Wednesday, April 9, 2025 — That includes a stellar roster of the world’s biggest jazz artists, the Stanford Jazz Competition 2025 celebrates the depth and variety of the up to date jazz scene, constructing on a half-century legacy of jazz preservation and innovation within the coronary heart of Northern California. With dozens of electrifying live shows on the Stanford College campus from June 22 by way of Aug. 1, the West Coast’s second longest-running jazz competition showcases a multi-generational forged of state-of-the-art improvisers encompassing the custom’s veteran masters, buzziest fashionable jazz artists, and rising musicians making their mark. Live shows might be held at Dinkelspiel Auditorium and Campbell Recital Corridor.
Kicking off the Stanford Jazz Competition 2025 is Berkeley saxophonist George Brooks, who has solid deep relationships with the world’s biggest Hindustani and Carnatic classical musicians. He returns to the SJF on Sunday, June 22 for the eleventh iteration of his Indian Jazz Journey showcase. The live performance reprises his Indo-jazz collaboration with celebrity vocalist Mahesh Kale, winner of India’s coveted Nationwide Movie Award because the Finest Playback Singer.
The official Friday evening (June 27) opening weekend of the competition brings New York piano maestro Fred Hersch to Dinkelspiel Auditorium. Hersch’s supremely lyrical trio that includes bass grasp Drew Gress and New Orleans drum star Joe Dyson continues Stanford Jazz Competition’s custom of internet hosting the jazz scene’s most celebrated working bands. The weekend continues with the quintet of New York trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, a broadly influential bandleader, mentor and jazz chronicler identified for his printed interviews with fellow improvisers.
The American Songbook’s important function in jazz is embodied by guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli, who performs together with his hard-swinging trio at Dinkelspiel on Saturday, July 12. His expansive tackle the pop music canon effortlessly encompasses Duke Ellington, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Joni Mitchell. Contemporary off of celebrating her fiftieth birthday at Jazz at Lincoln Heart, Israeli clarinet star Anat Cohen performs with Rio de Janeiro seven-string guitar virtuoso Marcello Gonçalves. A mainstay on the competition for the previous decade, Anat Cohen live performance signifies one of many many distinctive facets of SJF the place uncommon configurations of artists can solely be skilled on the competition. Cohen has solid deep ties with Brazil’s most interesting instrumentalists, and he or she revisits her partnership with Gonçalves at Dinkelspiel on Saturday, July 19.
The jazz scene’s profusion of sensible younger vibraphonists will be traced on to charismatic 30-year-old Joel Ross, a vaunted participant, composer and bandleader who brings his blazing Good Vibes quartet to Dinkelspiel on Thursday, July 24. The combo options rising stars Kanoa Mendenhall on bass, Jeremy Dutton on drums, and Paul Cornish on piano. Not too long ago signed to storied Blue Observe Information, Cornish makes his Bay Space debut as a bandleader at Campbell Recital Corridor on Sunday, July 27 together with his trio that includes Oakland-reared drummer Savannah Harris (a founding member of Christian McBride’s Ursa Main).
No vocalist on the up to date jazz scene has performed extra to distill the spirit of gospel in an improvisational context than the lustrous Lizz Wright. Possessing a sumptuously heat alto, the Chicago-based vocalist makes her SJF debut on Saturday, July 26 at Dinkelspiel, drawing on songs for her critically acclaimed 2024 album, Shadow. Few gamers have deeper ties to Stanford Jazz Workshop than piano grasp Taylor Eigsti, who’s contemporary off his second GRAMMY Award win (for his 2024 album Plot Armor). Eigsti makes his annual competition look at Dinkelspiel on Thursday, July 31 with an all-star quartet that includes Kneebody tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel and drummer Nate Wooden, and bassist Harish Raghavan.
Based in 1972 by saxophonist, arranger, and educator Jim Nadel, the SJF runs in tandem with the Stanford Jazz Workshop, an intensive summer season schooling program staffed with acclaimed musicians who’re additionally lots of the SJF’s featured performers. The synergy between the Workshop and the SJF manifests at each live performance, as all the scholars enrolled in a session obtain complimentary tickets, bringing an infusion of youth to the venues.
Now below the course of bassist/composer Cory Combs since 2024, the Competition continues to set a benchmark for presenting jazz’s most interesting practitioners. Combs brings a wealth of expertise to the group, together with his pivotal function as SFJAZZ’s Director of Training (2007-2011), when he was a part of the management crew that designed, deliberate, and launched the $60 million SFJAZZ Heart.
After six years because the founding director of outreach on the Nueva Faculty in San Mateo, the place he directed the Ok-12 music program and led the jazz ensemble, Combs took over as Government Director of InterMusic SF (2016-2023), creating and curating six annual SF Music Day festivals on the San Francisco Struggle Memorial. Underneath his course, InterMusic SF offered greater than $1 million in mission grant funding for lots of {of professional} musicians all through the Bay Space, together with quite a few commissions, premieres, recordings, and performances. In the course of the first years of the pandemic, he administered a reduction fund together with Theater Bay Space and Dancers Group that offered over $500,000 in help to out-of-work arts staff.
