Many musicians say blues is integral to jazz, and organizers at the SF Jazz Center indicate they agree by including the Mark Hummel Blues Harmonica Blowout to its 2013-14 lineup, announced July 16.
Hummel will perform five shows, Jan. 9-12, in the new venue at San Francisco’s Hayes Valley. He will be joined by harmonica players-singers Curtis Salgado, John Mayall, Rick Estrin and guitarist Little Charlie Baty in a tribute to Sonny Boy Williamson II.
The season opens Sept. 5, the first of four nights with the quartet of Terence Blanchard, Ravi Coltrane, Lionel Loueke and Kendrick Scott. Tickets go on sale July 23 at www.SFJAZZ.org.
“Our 30-year dream to build a home for jazz in San Francisco came to fruition with the opening of our beautiful new center last January and its success has exceeded our hopes and expectations,” said Executive Director Randall Kline. “We sold out more than 50 shows, doubled our membership to more than 7,000, and earned rave reviews from fans, musicians, and the media. We are excited to now present the organization’s most ambitious and expansive season of programming.”
Hummel emailed Tahoe Onstage he is happy to be a part of it.
“Luckily, the new buyer is a big fan of the ‘Blowouts’ since he formally booked Yoshi’s,” he wrote. “I listen to just as much jazz as blues but I do feel jazz owes much to blues. All my favorite jazz artists were heavily bluesy — Basie, McDuff, Bird, Billie, Duke, Donald Byrd, Ella and plenty others. Our tribute will be to Sonny Boy 2 (Rice Miller), who Mayall took lessons from and who actually played a live recording with Roland Kirk in Europe in 1963.”
The SFJAZZ Center is at the corner of Franklin and Fell streets.
