How the revamped San Francisco Jazz Festival aims to rival New Orleans' Jazz Fest
'Look where I'm from, bro,' the New Orleans native told the Chronicle. 'I just played Jazz Fest, and one thing I've always loved about it is that I see people from around the world coming to New Orleans. The city comes alive. The entire area is lit up. San Francisco deserves that.'
To that end — albeit on a much smaller scale — San Francisco is getting a shot of Crescent City mojo with a revamped event that packs all of the action into one weekend, a major shift from its former concert-series format. Running Friday, June 13, through Sunday, June 15, San Francisco Jazz Festival features some three-dozen performances across multiple stages at SFJazz Center and an adjacent tent covering the parking lot at Franklin and Oak streets.
The sheer density of programming offers an immersive festival experience in the heart of Civic Center. In the two decades before the jazz center opened in 2013, the SFJazz organization was known as the San Francisco Jazz Festival and its flagship three-week fall concert series presented shows at venues around the city, with no real center of gravity.
Once SFJazz built its own facility at 201 Franklin St., the festival became a vestige of its origins and largely blended into its year-round calendar. Now, Blanchard sees the reimagined San Francisco Jazz Festival as the spearhead of a major expansion.
While starting with 'a trial run' of a single weekend, he 'envisions this thing becoming a two-week festival where we engage the whole Civic Center,' Blanchard said. 'We have a whole bunch of ideas.'
With Oak Street closed for a block between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue, there's a free-access midway that will feature DJs, wine and beer vendors, Off the Grid food trucks, and art and vinyl merchants.
Then there's its eye-catching lineup, a multigenerational musical roster that encompasses mid-career virtuosos including pianist Orrin Evans, trumpeter Nicholas Payton and saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin; and rising stars like pianist Jahari Stampley, trumpeter Tatiana Tate and vocalist Tyreek McDole.
Los Angeles pianist/keyboardist Patrice Rushen, a force in jazz, R&B and pop since the early 1970s, is also making her SFJazz debut as a bandleader, headlining Sunday's program. Meanwhile, hip-hop steeped drummer and DJ Kassa Overall and trumpet star Theo Croker, a pillar of programming at the Tenderloin jazz club Black Cat, are artists geared to connect with both jazz heads and younger jazz-adjacent audiences.
But SFJazz isn't just embracing diverse new styles — it's also honoring its roots. Revered veterans saxophonist Charles Lloyd and bassists Stanley Clarke and Dave Holland (all National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters) are featured on the bill and speaks to the institution's commitment to its titular tradition.
As for Blanchard, the acclaimed trumpeter himself is providing the festival's secret sauce as 'artist at large,' roaming the various stages to sit in with different acts.
'He's not playing with his own band, so he's got the freedom to run around with his trumpet,' said Burkhard Hopper, who came on as SFJazz's director of artistic programming last October. 'A festival is supposed to have a spontaneous element.'
Working closely with the German-born Hopper, a veteran music agent and concert producer who spent years bringing American jazz artists to Europe, Blanchard is looking to extend the organization's reach far beyond the city. As part of that effort, SFJazz is partnering with San Jose Jazz this summer for the first time, taking over the Montgomery Theater for the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest from Aug. 8-10. It also plans to present a concert series at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek this fall.
But first things first, and that's the upcoming festival — which has one notable omission from this trial run: Bay Area jazz artists. Aside from Berkeley trumpet star Ambrose Akinmusire, who's performing duo with the superlative New Orleans pianist Sullivan Fortner, and San Francisco Afro-futurist Idris Ackamoor and Ankhestra, the program is dominated by out-of-town acts.
Blanchard, however, urges patience, noting that SFJazz presents local artists year-round. 'The New Orleans Jazz Fest got the same reaction,' he said about complaints from resident artists.
'I'm trying to build an international jazz festival, not disregarding local artists,' he went on. 'We want to build something that people come to from all over, and we need international artists that people recognize. When we get that going, we'll have other stages where more local artists play, but we don't have that yet.'
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