywood Bowl stage for an early weekend highlight. The Django Festival Allstars brought us back to Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age, while the energetic Jacob Collier showed us a glimpse of its future. Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ joined forces as TajMo for an

unforgettable performance, and queen Corinne Bailey Rae shined. The Arturo Sandoval Latin Big Band turned up the heat for a fiery Saturday night.

On Sunday, Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles locked into a funk groove and explored its every nook and cranny, and Miles Mosley and the West Coast Get Down brought us through intergalactic space.

Meanwhile, Hamilton de Holanda breathed new life into the ten-string mandolin, and vocal powerhouses Lalah Hathaway and Gregory Porter delivered moving sets of their own. And of course, Common closed out the weekend with a stunning set that’s still inspiring us twelve months later.

Arturo Sandoval

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George Lopez and Marcus Miller

Rahsaan Patterson

Miles Mosley

Gregory Porter

Common

Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles

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Lalah Hathaway

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SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2018 In order of appearance (subject to change)

The LAUSD/Beyond the Bell All-City Jazz Band

Under the direction of Tony White and J.B. Dyas Aidan Cini, Eder Hernandez, William Brandt, Max Roberts, Jonathan Bowen, saxophones • Jack Houlihan, Kenneth Brown, Ignacio Guillen, Macrae Eckelberry, trumpets • Eli Howell, Joel Reyes, Cal Apigo, Guillermo Pinto, trombones • Joey Curreri, Dalton Hayse, piano • Dario Bizio, bass • Kayson Capti, drums • Nicholas Lopez-Reyes, guitar • Nico Figueroa-Reyes, vibes

Parlor Social

With Dessy Di Lauro x Ric’key Pageot Dessy Di Lauro, lead vocals • Ric’key Pageot, piano, accordion • Mike Cordone, Chris Lowery, trumpets • Lasim Richards, Erik Hughes, trombones • Gerry “Jay Flat” Brown, baritone saxophone • Jesse McGinty, alto saxophone • Peter Ortega, tenor saxophone • Michael “Fish” Herring, guitars • Maurice Ellis, electric bass, keyboard bass • Channing Cook Holmes, drums • Kayla Watson, Samantha Schultz, background vocals • Benjamin Wright, special guest conductor

Kneebody

Ben Wendel, saxophone • Shane Endsley, trumpet • Adam Benjamin, keyboards • Kaveh Rastegar, bass • Nate Wood, drums

The Legendary Count Basie Orchestra™® Directed by Scotty Barnhart

“The Count Basie Orchestra mark appears under license from the William J. Basie Trust”

Scotty Barnhart, conductor, trumpet • Michael Williams, Derrick Gardner, Marques Carroll, Endre Rice, trumpets • Clarence Banks, David Keim, Alvin Walker, Mark Williams, trombones • Joshua Lee, baritone saxophone • Doug Miller, tenor saxophone • Dave Glasser, Immanuel Wilkins, alto saxophones Doug Lawrence, tenor saxophone • Robert Boone, drums • Trevor Ware, bass • Will Matthews, guitar • Glen Pearson, piano • Everett Greene, vocals

Richard Bona and Mandekan Cubano

Richard Bona, bass, vocals • Ludwig Afonso, drums • Osmany Paredes, piano • Eli Menezes, guitar • Roberto Quintero, percussion • Dennis Hernandez, trumpet • Rey Alejandre, trombone

Hubtones: Freddie Hubbard’s 80th Birthday Celebration

Featuring Nicholas Payton, Randy Brecker, Jeremy Pelt, David Weiss, Benny Green, Vicente Archer, Roy McCurdy Nicholas Payton, Randy Brecker, Jeremy Pelt, David Weiss, trumpets • Benny Green, piano • Vicente Archer, bass • Roy McCurdy, drums

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels With Special Guest Lucinda Williams

Featuring Bill Frisell, Stuart Mathis, Reuben Rogers, Eric Harland Charles Lloyd, tenor saxophone, flute • Lucinda Williams, vocals • Bill Frisell, guitar • Stuart Mathis, guitar • Reuben Rogers, bass • Eric Harland, drums