“Being a part of the Stanford Jazz Competition means curating extra than simply live shows — it’s about cultivating moments the place artistry, schooling, and group intersect,” says Cory Combs, Government Director, Stanford Jazz Workshop. “This 12 months’s competition lineup captures the unimaginable breadth of the jazz custom, and I’m regularly impressed by how these artists bridge generations and types, reminding us why jazz stays such a significant and evolving artwork kind.”
Stanford Jazz Competition 2025 — Artist Highlights
Fred Hersch Trio with Drew Gress and Joe Dyson
A choose member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch is a pervasively influential artistic pressure who has formed the music’s course over greater than three many years as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator and recording artist. The 17-time Grammy nominee continues including to his manifold honors, which embrace a Rockefeller Fellowship, grants from Chamber Music America, the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and 7 composition residencies on the MacDowell Colony. Famend for his breathtaking solo recitals and exploratory duo encounters, he’s greatest identified for main a collection of extravagantly lyrical trios. Bassist Drew Gress, an acclaimed bandleader and composer in his personal proper identified for his work with trumpeter Dave Douglas, guitarist John Abercrombie and pianist Uri Caine, has labored intermittently with Hersch because the early Nineteen Nineties. The longtime collaborators are joined by Joe Dyson, a consummate drummer who’s toured internationally with trumpeter Nicholas Payton and guitarist Pat Metheny.
Jeremy Pelt Quintet
A prodigious trumpeter, producer and composer who’s been on the middle of the New York jazz scene for 3 many years, Jeremy Pelt has launched greater than two dozen albums as a pacesetter and appeared on one other 5 dozen as a sideman with each veteran masters similar to Cedar Walton, Louis Hayes, and Wayne Shorter and contemporaries like Camille Thurman, Somi, and Jaleel Shaw. Embracing his function as a longtime veteran, he’s taken to mentoring youthful gamers whereas sharing knowledge from older cats in a collection of books compiling his interviews with jazz masters, Griots: Analyzing the Lives of Jazz’s Nice Storytellers. Possessing an enormous, heat sound, he’s turned his band right into a proving floor for rising jazz stars, with a very sharp deal with vibraphonists.
Anat Cohen & Marcello Gonçalves
On the forefront of a superb wave of Israeli musicians who swept throughout the New York jazz scene within the Nineteen Nineties, tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Anat Cohen has stayed within the vanguard with a constellation of bands, tasks and collaborations. Identified for her love and mastery of varied Brazilian types, she’s solid a very fruitful partnership with seven-string guitar maestro Marcello Gonçalves, beginning with the acclaimed duo mission Outra Coisa specializing in the ingenious compositions of Moacir Santos. Extra not too long ago they recorded the beautiful, Reconvexo, a savvy survey of música in style Brasileira (MPB) songbook requirements by the likes of Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil that includes her hovering clarinet work.
Lizz Wright
The farther Lizz Wright travels from her musical roots within the Black church the extra sustenance she appears to attract from the wealthy purple soil of her native Georgia. Possessing a luxurious alto brimming with grace and soul, she’s solid a welcoming sound she calls “nation jazz.” A part of what makes Wright such a robust singer, apart from the sheer jaw-dropping fantastic thing about her voice, is her reward for infusing even the earthiest materials with a glint of the elegant. For the reason that launch of her 2003 debut album, Salt, Wright has solid artistic alliances with equally soulful artists, from violinist Regina Carter and vocalist Gregory Porter to singer/songwriter Toshi Reagan and Beninese celebrity Angelique Kidjo, who joins her on the opening monitor of her current album, Shadow. It’s one other enthralling chapter in Wright’s uplifting journey.
Joel Ross: Good Vibes
Over the previous decade the jazz scene has skilled an unprecedented tide of world class vibraphonists, a surge led by Chicago-reared Joel Ross. After gaining consideration for his work with trumpeter Marquis Hill’s Blacktet, Ross had a breakout 12 months in 2018, contributing to a number of critically hailed albums by blazing younger innovators, together with drummer Makaya McCraven’s Common Beings and pianist James Francies’ Flight. However with the discharge of his debut album, KingMaker, on vaunted Blue Observe Information he established himself as a formidable composer and bandleader in his personal proper. The album launched his Good Vibes combo, a launching pad for a bevy of startlingly proficient younger gamers, like Monterey-raised bassist Kanoa Mendenhall and Jeremy Dutton, whose 2023 debut album as a pacesetter, Anybody is Higher Than Right here, featured Ross, and heavyweights similar to saxophonist Ben Wendel, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, and guitarist Mike Moreno. With rising piano star Paul Cornish, Good Vibes is just one of the thrilling working bands on the scene.
