Angel City Arts and the Jazz Bakery in association with Icons Among Us®: jazz in the present tense, present the sixth annual Angel City Jazz Festival October 4- 13 with performances at Center for the Art of Performance – UCLA (Royce Hall), LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), REDCAT, The Colburn School’s Zipper Hall, and the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The theme for this year’s festival is “Metamorphosis: Artists on the Cutting Edge of Change.”
There will be six concerts and three film screenings, with selected filmmaker/artist Q&As, during the first two weekends in October featuring live performances by: The Robert Glasper Experiment, Dave Holland Prism, the Greg Osby Group with special guest Anat Cohen, John Scofield’s Überjam Band, Kneebody, Nicole Mitchell’s Sun Dial Ensemble, the Dafnis Prieto Sextet, Yosvany Terry Quintet, the Claudia Quintet, the trio of Jim Black, Tim Lefebvre & Chris Speed, the Richard Sears Quartet with special guest Albert “Tootie” Heath, and the winners of the 2013 Angel City Arts Young Artists Competition.
Jazz never stands still. It’s constantly evolving and reinventing itself. While some festivals nostalgically look back, Angel City unapologetically looks forward to encourage and embrace the metamorphosis of the genre. Although a cradle to 1960s innovators such as Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and Charles Lloyd, Los Angeles never consistently hosted a festival dedicated to post-traditional improvisation until innovator Rocco Somazzi founded The Angel City Jazz Festival in 2008. The Angel City Jazz Festival has helped establish L.A. as a jazz destination through five years of concerts featuring artists such as Bill Frisell, Archie Shepp, Bennie Maupin, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Vijay Iyer, Ravi Coltrane, Nels Cline, Myra Melford, Tigran Hamasyan, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and many others. In 2011 the Jazz Bakery became co-presenter of the festival with Angel City Arts.
The first weekend of the festival will kick off Friday October 4th at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) with a free concert featuring Nicole Mitchell’s Sun Dial Ensemble, and the winners of the 2013 Young Artists Competition. The music continues Saturday October 5th at Royce Hall with John Scofield’s Überjam, and Dave Holland Prism featuring pianist Craig Taborn, and guitarist Keven Eubanks. The festival’s flagship event at the stunning and historic John Anson Ford Theater will be Sunday October 6th with the Greg Osby Band and special guest Anat Cohen, The Yosvany Terry Quintet, Kneebody, and The Richard Sears Group with special guest Albert “Tootie” Heath. The Sears group will be performing an exciting new composition commissioned by the Los Angeles Jazz Society. There will also be showings of the first two episodes of the documentary series, Icons Among Us®: jazz in the present tense at the Ford’s (inside) the Ford Theater.
The second weekend begins with the first of two concerts at Disney Hall’s REDCAT Theater. Friday October 11th features a double bill with the Claudia Quintet and the trio of Jim Black, Tim Lefebvre and Chris Speed. Saturday October 12th brings the Robert Glasper Experiment to Zipper Hall at the Colburn School of Music. Mr. Glasper will play full two sets of music with a screening of Episode 3 of “Icons Among Us” in between. Sunday’s October 13th concert, made possible by a grant from Chamber Music America, featuring the Dafnis Prieto Sextet at REDCAT will close the festival. The final two concerts are produced in association with the Jazz Bakery.
Icons Among Us®: jazz in the present tense, the critically acclaimed feature film and four-part worldwide television series will present three episode screenings at the 2013 Angel City Jazz Festival. The screenings will be paired with live performances by featured artists from the series including: Greg Osby and Anat Cohen performing at The Ford Theaters on Sunday, October 6th and The Robert Glasper Experiment performing on Saturday, October 12th at Zipper Hall. All in conjunction with the series’ Video On Demand launch via digital entertainment curator FilmBuff. The series explores contemporary jazz luminaries including Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Wayne Shorter, Robert Glasper, Dianne Reeves, Bill Frisell, Greg Osby, Anat Cohen, Dafnis Prieto, Mesdeski, Martin, Wood and Scofield and many others. Also, slated for festival’s activities is the announcement of the final stage of the trans-media platform, the Icons Among Us Digital Archive which will enable web access to virtually all of the underlying source materials (interviews and full-length performances) for the four-part series and feature film.
The Los Angeles Times called the Icons Among Us “provocative” and NPR Music says “(Icons) depicts jazz as a living, breathing and ever-evolving musical art form, and above all, exposes more people to some of the best jazz artists around today” while All About Jazz hails it as “without a doubt the best series on jazz that’s ever been produced.”
Friday October 4th:
LA County Museum of Art – 5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles 90036 – 323-857-6000
6:00 PM – Winners of the Angel City Jazz Young Artist Competition
7:00 PM – Nicole Mitchell Sun Dial Ensemble
Saturday October 5th (in association with CAP UCLA)
UCLA – Royce Hall 340 Royce Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095 – 800-842-9750
8:00 PM – Dave Holland Prism (featuring Kevin Eubanks and Craig Taborn) and John Scofield’s Überjam Band
Sunday October 6th:
John Anson Ford Amphitheater – 2580 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, 90068 – 323-461-3673
5:00 PM – Richard Sears Group featuring Albert Tootie Heath
6:15 PM – Kneebody
7:30 PM – Yosvany Terry Quintet
8:45 PM – Greg Osby group with special guest Anat Cohen
Film Screenings (inside) at the Ford:
Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense
4:00 PM Episode 1 – A Quiet Revolution (filmmaker and featured artist Q&A)
5:45 PM Episode 2 – 12 Notes in Real Time (filmmaker and featured artist Q&A)
Friday October 11th
REDCAT 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 213-237-2800
8:00 PM Jim Black, Tim Lefebvre & Chris Speed
9:30 PM The Claudia Quintet
Saturday October 12th (presented by the Jazz Bakery)
Zipper Auditorium 200 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 310 795-4280
7:30 PM The Robert Glasper Experiment
8:45 PM Icons Among Us: Episode 3 – In the Spirit of Family
10:00 PM The Robert Glapser Experiment
Sunday October 13th (presented by the Jazz Bakery)
REDCAT 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 213 237-2800
7:30 PM Dafnis Prieto Sextet
For more information on the Angel City Jazz Festival and to purchase event tickets please visit http://www.angelcityjazz.com/.