The first Vancouver Wine & Jazz Festival in the #MeToo era will be headlined by three groundbreaking women.
Opening night is New Orleans blues pianist and singer Marcia Ball. Night No. 2 is Grammy-winning jazz and R&B singer Patti Austin. And, closing night is superstar folk-pop balladeer (and Seattle native) Judy Collins. The festival is set for Aug. 24, 25 and 26 in Vancouver’s Esther Short Park.
“Each year at the Jazz Festival we create a theme,” said artistic director Michael Kissinger. “This year, the theme is ‘The Power of Women,’ and we will feature major female performers as headline musicians each night.”
Other major acts at the festival will run the gamut of jazz and blues styles, including the Pete Escovedo Latin Jazz Orchestra; jazz and blues guitarist Coco Montoya; fusion jazz group the Lao Tizer Band; multiple Grammy winner the John Jorgenson Gypsy Jazz Band and more. (More acts are still being lined up, and the whole festival hasn’t been programmed yet.) The event will also feature a student Jazz Education Stage, performances by the US Army I Corps Jazz Band, and regional jazz and blues bands from Seattle, Portland and Spokane.
If You Go
• What: Grace Kelly Quartet.
• When: 3:30 p.m. June 3.
• Where: St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 426 E. Fourth Plain Blvd., Vancouver.
• Tickets: $30.
• Contact: www.bravoconcerts.com or 360-906-0441
• • •
• What: Vancouver Wine & Jazz Festival.
• When: Aug. 24, 25, 26.
• Where: Esther Short Park, downtown Vancouver.
• Tickets: On sale soon at $15 for Friday, $25 for Saturday, $20 for Sunday.
• Contact: www.vancouverwinejazz.com
Tickets will go on sale sometime over Memorial Day weekend, according to Kissinger. Watch the www.vancouverwinejazz.com website for updates.
Bravo! preview
Meanwhile, if you want to whet your appetite for this powerfully female music fest, look no farther than a June 3 Bravo! concert by saxophonist and singer Grace Kelly.
Kelly is an especially unusual figure in the male-dominated world of hardcore jazz: She’s a bandleader and arranger, a composer and producer, and an award-winning alto sax talent.
She’s also Korean-American (her birth name was Grace Chang) and young. Kelly, who turns 26 years old this month, went pro at age 14 and has released 10 albums.
She’s collaborated with the likes of Wynton Marsalis and the late Dave Brubeck, among many others, and performed at President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
“We really kick off jazz festival season with Grace, and it really is multi-generational,” said Kissinger. “She’s the young millennial. Then you’ve got Marcia Ball and Patti Austin,” busy working musicians who are at the height of their powers in their late 60s.
And then there’s Judy Collins, “who is turning 80 this year, and who has been an icon of American music for decades,” he said.
