Here are some of the live performances and artists occurring in California.
The 37th San Francisco Jazz Festival winds up eleven days of performances June 23rd with our April in studio guest superb jazz pianist and singer Sarah McKenzie. She has two shows at 6 and 7:30 PM.
A spectacular event next weekend will be the 3rd annual San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival featuring live performances from a great number of the fine artists I play on this program. All events will be hosted by Eric Darius. Starting it off on Friday the 29th will be a Hornblower cruise around San Diego Bay with Althea Rene and Selina Albright daughter of Gerald Albright. Saturday June 29th will be on the waterfront at the picturesque Embarcadero Marina Park North. Smooth Jazz artists playing will include Boney James, Peter White, Richard Elliot, DW3, Kirk Whalum, Jonathan Butler, Jazmin Ghent, and Brian Simpson. Sunday will feature Norman Brown, Michael Lington, Paul Taylor, and Vincent Ingala.
More smooth jazz performances are available closer to us. Before playing San Diego, Boney James will be at The McClellan Center in Sacramento next Friday June 28th. His special guest will be Johnny Britt. At this same location on August 2nd will be Dave Koz and Friends Summer Horns featuring Gerald Albright, Rick Braun, Kenny Lattimore, and Aubrey Logan. Then on September 7th will be West Coast Jam with Richard Elliot, Peter White, and DW3.
All the artist mentioned above have been played on my program.
The 32nd annual Long Beach Jazz Festival is August 9th.
The Monterrey Jazz Festival is September 27th to the 29th.
The granddaddy of all smooth jazz festivals is the 33rd Catalina Island Jazz Festival. It will be over two weekends from Thursday to Sunday each of those weeks from October 10th to the 20th. Artists are too numerous to mention and the entire lineup has not yet been set. . More information is available at jazztrax.com.
New releases played this week include Cindy Bradley, Pieces Of A Dream, Riley Richard, Nathan Mitchell, Elan Trotman, Craig Sharmat, Grace Kelly (not the movie star) with Jon Batiste band leader of The Late Show with Steven Colbert.
The second hour is devoted to smooth jazz classics and will wind up with the classic among classics segment. This week we will hear a song by two of the absolute greats from this format, Grover Washington Jr. and Bob James.
Thank you for your continuing support of this program and KKRN.