John Pizzarelli
Music has at all times been a household affair for the irresistibly swinging guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli. He got here up taking part in together with his father, the late jazz guitar nice Bucky Pizzarelli, who carried out into his 90s, and his brother bassist Martin Pizzarelli, who anchored his trio for greater than 20 years. Whether or not he’s celebrating Nat “King” Cole, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles or Jobim, Pizzarelli interprets the fabric with insouciant panache, swinging persuasively with wit and pleasure. His current album, Higher Days Forward, a solo sojourn into the music of Pat Metheny, supplied a complete new take a look at his guitar prowess.
Paul Cornish
Even informal observers of the Bay Space music scene might need taken be aware of Paul Cornish, the Houston-reared, Los Angeles based mostly pianist who’s been touring broadly with sax star Joshua Redman. Not too long ago signed to Blue Observe Information, Cornish is beginning to make a reputation for himself as a pacesetter in his personal proper, which makes his Bay Space debut below his personal title a very thrilling growth. His trio options Oakland-reared drummer Savannah Harris, a commanding accompanist who’s spent the previous few years touring with Cécile McLorin Salvant and Christian McBride’s Ursa Main quintet.
Taylor Eigsti & Ben Wendel
A toddler prodigy who has lived as much as his vaunted promise, Taylor Eigsti not too long ago received his second GRAMMY Award for his 2024 album, Plot Armor, a fantastically crafted mission that includes a lot of his closest mates and collaborators, like Kneebody saxophonist Ben Wendel and bassist Harish Raghavan. He’s been a mainstay on the competition for the previous quarter century, turning his annual live shows into revelatory glimpses at his upcoming instructions and tasks. With drummer Nate Wooden, the multi-instrumental motor of Kneebody, powering the proceedings, Eigsti and Wendel need to discover current authentic compositions and tunes by the artists who’ve influenced and formed them.
Stanford Jazz Competition (June 22 – August 1, 2025)
Sunday, June 22, 2025 — Indian Jazz Journey that includes Mahesh Kale and George Brooks — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Friday, June 27, 2025 — Fred Hersch Trio — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Saturday, June 28, 2025 — Jeremy Pelt Quintet — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Sunday, June 29, 2025 — Tiffany Austin presents Sassy: 100 Years of Sarah Vaughan — Campbell Recital Corridor
Sunday, July 06, 2025 — Ken Peplowski: The Unheard Chook — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Friday, July 11, 2025 — Jaz Sawyer: Tribute to Artwork Blakey & The Jazz Messengers — Campbell Recital Corridor
Saturday, July 12, 2025 — Early Chook Jazz for Children with Dr. Dave Hart & the Zookeepers — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Saturday, July 12, 2025 — John Pizzarelli — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Sunday, July 13, 2025 — Sam Reider w/ Spaghetti ft. Jim Campilongo, Scott Amendola, Mat Muntz — Campbell Recital Corridor
Monday, July 14, 2025 — Caili O’Doherty: Suite for Gearoidin — Campbell Recital Corridor
Tuesday, July 15, 2025 — Luther Allison Sextet — Campbell Recital Corridor
Wednesday, July 16, 2025 — Ruth Davies’ Blues Evening with Chris Cain — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Thursday, July 17, 2025 — An Night with Victor Lin: Music of Studio Ghibli — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Saturday, July 19, 2025 — Anat Cohen & Marcello Gonçalves — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Sunday, July 20, 2025 — John Santos Quintet with Particular Visitor Yilian Cañizares — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Monday, July 21, 2025 — Rising Stars: The SJW Mentor Fellows — Campbell Recital Corridor
Tuesday, July 22, 2025 — Noah Garabedian Quintet that includes Valerie Troutt — Campbell Recital Corridor
Wednesday, July 23, 2025 — Tammy L. Corridor — Campbell Recital Corridor
Thursday, July 24, 2025 — Joel Ross: Good Vibes — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Saturday, July 26, 2025 — Lizz Wright — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Sunday, July 27, 2025 — Paul Cornish Trio — Campbell Recital Corridor
Monday, July 28, 2025 — Dena DeRose Trio — Campbell Recital Corridor
Tuesday, July 29, 2025 — George Cables and Pals — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Wednesday, July 30, 2025 — Dayna Stephens — Campbell Recital Corridor
Thursday, July 31, 2025 — Taylor Eigsti Quartet that includes Ben Wendel — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
Friday, August 1, 2025 — SJW All-Star Jam — Dinkelspiel Auditorium
A whole record of the Stanford Jazz Competition live shows and occasions will be discovered at
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About Stanford Jazz Competition
Over the previous 53 years, the Stanford Jazz Competition has persistently introduced the best performers on the scene. Audiences have heard legendary performances by Dizzy Gilespie, McCoy Tyner, and Stan Getz, together with virtuosic fashionable masters like Joshua Redman, Terence Blanchard, and Taylor Eigsti. The Competition is exclusive and adventurous, presenting over 30 celebrated artists and bands over seven weeks. From family-friendly matinees to groundbreaking premieres, the Stanford Jazz Competition proudly retains the torch of dwell jazz burning vivid.