The Ramsey Lewis Quintet

Ramsey Lewis, piano • Tim Gant, keyboards • Henry Johnson, guitar • Charles Heath, drums • Joshua Ramos, bass

Jazmine Sullivan

Jazmine Sullivan, vocals • Alisa Joe, Ayana George, background vocals • David Watson, drums • Alexander West, guitar • Andre Pickney, bass • Stephen Atkins, keyboards

Tower of Power – 50th Anniversary 2018

Emilio Castillo, leader, tenor saxophone, background vocals • Stephen “Doc” Kupka, baritone saxophone • David Garibaldi, drums • Roger Smith, Hammond B3 organ, keyboards, background vocals • Adolfo Acosta, Sal Crachiollo, trumpets, flugelhorns, background vocals • Tom Politzer, tenor saxophone, background vocals • Jerry Cortez, guitar, background vocals • Marcus Scott, lead vocals Master of Ceremonies

George Lopez

Produced in association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association by FestivalWest Inc. Acura is a proud sponsor of the Hollywood Bowl.

Media sponsor: Programs and artists subject to change.

Official Automotive Partner of the Hollywood Bowl

Official Airline of the Hollywood Bowl

Official Cruise Line of the Hollywood Bowl

Pianos provided by Steinway Piano Gallery – Beverly Hills.

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THE LAUSD/BEYOND THE BELL ALL-CITY JAZZ BAND The LAUSD/Beyond the Bell All-City Jazz Band, in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, comprises the top high school music students currently enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest public school district in the nation. Under the co-direction of Monk Institute VP for Education and Curriculum Development JB Dyas and LAUSD/Beyond the Bell Music and Entertainment Coordinator Tony White, the Band rehearses and performs all styles of jazz from its inception to today.

PARLOR SOCIAL “If Cab Calloway, Outkast, and Lauryn Hill had a love-child, it would sound like Parlor Social.” Together as Parlor Social, the Los Angeles–based husband and wife duo of singer/ songwriter Dessy Di Lauro and producer/composer/ multi-instrumentalist Ric’key Pageot update 78 RPM–era ragtime for a modern audience, incorporating elements of electro, hip-hop, and soul with speakeasy jazz. Boasting sterling credentials – Ric’key has performed with Madonna, Cher, and Motown legend Diana Ross; Dessy has toured with Cirque du Soleil and as a backing vocalist for Dreamcar, featuring members of No Doubt and AFI – the duo’s “retro-futurism” sound sonically connects Duke Ellington to Janelle Monáe, bridging generations and fusing styles.

KNEEBODY Kneebody is one of the most potent forces in modern jazz.

The combo’s bicoastal membership is divided between Los Angeles and New York, and the band translates that

PARLOR SOCIAL

geographic disparity to its music, never settling in just one place. Equally rooted in the sprawling ’70s jazz fusion of electric Miles Davis, the mutated jazz-funk of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, and the looming post-rock complexity of Radiohead, Kneebody fluently speaks a hybridized language built on indie-rock and chamber-orchestra idioms.

“There isn’t a handy term or genre for the music that Kneebody creates,” writes The New York Times. “It’s a band thoroughly acquainted with 1960s free-bop, 1970s jazz rock, 1990s hip-hop, and post-millennial indie rock, along with classical post-Minimalism.”

The quintet met as teens at The Eastman School of Music and emerged as Kneebody in 2001. Finding its footing in the vibrant and mutating Los Angeles scene, the band took inspiration from a wide variety of sources, culling ideas from everyone from D’Angelo to Elliott Smith, Squarepusher to Queens of the Stone Age. The band’s anything-goes musical sensibility is the result of individualism fueling a collaborative dynamic. Because they have no designated leader – or perhaps more accurately, five individual leaders – they’ve developed an internal cueing system that signals to each member changes in tempo, key, and style.

“We are a democratic, equally owned-and-operated band with shared leadership,” says trumpet player Shane Endsley.

“Everyone brings in music and everyone votes on everything.”

