2015 Lineup / Trending

2021 Grammy winner Ledisi is a twelve time Grammy nominated powerhouse vocalist with a career spanning almost two decades. Since arriving on the scene in the late 1990’s, she’s garnered three Soul Train Music awards, an NAACP Theater Award and six NAACP Image Award nominations.

Durand Jones & The Indications are equally beloved for their energetic, joyous shows, dual lead singers, and thoughtful songwriting. From an Indiana basement (where the band recorded their 2016 self-titled debut LP as college students), the band has catapulted into the soul limelight and onto an international stage.

For 60 years, South Africa’s five-time Grammy Award winners Ladysmith Black Mambazo has warmed the hearts of audiences worldwide with uplifting vocal harmonies, signature dance moves and charming onstage banter, all while singing a message of peace, love and harmony.

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.

The winner of the 2006 Bay Area Blues Society West Coast Blues Band of the Year award, JC Smith is an energetic and charismatic guitarist and singer, who attacks the blues as if he is being guided by the masters like T-Bone Walker, Albert King, and Johnnie Guitar Watson.

The Urban Renewal Project is a sixteen-piece collective known for its genre-bending original music combining elements of jazz, hiphop and vintage soul, and its explosive live performances that have captivated audiences from SXSW to the Java Jazz Festival.

Louisiana native Curley Taylor began his professional career at 16 playing drums in his father’s band, Jude Taylor and the Burning Flames, deep in Louisiana blues, soul and zydeco. By 25, he had played with Louisiana legends including CC Adcock, Steve Riley and CJ Chenier, son of the “King of Zydeco” Clifton Chenier.

The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco (LJYE) is a performing group of talented musicians ages ten to 18. The ensemble is celebrating 21 years of providing students the opportunity to learn Latin jazz and perform at public venues while on full scholarships.

Four-time Grammy Award Winner Stanley Clarke has attained “living legend” status during his over 50-year career as a bass virtuoso. He is the first bassist in history who doubles on acoustic and electric bass with equal ferocity and the first jazz-fusion bassist ever to headline tours, selling out shows worldwide.

The Serenaders band was originally formed in 1983 and has been active in various forms ever since. Although the band has always highlighted jazz standards from the proverbial Great American Songbook, it has evolved to include big band and swing versions of contemporary jazz and popular music.

Soul music pours out of Lee Fields, as free and unstinting as God’s love. It has ever since the 1960s, when he was a teenager in North Carolina sweating it out on juke joint stages, crumpled dollars hailing at his feet.

Fused with the contemporary rhythms of modern Latin music – Salsa, Bachata, Timba, Cha Cha Cha, Bolero, and Latin Jazz – Son Habana crafts a distinct sound that serves as a new identity for Cuban music.

Alabama Mike is a hard-driving blues singer who will remind you of the early original blues legends, you may have heard on the Chess, Duke, Trumpet and Galaxy Record labels, and even maybe some Elmore James, Buddy Guy, Little Junior Parker, Little Johnny Taylor, and BB King (in his early years).

Formed by Cuban singer, songwriter and percussionist Mario “Mayito” Salomón, Timbeko incorporates elements of R&B, gospel, jazz and funk into the sounds of popular Cuban Salsa, also known as Timba.

With more than three decades of touring and fourteen previous albums, master blues guitarist and vocalist Chris Cain has earned his reputation as a musician’s musician. Since his first release in 1987, Cain has created his very own blues sound inspired by his heroes—B.B. King, Albert King, Ray Charles, Albert Collins, Grant Green and Wes Montgomery.

Led by percussionist Carlitos Medrano, Sabor De Mi Cuba fuses Medrano’s Afro-Cuban roots with a world music flourish. Since 2012, the group has been a vehicle for his own compositions and arrangements.

Orquesta Borinquen features some of the youngest and most talented musicians in the Bay Area salsa scene today. Lead and directed by Bill Ortega Jr., Borinquen always puts on an electrifying show and then some.

Inspired by bands and individuals such as Ray Barretto, Tito Puente, Willie Rosario, Eddie Palmieri and many others, Orquesta Taino has developed into one of the most solid, hard-hitting salsa bands in the Bay Area.