“Delicious autumn,” exclaimed George Eliot some time ago. “My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” Had she been penning her prose in our place in our time, George could be taking a break now and then, during the year’s waning months, to enjoy a bounty of musical acts that fly here from all over the world to entertain. Not to mention artists who live right here among us, a few of whom appear in this sampling of some upcoming, hardly strictly genre-specific, events.
54th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival
The folks who book this world-famous festival have widened their offerings well beyond their shingle. Among those this year are rock icon Huey Lewis and global artists such as Richard Bona (from Cameroon) and Idan Raichel (Israel), as well as a broad range of jazz generations and forms, from traditional to mainstream to post-bop to avant-garde and fusion. It’s almost as tough to select highlights as it is to get around to see everything you crave among the eight venues across the 20-acre fairgrounds, but look for the big-band tribute to trumpet legend Miles Davis and elegant arranger Gil Evans; vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s scintillating interchange with organist Joey DeFrancesco; and octogenarian saxophonist Sonny Rollins’ unpredictable closing concert.
Sept. 16, 6 p.m.; Sept. 17–18, 11 a.m.; Monterey Fairgrounds, $40–$225, (925) 275-9255
More information: Monterey Jazz Festival
Hardly/Strictly Bluegrass 11
Private equity investor Warren Hellman has previously gone public with his banjo at this fabulous event he founded at the beginning of the millennium. But this is the first time he’ll be following up on having played on a recording, released this past May under the title Heirloom Music (on the Redeye label) and under the leadership of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who’ll also be appearing before tens of thousands at Golden Gate Park, not only with that album’s Wronglers group (including Hellman) but also with the mind-twisting alt-country group The Flatlanders. Standouts among the many-score other acts include C&W veterans Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson, rock icon Chris Isaak, New Orleans diva Irma Thomas, tantalizing songwriter/singer/banjoist Abigail Washburn, and (strictly) bluegrass bosses Ralph Stanley and Ricky Skaggs. If you want to get up close, get there early.
Sept. 20–Oct. 2, 11 a.m.–7 p.m., Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; free
More information: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
Esperanza Spalding
Her Grammy Award for Best New Artist earlier this year was the first such win for a jazz artist, and is all the more significant because the odds had favored teen pop heartthrob Justin Bieber. Not that the 26-year-old Spalding can’t also claim good looks and oodles of smitten fans, but she’s got manifest talent to boot, plus a curriculum vitae that includes having become the youngest teacher ever (six years ago) at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. Five years before that, she was concertmaster of the Chamber Music Society of Oregon, having started on violin at age 5 in a ghetto area of Portland. Spalding now records as a stand-up bass player and singer and writes and arranges some of her own material, which flutters beyond any jazz pigeonhole but attracts collaboration with such jazz luminaries as Herbie Hancock and Joe Lovano. Her album Chamber Music Society, released early this year on the Heads Up label, included other strings and Spalding’s setting of a poem by William Blake.
Oct. 1, 8 p.m., Paramount Theatre, Oakland, $20–$95, (866) 920-5299
More information: SFJAZZ presents Esperanza Spalding
Benny Green
Berkeley-bred Benny Green’s imaginative virtuosity on jazz piano is as engaging as his manifest respect for everyone else in the jazz business, from people who’ve written about him (thanks, Benny!) to those who’ve hired or inspired him. His latest CD, Source (on 1-2-3-GO), evokes the late piano titan Oscar Peterson, who in 1993 chose Green as the first recipient of the City of Toronto’s Glenn Gould International Protegé Prize in Music. This year the “young classicist” (so-dubbed by the New York Times) has been pursuing a tour named “Monk’s Dream: 50 Years Fresh,” for the seminal 1962 Columbia album by a visionary to whom Green has been compared: Thelonious Monk. After guesting on over a hundred recordings and working with greats from Art Blakey to Betty Carter to Ray Brown and Freddie Hubbard, Green still believes that “the main focus is to just swing and have fun.” You’ll be lucky to share the Monkish merriment at this homecoming concert.
Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $20–$40, (866) 920-5299
More information: SFJAZZ presents Benny Green
Desdemona
In Shakespeare’s Othello, written a bit over 400 years ago and staged in 2009 by the opera-and-spectacle-loving director Peter Sellars, the doomed wife of the haunted title character makes reference to having been raised by an African nurse named Barbary. Sellars gets his hands on this story once again in a new creation, enjoying its American premiere here, which imagines a postmortem dialogue between Desdemona and Barbary, the latter portrayed by Rokia Traoré, a singer, songwriter, and guitarist who’s much admired among world-music fans for her embodiment of the griot (storytelling) tradition of her native Mali. Traoré has also penned the music accompanying Desdemona’s script, by the Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison, which broaches issues of racism, colonialism, and hope.
Oct. 27–29, 8 p.m., Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley, $100, (510) 642-9988
More information: Cal Performances presents Desdemona
Denise Perrier
Anybody fortunate enough to chat with jazz singer Denise Perrier between her sets, or at any number of other people’s local gigs at which she’s been a welcome and appreciative member of the audience for three decades, will come to a delightful realization: Her speech is as rich and engaging as is her lustrous, vocalizing contralto. And her personality is as generous and genuine as is her approach to the lyrics of the American songbook. Perrier, who also performed with Louis Armstrong and on extended stays abroad, will join host vocalist Pamela Rose in serving up a musical offering to what she calls the “Wild Women of Song,” among them Alberta Hunter and Peggy Lee. It’ll be a warm and delicious run-up to Thanksgiving.
Nov. 12, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $20–$40, (866) 920-5299
More information: SFJAZZ presents Pamela Rose, with special guest Denise Perrier
Aaron Neville
The angelic voice of this member of a seminal family — the Nevilles of New Orleans — first became familiar to most of us in 1967, conveying a rare and compelling stream of soul on the single “Tell It Like It Is.” He’s pursued a successful solo career since, though he enjoyed a Grammy-winning collaboration with Linda Ronstadt in 1989 and periodic reunions with the nationally touring Neville Brothers. Aaron’s home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, yet he’s since performed at relief benefits and is in the process of securing a permanent return to his birthplace. Although he’s recorded the Christmas repertoire before, most of us haven’t had the chance to witness him delivering it live, and it’ll be bound to raise goose bumps, regardless of the weather.
Dec. 18, 7 p.m., Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, San Francisco, $25–$65, (866) 920-5299
More information: SFJAZZ presents Aaron Neville