Which isn’t to say the five-piece is at all averse to outside collaboration. In 2009, the band earned a “classical crossover” Grammy Award nomination with vocalist Theo Bleckmen for 12 Songs of Charles Ives, and in 2015, Kneebody teamed with producer and hip-hop/electronic wizard Daedelus for Kneedelus, an LP released on producer Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder Records.

KNEEBODY

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Kneebody’s latest LP, Anti-Hero, showcases the band in no less an exploratory mode. Though songs like “Profar” and “Drum Battle” fit into jazz contexts, songs like “For the Fallen” and the driving “The Balloonist” stretch into experimental and rock terrain. With his band’s sound too tough to pin down, bassist Kaveh Rastegar says they wear the jazz tag proudly, even if the ultimate aim is to subvert and expand the notions of what the genre could mean. “Personally, I think calling Kneebody ‘jazz’ or ‘electric jazz’ is fantastic,” he says, “because then we can move on from that hang-up and play our music – and alter expectations of what ‘jazz’ is.”

THE LEGENDARY COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA “Count Basie isn’t just a man, or even a band. He’s a way of life.” Those words, from the legendary singer Lena Horne, speak to the enduring legacy of William “Count” Basie. The group was founded by Basie in 1935 at the height of the big band swing era, and the Count Basie Orchestra has continued on in stride since the leader’s passing in 1984.

The Count Basie Orchestra has served as an incubator for some of the greatest soloists, composers, arrangers, and vocalists in jazz history, including Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Joe Williams, and many more who became international stars in conjunction with their work with Basie. Led by Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Grover Mitchell, Bill Hughes, Dennis Mackrel, and now Scotty Barnhart, the band maintains a mission of preserving an American musical heritage, an 18-member orchestra serving as a throughline connecting the legacy of swing to Basie’s stomping, shouting blues delivery.

With a membership spanning generations – including a number of musicians hired by Basie himself, as well as a cast

THE LEGENDARY COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA

of younger players – the Count Basie Orchestra swings with a sense of history and an eye on the future. In 2017, the Count Basie Orchestra released A Very Swingin’ Basie Christmas!, the first holiday album in the 80-year history of the orchestra.

Featuring guest vocalists Johnny Mathis and Ledisi, in addition to singing by the Orchestra’s own Carmen Bradford and Ellis Marsalis, the album went to No. 1 on the Billboard Jazz Charts and sold out on Amazon. 2018 finds the Orchestra celebrating its musical lineage – which includes past landmark pairings with singers like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Jackie Wilson – with a new recording. The album, which is scheduled for release via Concord later this year, features Stevie Wonder, organist Joey DeFrancesco, vocal group Take 6, Kurt Elling, and more, furthering a one-of-a-kind musical legacy and tradition.

RICHARD BONA AND MANDEKAN CUBANO With his combo Mandekan Cubano, bassist and bandleader Richard Bona connects the rhythmic spirit of Africa to the island of Cuba. Hailed by many as “The African Sting,” Bona has entranced audiences for decades with his dazzling melodic bass playing and voice, connecting jazz and pop to the traditional sounds of his home continent.

Born Bona Pinder Yayumayalolo in Minta, Cameroon, in 1967, Bona grew up surrounded by music, with his griot grandfather playing percussion instruments and his grandmother singing.

Bona himself began constructing his own flutes and guitars as a young person, utilizing whatever materials were at hand to create tools for making sound; in doing so, he tapped into an inventiveness that would later define his multi-layered, polycultural compositions. When he wanted a 12-string guitar, he

RICHARD BONA AND MANDEKAN CUBANO

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HUBTONES: FREDDIE HUBBARD’S 80TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION Freddie Hubbard was a defining jazz trumpeter who blazed a trail of bop from the 1960s to his death in 2008. Born in

RANDY BRECKER

NICHOLAS PAYTON

DAVID WEISS

John Abbott

HUBTONES:

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Indianapolis in 1939, Hubbard led a series of bands and served as a sideman on genre-defining works – including Ornette Coleman’s landmark Free Jazz, John Coltrane’s Olé Coltrane, and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers’ Caravan.

“In every situation, Hubbard projected the persona of trumpeter-as-gladiator, an image of strength, force, and self-assurance that told several generations of aspirants, ‘I’m Freddie Hubbard and you’re not,’” wrote Ted Panken for DownBeat.

