38th annual San Diego Jazz Party
More than a few national and international jazz greats have performed at the annual San Diego Jazz Party over the past several decades. But drummer/vibraphonist Chuck Redd — who has played at this three-day event at the Del Mar Hilton for nearly 20 consecutive years — is the first to make headlines around the world for bowing out of a performance.
The Washington, D.C.-based musician did so on Dec. 19 when he announced the cancelation of the annual Christmas Eve jazz concert he had led since 2006 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Redd did so in response to the venue’s abrupt renaming as the Donald F. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told Associated Press in his only public comment until now.
Trump-Kennedy Center honchos responded by suing him for $1 million, even though Redd’s Christmas Eve concert was a free event and no ticket revenue was lost.
The Atlantic Magazine hailed him for standing up to “culture-hating bullies.” Others also praised Redd and the all-star jazz band The Cookers and genre-blurring banjo star Bela Fleck soon withdrew from their scheduled center concerts.
Some jazz fans and non-fans alike have hailed Redd’s decision to cancel his Christmas Eve gig as heroic, especially since he is not a famous musician with a high-powered record company manager, agent and attorney at his side. It’s a notion, Redd is quick to dispell.
“I don’t feel like a hero. I just feel like I did the right thing at the right time and I can’t really talk much more about it,” he said in a Monday San Diego Union-Tribune interview. “I will say that I think any of my colleagues would have done the same thing.”
Redd, who counts the late San Diego guitar legends Barney Kessel and Mundell Lowe among his former collaborators, is now at work on a new album that he will record in New York in March. While he has been applauded this month by audiences in Florida, Arizona and Oregon, his focus here this weekend will be strictly on music.
“I love the Del Mar Jazz Party because of its musical open-mindedness,” Redd said.
“You can hear traditional jazz and swing, bossa nova, a little bebop, New Orleans Dixieland and classics from the Great American Songbook. They want the personality of the musicians and that gives us all a great sense of freedom and joy when the audience responds positively.”
In addition to Redd, the lineup of 19 performers at this year’s part includes trombonist Dan Barrett, bassist Peter Washington, singer Dawn Lambeth, saxophonist Harry Allen and clarinetist and saxophonist Ken Peplowksi.
4 to10:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20; 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21; 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, followed by a 7 p.m. jam session. Hilton San Diego/Del Mar, 15575 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. $70-$280 (619) 787-8792, sandiegojazzparty.com
The late Frank Zappa fell in love with contemporary classical music as a San Diego teenager. (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)
“Breaking Boundaries” by La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, conducted by Sameer Patel
It is not unusual to hear the groundbreaking music of composer, band leader and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Frank Zappa performed by orchestras in Europe. But it is all too rare in the United States, where the teenaged Zappa became enthralled by contemporary classical and attended Grossmont and Mission Bay high schools.
Zappa’s revolutionary legacy endures
So, it’s especially exciting that the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus will open its Saturday and Sunday concerts with “Dupree’s Paradise” a 1973 gem by Zappa that famed French composer Pierre Boulez and his Ensemble Intercontemporain, recorded anew on for the superb, Grammy-nominated 1984 album, “The Perfect Stranger — Boulez Conducts Zappa.”
“Dupree’s Paradise” will open both of this weekend’s concerts, which will also feature works by such esteemed composers as Schoenberg, Sibelius, Busoni and the comparatively lesser-known Hannah Wolkowitz, who is a UCSD alumna. Cellist Peter Ko will be the featured soloist.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 31; 2 p.m. Sunday. UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla. $22-$48.50. 619-797-7175, ljsc.org
Pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and percussionist Pedrito Martinez will perform Sunday, Feb. 1, at The JAI in La Jolla. (La Jolla Music Society)
Alfredo Rodriguez & Pedrito Martinez
Sonic fireworks are not uncommon when pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and percussionist Pedrito Martinez perform together.
Both honed their chops playing in Havana in their native Cuba before immigrating to the United States and attracting an international audience. Both also sing and specialize in a zesty blend of jazz, tango, bolero, bachata, salsa and more, along with their singular version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (which they transform into a charged timba).
Rodriguez is the conservatory-trained son of a famed singer who was known as “the Elvis Presley of Cuba.” Martinez is a former street musician. The two first recorded on Martinez’s 2014 album, “The Invasion Parade.” Expect sparks to fly from the moment they hit the stage here this weekend.
5 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The JAI, Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Ave., La Jolla. $86-$90. 858-459-3728, theconrad.org