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Health & Fitness

Stanford Jazz Festival Kicks Off with Community Events

Listen to great jazz at the Oshman Family JCC and the Stanford Shopping Center before the start of the Stanford Jazz Festival.

 

The 40th anniversary of the Stanford Jazz Festival begins on June 22, but you don’t have to wait until then to hear great jazz.  Two community events take place prior to the opening of the festival to raise awareness and to bring jazz to different venues.

“The Stanford Jazz Festival offers so many concerts that you’re not going to hear anywhere else,” says Ernie Rideout, SJF Marketing Director.  “It covers a truly broad and interesting range of music.  It’s become a destination for the great jazz musicians of the world.”

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The first community event is Kitty Margolis, widely recognized as one of the most innovative and inspired singers in jazz today.  She brings her imaginative improvisations, dynamism, and inventive scat to the Oshman Family JCC on Sunday, June 17.

Next up is a free outdoor concert at the Stanford Shopping Center by the Stanford Jazz Workshop Faculty Allstars on Thursday, June 21.  Catch up on your shopping while listening to original compositions and arrangements.

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The community events are just the beginning.  The Festival itself is seven weeks long, from June 22 to August 4, and starts with the Danilo Pérez Trio.  Rideout describes their Latin-informed rhythms as “transformative” and impossible to believe.”  Other highlights include the Lionel Loueke Trio playing jazz with a West African twist on June 24, a big band celebration of Stan Kenton on July 1, and Vertical Voices offering mind-blowing quartet arrangements on July 19.

“Forty years ago, founder Jim Nadel didn’t have a clue that what he started would become as huge and vibrant as it is,” said Rideout.  “There is a critical mass of talent, time and energy that makes this festival unique, and the warm and comfortable feeling of the Stanford campus allows everyone to relax and focus on the music.”

As a person new to the eclectic world of jazz, I’m thrilled that we have this amazing resource right in our own back yard.  Take a look at the full calendar of SJF events and buy some tickets!

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