Hubbard passed away on December 29, 2008, but an all-star constellation of jazz performers dubbed the Hubtones honor him this year on the occasion of what would have been his 80th birthday. Performing selections from his vast body of work, Nicholas Payton, Randy Brecker, Jeremy Pelt, David Weiss, Benny Green, Vicente Archer, and Roy McCurdy pay tribute to Hubbard’s punchy tone and fierce spirit.

Trumpeter/pianist Nicholas Payton stands as one of the most provocative players – and culture writers – in modern jazz. Recording for Verve, Blue Note, and Nonesuch, he’s accompanied Dr. John, Joe Henderson, Jill Scott, Ray Charles, and many more, all while leading combos like the Blue Note 7 and the Young Tuxedo Brass Band.

Best known for his work blending funk, rock, and jazz, trumpeter Randy Brecker has performed alongside jazz titans such as Charles Mingus, Billy Cobham, Stanley Turrentine, and Horace Silver, and has long served as a secret weapon in the studio and on stage for artists like Frank Zappa, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Bruce Springsteen.

Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt emerged in the early 2000s as a firebrand player, working with Ravi Coltrane, Roy Hargrove, and Cassandra Wilson.

JEREMY PELT

Gulnara Khamatova

made one himself, scrounging up wood and stringing it with bicycle brake cables. Before mastering the bass, he took to the balafon, a wooden xylophone originating in Mali.

Across his career, Bona has drawn inspiration from his African roots. On albums like Scenes from My Life, Reverence, and Munia, the bassist and songwriter utilizes storytelling to share stories of daily life and political struggle, combining those tales with musical innovation. His work has earned him a series of high-profile accolades. Following the release of his album The Ten Shades of Blues in 2009, Bona was honored with the Antônio Carlos Jobim Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival; his 2013 album, Bonafied, was certified gold.

Having played with everyone from Harry Connick, Jr. and Paul Simon to Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Bobby McFarrin, and Tito Puente, Bona charts fresh territory as a singer, player, and bandleader with his new project, Mandekan Cubano. Featuring pianist Osmany Paredes, trombonist Rey Alexandre, trumpeter Dennis Hernandez, and percussionists Luisito and Roberto Quintero, the combo’s 2016 album Heritage combines Bona’s joyful, Jaco Pastorius–inspired melodicism with Cuban dance rhythms and instrumentation.

The record speaks to a musical mission of bridging cultures.

“There’s so much Africa in this music that it doesn’t feel strange to us Africans,” Bona told BassPlayer.com. “When we play this music, it’s natural.”

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

CHARLES LLOYD & THE MARVELS WITH SPECIAL GUEST LUCINDA WILLIAMS featuring Bill Frisell, Stuart Mathis, Reuben Rogers, Eric Harland Charles Lloyd is one of jazz’s greatest polymaths. Over a lifetime’s worth of musical exploration, the saxophonist has led bands through bop, soul jazz, and avant-garde sounds,

CHARLES LLOYD

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incorporating psychedelic rock and Eastern modalities and shifting the perception of what constitutes American music along the way. With his latest combo the Marvels – featuring guitarists Bill Frisell and Stuart Mathis, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland – Lloyd creates spectral invocations of hymns, protest folk, ghostly surf, and cosmic Americana. For this special performance, the Marvels are joined by Southern singer/songwriter and vocalist Lucinda Williams, whose songs tie rock to country, blues to folk.

Lloyd was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 15, 1938.

The sounds of the city blurred all around him: blues, jazz, gospel. He picked up saxophone at only nine, and went on to learn from saxophonist Irvin Reason and pianist Phineas Newborn. In his teens, he immersed himself in the local music scene, playing with George Coleman’s band and acting as a sideman for B.B. King, Johnny Ace, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Howlin’ Wolf. But even as young man, Lloyd’s taste was wide-ranging. He left Memphis for the West Coast in 1956, heading to Los Angeles to earn a classical music degree at USC. He studied during the day, but at night, he navigated the city’s vibrant jazz scene, playing with a wide cast of legendary players: Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Bobby Hutcherson, and many more. He played with Gerald Wilson’s big band, and then served as Chico Hamilton’s musical director before joining up with the Cannonball Adderley Sextet.

