{"id":426619,"date":"2026-08-07T17:52:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T17:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/426619\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T17:52:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T17:52:20","slug":"best-bets-san-jose-jazz-wes-anderson-tribute-turn-of-the-screw-cabrillo-contemporary-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/426619\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Bets: San Jose Jazz, Wes Anderson tribute, \u2018Turn of the Screw,\u2019 Cabrillo Contemporary Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

All that San Jose Jazz:\u00a0The second weekend in August traditionally\u00a0offers\u00a0the Bay Area\u2019s biggest music happenings, with two major festivals featuring scores and scores of top acts and rising stars. Most everyone knows about the Outside Lands Music Festival, which has evolved into one of the largest and most impressive fests in the country. It runs Friday through Sunday at Golden Gate Park (sfoutsidelands.com<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps lesser\u00a0known is San Jose Jazz\u2019s Summer Fest, which brings a staggering number of jazz, blues,\u00a0reggae\u00a0and other acts to indoor and outdoor stages in downtown San Jose, also Friday through Sunday.\u00a0Perhaps the\u00a0biggest name on the 2026 bill is R&B icon Patti LaBelle, but there are many A-List acts on\u00a0hand:\u00a0Trombone\u00a0Shorty, Afro-Cuban All Stars, Gretchen Parlato, Cyrus Chestnut, Bria Skonberg, Marcus Shelby, and\u00a0more. There also are\u00a0emerging artists\u00a0such as\u00a019-year-old guitar whiz Harrell Davenport (performing 8:15 p.m. on Friday) and singer Nicole\u00a0Zuraitis,\u00a0who\u2019s\u00a0been nominated for a Grammy two years running (winning once) and who performs 3 p.m. Saturday. <\/p>\n

There are a variety of single and three-day ticket packages available \u2014 find options, and a complete schedule, at\u00a0https:\/\/summerfest.sanjosejazz.org.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Marty Isenberg, left, and his band perform a musical tribute to filmmaker Wes Anderson at the Bankhead Theater in Livermore on Aug. 7. (Marty Isenberg via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

Queue up the quirkiness:\u00a0A\u00a0quirky\u00a0Wes Anderson-themed\u00a0show comes\u00a0to the Bankhead Theater in Livermore this weekend.\u00a0The tribute is by bassist,\u00a0composer,\u00a0and writer Marty Isenberg,\u00a0best known as the writer for such animated wonders as \u201cBeast Machines,\u201d \u201cTransformers: Animated\u201d and \u201cTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The talented animator\u00a0is clearly a fan of Anderson, whose films, even\u00a0the\u00a0live-action ones, have an animated feel about them. Isenberg and his band will perform musical renditions of David Bowie and Kinks tunes as well as portions of Anderson film soundtracks \u2014 employing what organizers describe as a \u201ctheatrical jazz\u201d style \u2014 and improvisational performances will add to a \u201csonic storyboard\u201d celebrating Anderson.\u00a0Some audience participation will be involved as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The show, titled \u201cThe Way I Feel Inside,\u201d begins at 8 p.m. Friday at the Bankhead Theater in Livermore. Tickets are $40-$50; go to\u00a0livermorearts.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The image of the late Peter Quint (played by Alex Boyer) looms over, or perhaps appears only in the mind of, the Governess (Laura Bohn) in West Edge Opera\u2019s production of Benjamin Britten\u2019s \u201cThe Turn of the Screw\u201d onstage on Aug. 9, 2026 in Oakland. (Cory Weaver via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

Arias to scare\u00a0ya:\u00a0Operas that manage to generate\u00a0spine-chilling moments are not a common phenomenon, but Benjamin Britten pulled it off in spades with the 1954 debut of his \u201cTurn of the Screw,\u201d an adaptation of the super-spooky novel of that name by Henry James. <\/p>\n

West Edge Opera has mounted a well-received production of the eerie masterpiece in Oakland\u2019s Scottish Rite Center that has two remaining performances, at 3 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Aug. 15. Tenor Alex Boyer stars as the Peter Quint \u2014 either the ghost of a former employee of a remote country estate where an uneasy Governess\u00a0is in charge of\u00a0two threatened children or a sheer figment of her imagination. (James famously left it up to his readers to decide.) Laura Bohn plays the role of the Governess, and Erin Neff is the housekeeper Mrs. Grose. <\/p>\n

Tickets to the opera, which is helmed by West Edge general director Mark Streshinsky, are $22-$182, available at\u00a0westedgeopera.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A sensation on strings:\u00a0Violinist Tessa Lark, both a consummate classical artist and an expert traditional Appalachian fiddler, will give the West Coast premiere of Rome Prize-winning composer Lisa Bielawa\u2019s new concerto \u201cPulse\u201d as part of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music\u2019s Grand Finale night at 7 p.m. Sunday in the Santa\u00a0Cruz Civic Auditorium. Written over the sixth months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the piece is so titled because the composer has said it was \u201cconceived as a way of keeping my pulse on American life during a period of seismic change and self-examination.\u201d <\/p>\n

The program, with music director\u00a0Cristian\u00a0M\u0103celaru\u00a0leading the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, also includes\u00a0the West Coast premieres of \u201cAscending Creatures\u201d by Eunike Tanzil and \u201cWanderlust\u201d by Sean Shepherd and the U.S. premiere of \u201cRainbow Promise\u201d by Elena Kats-Chernin. <\/p>\n

Find tickets, $26-$96, at cabrillomusic.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A version of this post<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All that San Jose Jazz:\u00a0The second weekend in August traditionally\u00a0offers\u00a0the Bay Area\u2019s biggest music happenings, with two major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-426619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}