Henry Grimes | Photo: Nick Ruechel
The Angel City Jazz Festival—which kicks off on Saturday for a week-long run—is a non-commercial jazz and new music festival featuring the music of both established and emerging jazz artists. A number of CalArts faculty, alumni and visiting artists are included in the festival’s lineup.
On Saturday night, Henry Grimes & Friends take to the REDCAT stage for his first appearance in Los Angeles since 2004. Grimes’ personal story is one of triumph and rediscovery. In the 1950s and 60s, the bassist (and now violinist) toured and recorded with a number of jazz legends, including Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor.
Playing with Grimes on Saturday evening are friends Alex Cline, Ben Rosenbloom, Dwight Trible and CalArts faculty members Vinny Golia and Wadada Leo Smith.
Listen to “Rapid Transit,” a song from Grimes’ latest CD Spirits Aloft (Porter Records, 2010) which he made in collaboration with the jazz drummer Rasheid Ali before he passed away last year.
Rapid Transit by Henry Grimes and Rasheid Ali
Other Angel City Jazz highlights:
- Headlining the festival’s show at the John Ford Amphitheater on Oct. 3 is Ravi Coltrane (Music BFA 90) who’s joined by Steve Haas on drums, Ralph Alessi (Music MFA 90) on trumpet, and music faculty members Larry Koonse and Darek “Oles” Oleszkiewicz (Music BFA 91)
- Also playing at the Ford on Oct. 3 are Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet with Vijay Iyer; Vinny Golia’s Sextet (Gavin Templeton [Music MFA 08], Dan Rosenboom, Alex Noice [Music MFA 08], Jon Armstrong [Music MFA 08] and Andrew Lessman [Music BFA 09]); and the genre-bending Kneebody that features Nate Wood (Music BFA 01) on drums.
- There’s a special event that combines food, music and performance at Royal-T in Culver City on Oct. 4. Chefs and performers will improvise and respond to each other, creating both artistic and culinary works. The video work of Carole Kim (Film/Video MFA 03) will be featured at the event.
- On Oct. 7, LACMA hosts the world premiere of the CD/book project Dirty Baby, a reconceptualizing of LA artist Ed Ruscha’s (Chouinard 56) “censor strip” paintings on Oct. 7 at the Bing Auditorium. Ruscha’s works will be projected while Nels Cline leads two ensembles in performance of his composition while poet David Breskin reads his ghazals. The event is free, but reservations are highly recommended.
Festival passes and individual concert tickets are available for these events. For detailed information, please visit Angel City Jazz Festival.