In the mid-sixties, Lloyd formed his own quartet with pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Cecil McBee, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The band’s 1966 album Forest Flower: Live at Monterey broke through to pop audiences, selling a million copies, garnering heavy FM airplay, and endearing the band to rock and pop fans. While many jazz traditionalists

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

David McClister

As founder of the New Jazz Composers Octet, the New York-born trumpeter David Weiss caught the ear of Ben Ratliff of The New York Times, who called the Octet “the sound of the new jazz mainstream” in 1998.

Like Hubbard himself, pianist Benny Green spent time in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, honing his thoughtful sound and performing with Hubbard, Oscar Peterson, and Ray Brown.

Bassist Vicente Archer spent his early years playing along to Wes Montgomery and George Benson records before studying at the New England Conservatory and performing alongside Hubbard, Stanley Jordan, Wynton Marsalis, Robert Glasper, and others.

Drummer Roy McCurdy brings a long history to his role behind the kit, having performed with Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Art Pepper, Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderley, and Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins, with whom he appeared on the classic 1963 LP Sonny Meets Hawk!

Pairing a cross-generational set of players with Hubbard’s fiery compositions, the Hubtones honor the master’s memory and advance his iconic music. “From the moment he played one note, you knew that was Freddie Hubbard,” writer and critic Stanley Crouch told NPR, “So he had a sound that was distinctive as Miles Davis, as Louis Armstrong, as Clifford Brown. I mean, he’s one of those trumpet players.”

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

viewed rock music with a wary eye, Lloyd’s quartet shared stages at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium with Janis Joplin, Cream, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and the Jefferson Airplane.

Moving to Big Sur at the start of a new decade, Lloyd performed with the Beach Boys and Celebration, a group comprised of members of the Beach Boys’ touring band and core Beach Boys Mike Love and Al Jardine, through much of the ’70s. He rededicated himself to jazz music in the late ’80s, recording for Manfred Eicher’s ECM label.

Reflecting on Lloyd’s Fish Out of Water LP, Eicher noted its elemental quality: “I really believe this is the refined essence of what music should be. All the meat is gone, only the bones remain.”

In 2013, Lloyd returned with Wild Man Dance Suite on Blue Note, featuring a quartet of sax, piano, bass, and drums – with Hungarian cimbalom and Greek lyra accents – and followed that with his debut with the Marvels, I Long To See You. Joining Lloyd and the Marvels for this performance is Lucinda Williams. From her earliest recordings on the storied Folkways label to her breakout 1988 self-titled album and 1998 masterpiece Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Williams has offered beautiful and raw Southern poetry. Equally indebted to the Southern Gothic writing of Flannery O’Connor and the heartbroken country of Hank Williams (no relation), Williams makes for a formidable addition to Lloyd and his Marvels, who are set to create a unique musical experience, drawing on decades of improvisation and understanding of diverse sonic traditions. “Mr. Lloyd has come up with a strange and beautiful distillation of the American experience,” writes Peter Watrous of The New York Times, “Part abandoned and wild, part immensely controlled and sophisticated.”

THE RAMSEY LEWIS QUINTET For more than 60 years, pianist Ramsey Lewis has brought a sophisticated form of funk to the world of jazz, earning three Grammys and a designation as an NEA Jazzmaster. Now, on the eve of the soul-jazz pioneer’s retirement in 2018, he leads the Ramsey Lewis Quintet – Henry Johnson on guitar, Tim Gant on keys, Joshua Ramos on bass, and Charles Heath on drums – through a decades-spanning overview of his career.

Coming up in Chicago, Lewis started playing jazz at 15.

The first group to bear his name – the Ramsey Lewis Trio, with bassist Eldee Young and percussionist Redd Holt – was a fixture on the Chicago jazz club scene, leading to his fulllength debut, Ramsey Lewis & His Gentlemen of Jazz, in 1956. Later, Lewis scored a massive hit with a cover of Dobie Gray’s “The In Crowd,” from an album of the same name recorded at the Bohemian Caverns club in Washington, D.C. The song earned him his first gold record and a Grammy Award in 1966 for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance. He spent many of the following years on the charts, with singles like “Hang on Sloopy” and “Wade in the Water.”

