If there’s one musician who embodies the oversized influence of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival it’s guitarist Julian Lage.
The festival, launched in 1999 by jeweler Jessica Felix, has earned international renown by showcasing jazz legends like Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Fred Hersch, George Cables and Billy Hart. Felix had forged close friendships with many of these veteran masters in earlier decades when she helped lead organizations like Loft Jazz and Jazz In Flight, but Felix also has a keen ear for rising stars — like Lage.
A prodigy who displayed preternatural poise and talent before the age of 10, Lage made his first Healdsburg appearance in 2000 when tenor saxophonist/flutist Charles Lloyd invited the 12-year-old guitarist to sit in with his band. The Santa Rosa-raised Lage went on to become a Healdsburg mainstay, as did Lloyd.
In an exclusive, socially-distanced performance Sept. 26 from Healdsburg’s Paul Mahder Gallery, they rejoin forces in an all-star trio with tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. The ticketed event allows viewers to live-stream the performance, which will remain available for viewing over the next three days.
For Lage, who’s driving back to Sonoma County for the concert from his new home in Nashville (where he moved two months ago after a decade in New York City), performing with Lloyd in 2000 was “life changing. It was many years before we played again, but it felt like an experience that pointed the way. This is how it could be. I feel like I’ve been chasing what I hear in Charles’ music this whole time. It’s really an influence on me.”
At 82, Lloyd is an NEA Jazz Master whose music contains the deep feel for the blues he acquired growing up in Memphis and an ethereal, questing spirituality that made him a counterculture icon with his 1967 hit album “Forest Flower” (which was recorded at the Monterey Jazz Festival the previous year). Hussain, 69, is a singular force in the West and East as both the most acclaimed North Indian classical percussionist of his generation and an intrepid collaborator with similarly vaunted artists in jazz and European classical music.
Half a century younger than Lloyd, the 32-year-old Lage is the rare jazz artist who has found an audience outside the scene. Featuring his trio with Peruvian-born bassist Jorge Roeder and The Bad Plus drummer Dave King, Lage’s latest album, 2019’s “Love Hurts” (Mack Avenue), displays his nonpareil gift for melodic investigation on a program of his favorite songs.
The three musicians have never before performed together as a trio, and they’ll likely be in an exploratory mode, stretching out on loose themes and motifs. In many ways the concert is a parting gift from Felix, who announced last month that she is stepping down from her role as the festival’s artistic director at the end of September.
Growing up next door to Healdsburg, Lage knew that Felix had created something special, but it wasn’t until he started touring and performing at other music events that he understood the festival’s unique nature.
“Jessica’s got this incredible capacity to envision a really robust relationship between the community and the musicians,” Lage says. “She wants the audience to get something they’ve never had before.”
Felix’s openness to young artists eventually led to her cultivating a relationship with a worthy successor at Healdsburg Jazz. She first met bassist Marcus Shelby when drummer Billy Higgins recommended she book the rising young Los Angeles hard-bop combo Black/Note at Jazz In Flight’s Eddie Moore Jazz Festival in 1990.
Shelby moved to San Francisco in 1996, and gradually established himself as a composer, educator, arranger and bandleader with a powerful musical vision steeped in abolitionist and civil rights movement narratives. He’s been working closely with Felix for the past decade, presenting Black History Month programming in local schools and directing the 100-member Healdsburg Freedom Jazz Choir.
“What I feel really good about is his respect for what I’ve done and created,” Felix says. “Marcus will bring his own ideas, but he wants to honor that legacy of hospitality toward musicians and how we treat them. It’s a very important part of the festival.”
When first approached about the possibility of taking over the festival Shelby admits he was skeptical. He already had a full plate. But thinking about admittedly better known colleagues like Christian McBride and Wynton Marsalis, he started to reframe the position in terms of how he could make the biggest impact.
“I started thinking about the possibilities of developing programs, working with a wide spectrum of artists, expanding education ideas I’ve been executing in venues over the years,” says Shelby, 54. “I could see the opportunity to expand on ideas of how music and social movements are related.”
Taking over in the midst of a pandemic might actually work in his favor. Rather than plunging into the deep end and trying to book a full festival next year, he’ll ease into his programming responsibilities with smaller events. “Marcus is the perfect person for this job,” Felix says. “I couldn’t be more happy.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
HEALDSBURG JAZZ FESTIVAL
Presents Julian Lage, Charles Lloyd and Zakir Hussain in concert
When & where: Live-streamed 7 p.m. Sept. 26 at Paul Mahder Gallery in Healdsburg; available for viewing for 72 hours after performance.
Tickets: Suggested donation starts at $15; healdsburgjazz.org.
