The city is preparing for plenty of foot tapping during the first San Diego Jazz Week, a score of jazz music concerts at popular venues across San Diego that will reach a crescendo Sept. 9 at the third annual Ocean Beach Jazz Festival.
The festival, hosted by San Diego City College radio station KSDS Jazz 88.3, will reverberate across the city at various locations ” including the Gaslamp Quarter, Balboa Park and Little Italy ” and culminate with the sounds of jazz, Latin, soul and blues performances on Sept. 9 along OB’s Newport Avenue.
The goal of Jazz Week, according to KSDS station manager Mark DeBoskey, is “to point out that jazz is a vital and important part of the culture of America and that it thrives in San Diego.”
The soulful jazz energy of piano and saxophone will resound all day at the Ocean Beach concert, which begins at noon with the locally based Jazz 88 All Stars and will run until about 7 p.m. Following the Jazz 88 All Stars, organist Joe Defrancesco will keep crowds swinging with his Hammond B-3 organ, a popular instrument in the 1960s that is now experiencing a revival.
Other acclaimed artists slated to perform include Grammy Award-winning conga player Pancho Sanchez, the Latin-themed Dave Pike Quartet with guitarists Mundell Lowe and blues artist Duke Robillard.
“He’ll wail, he’ll really electrify the crowd,” DeBoskey said of Robillard. “He has people on their feet from start to finish. Our goal was to keep people on their feet throughout the day, and this whole lineup is designed to do just that.”
The festival also pays tribute to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. The event will be broadcast to New Orleans that day on “Jazz and Heritage” station WWOZ 90.7 to the excitement of New Orleans and San Diego jazz aficionados alike.
KSDS first partnered with WWOZ in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s regional devastation, which forced the station to close in 2005.
KSDS asked members to donate a portion of the funds they would normally give to the local radio station to help WWOZ get back on the air.
“As a result, we’ve developed a friendship, a kinship with them, and they want to expose this festival to New Orleans,” DeBoskey said. “This is a partnership to make sure that jazz continues to thrive not just in San Diego, but in New Orleans, where hundreds of musicians are displaced from their homes.”
Participants in OB’s Jazz Festival may arrive after 11 a.m. on Sept. 9, and must be age 21 or older to enter. Jazz Festival admission ranges from a $35 general admission per person to the $500-per-couple festival patron package, which includes priority seating and free valet parking.
For more information about festival guidelines, or to purchase tickets, visit objazz.org.
Jazz fans who don’t make it to the OB Jazz Festival can participate in the festivities of the broader San Diego Jazz Week. The idea of celebrating the jazz tradition on the week of Sept. 4-9 originated in a Jazz Committee meeting of the OB MainStreet Association, according to the association’s executive director Denny Knox, who organized the official establishment of jazz week with the offices of District 2 City Councilman Kevin Faulconer and Mayor Jerry Sanders.
After two years holding the OB Jazz Festival, “We thought it would be nice to include other areas of San Diego,” Knox said.
Jazz Week’s forthcoming fanfare will sound off with the brassy tunes of Gilbert Castellanos & DJ Satch Boogie on Sept. 4 from 9 p.m. to midnight at the Onyx Room on 825 Fifth Ave. in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Wednesday, Sept. 5 will bring the all-star sextet Brasilia, slated to perform at 5:30 p.m. in the Copley Auditorium at the Museum of Art in Balboa Park.
The last musician to perform in this lead-up to the OB Jazz Festival will be singer/songwriter Bill Cantos, who plays two sets at 7:30 and 9:30 on Friday, Sept. 7 at Anthology, 1337 India St., in Little Italy.
In anticipation of all the jazz talent to be on display in San Diego this September, Knox says she hopes to extend the range of festivities to more local concert venues and even to schools in future years.
“This is the first year [of Jazz Week], but it will just get better and better,” she said.
“Hopefully, everybody who wants to do a good jazz venue will be able to post it on the [official] website and we can just make it a whole celebration.”
For more information about the specific venues of San Diego Jazz Week, visit www.sandiegojazzweek.org.