After Holt and Young left to form a new group, Lewis teamed with bassist Cleveland Eaton and Maurice White for albums like The Piano Player, Back to the Roots, and Funky Serenity, featuring more pop material reconfigured for jazz heads. When Eaton and White left to form Earth, Wind, & Fire, Lewis found himself inspired by the funky fusion their new combo was creating, and he enlisted White to produce the fusion album Sun Goddess in 1974. Featuring members of Earth, Wind, & Fire, including vocalist Philip Bailey, it was a major crossover success, finding footing among disco and pop listeners. In 1983, Holt and Young reunited with Lewis for a new album, appropriately titled Reunion.

David McClister

THE RAMSEY LEWIS QUINTET

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Throughout the 1980s, Lewis spread his sound across multiple genres, collaborating with Nancy Wilson on The Two of Us in 1984, teaming up with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for A Classic Encounter in 1988, and issuing We Meet Again, a collection of piano duets with Billy Taylor, in 1989. In the mid ’90s he launched the Urban Knights ensemble, an all-star jazz combo that included, among many others, Grover Washington, Jr., Earl Klugh, and Dave Koz. In 1997, he became the host of a popular jazz program on Chicago’s WNUA-FM. A new program, Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis, was syndicated in 2006, airing on jazz stations all across the country. That same year, Lewis hosted a television series of the same name on PBS. Featuring performances by Chick Corea, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, Tony Bennett, and many more, the show showcased Lewis’ skills as an adept interviewer and host.

After spending much of the previous decade playing with an acoustic trio, Lewis once again went electric in 2011 with Taking Another Look. The album revisited material from throughout his career, offered new songs, and featured covers of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” and the standard “Betcha By Golly Wow.” On “Tambura,” Lewis returns to the signature sound of the Fender Rhodes.

Whether covering pop material, interpreting the songs of rock legends, or performing his own funky originals, Ramsey Lewis has earned his place in jazz history. Closing out his on-stage career, he remains one of jazz’s long-running and most varied performers.

JAZMINE SULLIVAN When Issa Rae needed a powerhouse vocalist to record the title track for her acclaimed series Insecure, she and her

JAZMINE SULLIVAN

team made the right choice enlisting R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan. Like the HBO dramedy, Sullivan is no stranger to complex themes and narrative experimentation. Breaking out in the late 2000s under the wing of artist/producer Missy Elliott, Sullivan has developed a signature mélange of neo-soul, jazz, reggae, and hip-hop on records like 2008’s Fearless and 2010’s Love Me Back, earning her critical accolades.

But it’s 2015’s Reality Show that truly showcases Sullivan’s range. The album was recorded following the Philadelphiaraised singer’s five-year hiatus from the music industry, a time when she stepped back to evaluate what drives her work. “I promised myself when it wasn’t fun anymore I wouldn’t do it,” she’s said about the extended absence.

But Reality Show finds her having more fun than ever before. Combining classic soul references with electronic production and a guest spot by Meek Mill on first single “Dumb,” the record features Sullivan as both a formalist and a boundary-pushing provocateur, wrapping her alternately sweet and raspy voice around classic melodies. The album, a personal document about falling back in love with music, cemented Sullivan as one of the leading voices in modern R&B and earned rave reviews from Pitchfork and Spin.

The record debuted at number one on the Billboard R&B charts, selling 29,000 copies in its first week, and by the end of the year, it had earned a spot on Rolling Stone’s Best R&B albums of 2015 list. Comparing her to Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige, Rolling Stone writer Christopher R. Weingarten writes: “She’s a one-woman off-Broadway show, cycling through evocative characters with emotion and chops.”

She’s remained busy since returning from her hiatus, working with Frank Ocean on his visual album Endless and

TOWER OF POWER

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

co-writing “Thick of It” from Blige’s 2017 album Strength of a Woman. Returning to the music industry, Sullivan has rediscovered not only her love of music, but also the feeling of connecting to listeners through her songs. “When people understand it, that makes all the difference,” she told Pitchfork’s Emil J. Lordi. “Because you’re thinking that if you say this well enough, then people see how you feel, or how the character feels. And that’s how I know I’ve made that connection with the listener.”

