Stanford Jazz Festival kicks off six weeks of shows with a weekend of engaging musical pairings

If jazz is like a musical conversation, then what do you call an event that brings together almost 150 jazz musicians for 30 performances? Maybe that’s like a marathon cocktail party featuring some of the best conversationalists around, and ones who keep finding new and fascinating things to say. Luckily that party — better known as the Stanford Jazz Festival — is right here on the Peninsula. The 51st edition of the festival kicks off a month and a half of concerts on the Stanford University campus with a trio of lively shows June 23-25.

The jumping-off point for so much engaging musical conversation comes from the festival’s unique foundation. The festival evolved out of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, which provides educational programming for young musicians, and that framework that still shapes the festival each year.

“For me, the heart and soul of the Stanford Jazz Workshop is that musicians gather on campus to play music and to exchange information and ideas, to teach younger people and to share their knowledge,” said Jim Nadel, Stanford Jazz Workshop founder and artistic director.

The Stanford Jazz Workshop offers a variety of summer programs for middle school and high school student musicians and some programs for adults. They are taught by a faculty made up of top jazz musicians from around the U.S. and the world who also perform during the six weeks of the Stanford Jazz Festival, often in new configurations with other musicians or sometimes in special collaborations.

Nadel described the atmosphere as a “community.” He said that students are inspired by opportunities to interact with top-tier jazz musicians whom it would be rare for them to meet outside the workshop, but that as faculty members, those musicians also can find a creative spark in teaching and performing in such a unique environment.

“The faculty is playing concerts — quite often they’re the inspiration for the students. They know that people are listening to them carefully. They’re inspired by the energy of the students and their interest and passion. And because of the breadth of the educational concept, it includes visions from all different styles and genres. That creates a very inspiring environment for students to operate in,” Nadel said.

In planning each summer, Nadel said he’ll reach out to artists that he’d love to work with and invite them to be part of the faculty, but that he also looks to bring in other musicians who complement that artist’s style, as well as some who contrast with it.

“You build a faculty to represent different points of view,” Nadel said.

With three very different shows, the Stanford Jazz Festival’s opening weekend offers a good representation of the variety and unique pairings that audiences have come to expect from the festival.

Seven-time Grammy Award-winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, joined by his E-Collective and the Turtle Island String Quartet, take the stage at Bing Concert Hall June 24 in the festival’s big opening night show.

Among Blanchard’s recent projects are writing two jazz operas as well as film scores, including the score for “The Woman King.” He was recently named executive artistic director of SFJAZZ.

“He has different kinds of ensembles because he does so many different projects. This particular one he’s toured with a lot, so they’ve really honed their group interaction,” Nadel said of the E-Collective.

Especially fitting for opening night, Nadel pointed out that several artists performing in the E-Collective are Stanford Jazz Workshop alums who have gone on to highly successful careers and have also returned to teach and perform at the workshop and festival.

The E-Collective includes Menlo Park-born pianist Taylor Eigsti, who won his first Grammy last year, and Grammy-nominated guitarist Charles Altura, also from the Bay Area and a Stanford graduate. (During the festival, Altura also performs July 17 with the futuristic electronic group Pluto Juice and will be in the lineup performing with Eigsti in an Aug. 1 show featuring the Taylor Eigsti Group. The following day, Aug. 2, Eigsti performs as part of the Terrell Stafford Quintet).

In addition, the concert features an unexpected element in a jazz lineup: a string quartet. But Turtle Island String Quartet, headed by David Balakrishnan, has made a name in crossover music.

“It’s interesting that (Blanchard) would add to something very contemporary, with sophisticated contemporary rhythms, and add a string quartet that has also been exploring and groundbreaking in the way they approached music. So that’s a fantastic combination,” Nadel said.

Along with Blanchard’s own compositions, part of the program will pay tribute to the music of legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who died in March.

On the following day, June 25, the “Indian Jazz Journey” show draws on the festival’s longtime tradition of presenting theme nights, according to Nadel.

“We have a couple of theme nights because we have a very broad interpretation of what’s jazz. We don’t want to present just one style of jazz,” he said.

The concert pairs Indian classical vocalist Mahesh Kale with tenor saxophonist George Brooks. It’s not the first time the two have collaborated — in fact Kale’s North American debut was a collaboration with Brooks at the 2016 festival. The concert brings together two musical styles that incorporate improvisation.

“Mahesh Kale is amazing — I think this might be the third or fourth year in a row we’ve had him back. He’s one of the greatest singers of our time in the classical Indian style and he’s like a rock star,” Nadel said.

Brooks’ career has focused over the past few decades on such collaborations with artists from the Hindustani and Carnatic Indian musical traditions and has also taken part in similar themed concerts at the festival, including a collaboration with percussionist Zakir Hussain.

“(Brooks) really has an understanding of the common elements of the two styles of music,” Nadel said

Though Blanchard, his E-Collective and the Turtle Island String Quartet headline the festival’s official opener on Saturday, audiences can get a head start the day before, on June 23 with “Jazz Inside Out,” a concert that aims to give listeners some insight into how jazz is played. And they can catch Nadel, a saxophonist, in action, as well.

He and an ensemble perform a regular concert, except that they stop to take questions at the end of every song — and a question that frequently comes up in some form is about how jazz is organized.

Unlike classical music in which musicians are following the sheet music all together, Nadel pointed out, how jazz unfolds is purposely different.

“In jazz music, there might be a left turn and the song continues on a different path and still reaches the same destination,” Nadel said. “We’re constantly conversing musically, and aware (of each other) and interacting.”

The “Jazz Inside Out” concert aims to help audiences get to know and perhaps even spot this important dynamic in performances.

“We’re talking to audience members who know what they hear, who know what they

like, but also we start to show them some of the tacit agreements that musicians are making that make the music so thrilling. With jazz you have to have an opening to find that sound of surprise, there has to be something unpredictable that can enter into the musical conversation,” Nadel said.

The Stanford Jazz Festival takes place June 23-Aug. 5 at various venues on the Stanford University campus. stanfordjazz.org.

Look for additional coverage of Stanford Jazz Festival shows in upcoming issues.

Look for additional coverage of Stanford Jazz Festival shows in upcoming issues.

Look for additional coverage of Stanford Jazz Festival shows in upcoming issues.

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