2023 Lineup / Sunday Aug 13

Full Spectrum Big Band Jazz has delighted audiences with traditional and modern big band sounds since 1996. Performance styles range from laid-back Count Basie swing to poly-rhythmic modern Latin. FSJ has a diverse catalog of exceptional music, including original compositions and venerable jazz standards.

Directed by musician/educator “Mr. Clifford” Samoranos, Summer Fest presents the youngest group of gifted young musicians that embody the enduring American legacy of Jazz. The group will perform their interpretations of timeless musical compositions.

Composer, bassist and educator Marcus Shelby formed his namesake orchestra in 1999 to give proper voice to his compositions that modernized the big band idiom. For this set the latest incarnation of the band performs with longtime collaborator Tiffany Austin, of whom DownBeat said: “West Coast vocal jazz simply gets no better than Tiffany Austin.”

The SOJ Big Band was formed almost 20 years ago in the south San Francisco Bay Area to play big band arrangements of gospel and swing, Latin, R&B and jazz tunes.

Veronica Swift took the jazz world by storm following her debut album, 2019’s Confessions. Having made her mark as one of the star jazz vocalists of her era, she has now expanded her style, bringing to Summer Fest material from her upcoming album TransGenre, mixing bebop with classical, rock and soul, and showcasing the dynamic power of her performances.

Footnotes Jazz Band is a San Francisco Bay Area ensemble that showcases contemporary and original big band jazz. Its founding members once played together in the Foothill College jazz program, before going independent under the leadership of Lori Stotko.

Club Mambí is the creation of the Cuban trumpet player and percussionist Onier Bacallao, based in Los Angeles — now featuring the singer Maga Shukar, who brings original pieces to their beloved salsa repertoire. All the band members have Latin roots and have travelled the world to bring fresh, original vibes to the Latin scene.

Patrice Rushen is one of the most sought after R&B artists in the music industry–a three-time Grammy Award nominee who has composed scores for movies and television. Her song “Forget Me Nots” was famously sampled by Will Smith and earned her a nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in 1983.

The NASA Ames Jazz Band (AJB) is the large ensemble of the “Jazz Band” Club of the NASA Ames Exchange.  The group’s eighteen musicians are drawn from the Ames community, as well as from the local Bay Area.

San Miguel Perez is an exceptional Cuban artist based in Los Angeles. Born in Cuba, he was part of the New Generation of the famous Buena Vista Social Club as well as the best Salsa band for the island, Adalberto Alvarez Y Su Son.

Two-time Grammy winner Gregory Porter’s bone-deep baritone has no equal. Porter, who grew up singing in the church of his poor Bakersfield neighborhood and then in New York’s jazz clubs as he worked as a chef during the day, now performs his spellbinding discography in front of audiences who gasp with disbelief.

The Swing Solution is a classic big band specializing in music from the ’40s through the swing revival of the ’90s and beyond.

Telmary is one of Cuba’s leading, cutting edge hip-hop and urban music artists. Her study of English, theater, and writing informed her work in the Havana music scene during the late ’90s and early 2000s. She has four solo albums, including the Latin Grammy-nominated Fuerza Arará, and Libre, awarded the 2014 Cubadisco Prize for Best Hip-Hop Recording.

MAE.SUN, also known as Hailey Niswanger, is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer whose music pushes boundaries and defies genres. In 2016, Hailey founded MAE.SUN as an outgrowth of her jazz studies and began to channel music that was inspired by a multitude of influences and sounds.