TOWER OF POWER For 50 years, Tower of Power has loomed as one of the premier horn sections in music.

Whether backing up chart-topping artists like Santana, Aaron Neville, David Sanborn, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat, Aerosmith, and many, many more, or performing their own signature brand of funk, the Tower continues to wow.

Featuring founding members Emilio Castillo, Rocco Prestia, Stephen “Doc” Kupka, and David Garibaldi, along with Roger Smith, Tom E. Politzer, Adolfo Acosta, Jerry Cortez, Sal Cracciolo, and Marcus Scott, Tower of Power has been a consistent presence on stages and in studios for five decades.

The group first came together in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1968, emerging from the same fertile scene that birthed the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Cold Blood. Claiming Oakland as their home town, Tower of Power spent the late ’60s and early ’70s honing their taut funk sound. After they played a Tuesday night set at the fabled Fillmore in 1970, Bill Graham signed them to his San Francisco Records for their debut LP, East Bay Grease. The record featured original songs written by tenor saxophonist Castillo and baritone sax

player Kupka and took its name from the Bay Area funk sound pioneered by the ensemble.

The band went on to release a string of classic albums on Atlantic, Warner Bros., and Columbia, and collaborated with a wide variety of artists, from the AOR rockers Heart to the jam band Phish to bluesman John Lee Hooker. Tower’s fluency – in both pop and rock idioms – speaks to its members’ individual influence, but soul music remains its foundation. “We have ten people (in the band) and they all have vast interests,” Castillo told AXS.com. “…James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, the Philadelphia sound, the Memphis sound, the Motown sound, and a lot of the soul music that came out of New York. The real raw funk stuff like Dyke and the Blazers and Howard Tate… As teenagers, we found soul music and life changed for us.”

The music that fueled them all those years ago still endears fans all over the world to Tower of Power. In 2008, the band recorded a 40th anniversary concert, which was released on Blu-Ray. In 2013, they raided the Warner Bros. vault for Hipper Than Hip, a 1974 session recorded at WLIR in Long Island that sat unreleased for 45 years.

And this year, they’re commemorating their 50th anniversary with Soul Side of Town. Produced by Castillo and Joe Vannelli, the record features contributions from two vocalists – the outgoing Marcus Scott and incoming Ray Greene – along with the legendary rhythm section and blasting horns that have made Tower of Power a landmark institution for decades. “Everybody in the band is saying ‘Wow, what is happening?’” Castillo says about the invigoration provided by the new album. “You get to an age where we’re at and things can start to run down but it seems like for us that things are really kicking into high gear.”

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Brent Bear

PLAYBOY JAZZ FESTIVAL HISTORY 1979

Sarah Vaughan with the Count Basie Orchestra at the first-ever Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl

FOUR DECADES OF SUNSHINE: PLAYBOY JAZZ AT 40

Dianne Reeves

without the Playboy Jazz Festival, and it’s hard to imagine the Playboy Jazz Festival without the Hollywood Bowl.

As it happens, there was no rain at that first Playboy Jazz Festival in 1979, just as there hasn’t been in any year since. In fact, the festival’s sunny setting is a perfect fit for the bright, joyous programs it’s hosted in its forty-year history (not to mention the epic five-show run of the first Playboy Jazz Festival at Chicago Stadium in 1959). continued on pg. 46

José Galvez

Forty years ago, when Dick Rosenzweig was helping Hugh Hefner plan the first-ever Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, the recent transplant from the magazine’s Chicago headquarters had one question: Would he need to buy rain insurance? The L.A. Weather Bureau’s response: “You’re not from here, right?”

Rosenzweig laughs as he recounts this story, both at the memory itself, and at how preposterous it all now seems: It’s hard to imagine the Hollywood Bowl

1989

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Brent Bear

1982

Dave Brubeck

1983

1984

Ray Charles

1985

Miles Davis

1986

Michael Tweed

Hugh Hefner

B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughn

“IT’S L.A. AT ITS BEST: IT’S CROSS-GENERATIONAL, THERE’S ECONOMIC DIVERSITY, RACIAL DIVERSITY. ” —DARLENE CHAN 1991

Miriam Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie

1990

Etta James José Galvez

2002

Pete Fountain

2001

Femi Kuti and Positive Force

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PLAYBOY JAZZ FESTIVAL HISTORY continued from pg. 44

2014

2015

Dr. Lonnie Smith

Ledisi

2015

Aloe Blacc

“It’s a party!” says Darlene Chan, who has produced the festival since its inception. “It’s L.A. at its best: It’s cross-generational, there’s economic diversity, racial diversity. It’s everything – you see everything at Playboy.”

That’s certainly true of the crowd, and what you see on the stage is some of the most wonderful and vibrant jazz musicianship on earth. In its forty years, Playboy Jazz Festival has played host to legends of the genre, including Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Etta James, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Ornette Coleman, Dave Brubeck, Ray

2015

Herbie Hancock

2016

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Charles, Dianne Reeves, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Goodman, The Weather Report, and many, many more. It’s also presented a vision of the scope of jazz’s influence, drawing in artists from the worlds of soul, funk, R&B, hiphop, Latin, and world music, and influencing other jazz-oriented festivals to do the same.

Of course, words can only go so far to capture the fullness of the Playboy Jazz Festival experience. So we present this selection of memories from throughout the Festival’s forty-year run at the Hollywood Bowl – good weather guaranteed.

2016

Janelle Monáe

2016

Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. and the Congo Nation-New Orleans Cultural Group

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GENERAL INFORMATION SMOKING POLICY

By law (LACC 17.04.645), smoking is not permitted on the Hollywood Bowl grounds, except in designated areas. Violators are subject to removal. Smoking in any other areas could lead to arrest and would be considered a misdemeanor.

HOLLYWOOD BOWL 2018 ACCESS MAP

CONCERT CONDUCT

If the behavior of a patron or patrons near you becomes disruptive, the incident should be reported to the nearest usher or security person. To report an incident discreetly during an event, a text can be placed to the Customer Courtesy Line using the keyword BOWL to 69050.

For the full Code of Conduct visit hollywoodbowl.com/houserules.

PARK & RIDE/ SHUTTLE DROP-OFF

FIRST AID

In case of illness or injury, please see an usher, who will escort you to the First Aid Station.

ACCESSIBLE PARKING

Electric Cart Service Pick-Up & Drop-Off

LOST AND FOUND

Any lost articles found on concert nights may be claimed at the Operations Office the next morning. Unclaimed articles are kept for 30 days from the date on which they are found. For information, call 323 850 2060.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Your use of a ticket constitutes acknowledgment of willingness to appear in photographs taken in public areas of the Hollywood Bowl and releases the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, its lessees, and all others from liability resulting from the use of such photographs.

PATRONS WITH DISABILITIES

For information detailing accessible seating, restrooms, dining, on-site transportation, assistive listening devices, or any further information, please request the Map of the Hollywood Bowl for Patrons with Disabilities by phoning 323 850 2125.

Please ask for Accessible Services, or visit hollywoodbowl.com/accessible.

LEGEND ATM

Cushion Rental

Marquee

Picnic Areas

Accessible Cart Path

Elevator

Moving Sidewalk

Accessible Facilities

Entrance Gate

The Muse

Picnic Box Pick-Up

The Bowl Store

Escalator

Museum

ox Office, Info & B Accessibility Dept

First Aid

Park & Ride / Shuttle

Food + Wine

Parking

Restrooms Ride Share Walkway

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Esa-Pekka Salonen January 31

Dianne Reeves December 15 Aida Cuevas September 29

Joshua Bell May 8

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Jennifer Koh November 16

Danny Elfman April 4

Single Tickets June 12 Subscriptions Save 20%

TheSoraya.org

Lea Salonga May 22

Christian McBride April 26

Valery Gergiev October 25

Sergio Mendes October 27

Susana Baca February 22

Eden Espinosa December 1

Monica Mancini October 13

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