Tucson's 2024 music festival season kicks off with jazz

Not just a party for jazz fans, the festival’s Executive Director Khris Dodge pointed out; a party for Tucson.

The theme for this year’s festival Jan. 12-20 is “Join the Party,” which Dodge said is the festival’s way of throwing out the welcome mat to jazz fans and novices alike.

“We want to be inviting to obviously our greater public, especially for those who have not experienced the festival before,” he said. “We can celebrate music and have that sense of community and enjoy live music together.”

Tucson Jazz Festival with big-name headliners 10-time Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue kicks off the busy Tucson music festival season that runs through the spring.

Tucson Desert Song Festival Jan. 14-Feb. 15 overlaps and intersects with the Jazz Festival. The Song Festival’s spring leg is March 2-April 9.

The 16th annual Gem & Jam Festival, held during the Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase, returns to the Pima County Fairgrounds Feb. 2-4.

Arizona Friends of Chamber Music hosts its 30th annual Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival March 3-10 at downtown’s Leo Rich Theater.

The Tucson Folk Festival, one of the longest-running free folk festivals in the country, puts on its 39th event April 5-7 downtown.

This is the third jazz festival Dodge has programmed since he took the reigns of the event, launched by Elliott Glicksman and the late Yvonne Erving.

For the past decade, January has been jazz month in Tucson, with some of the world’s biggest names descending for concerts and jam sessions at a handful of big and small venues mostly downtown.

In addition to Sandoval, who Dodge described as “a walking, living legend, and he’s going to to be here,” the 2024 lineup includes Tucson’s own Calexico joining the Tucson Symphony Orchestra at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall and 2Saxy Grace Kelly + Leo P at 191 Toole on Jan. 13; Diego Figueiredo and Ken Peplowski (2 p.m.) and Emmet Cohen Trio with Lewis Nash and the Soul Jazz All-Stars (7:30 p.m.) Jan. 14 at the Rialto Theatre; Sean Mason Quartet at the Century Room and Delbert Anderson Quartet at Bahti Indian Arts Jan. 16; Melanie Scholtz and Aaron Rimbui “Reflections on Mama Africa” at the Century Room and Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott) at Fox Tucson Theatre Jan. 18; and Cécile McLorin Salvant at Centennial Hall Jan. 19.

The festival’s closing day, Jan. 20, features five concerts: artists on Blue Note Records’ roster celebrate the label’s 85th anniversary at Fox Tucson Theatre; the traditional pop/vocal jazz ensemble Black Market Trust plays the Congress Plaza Stage; New York jazz bassist and composer Linda May Han Oh and her quintet are at the Century Room; Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue are at Fox Tucson Theatre; and Tucson’s own Brice Winston Quartet does the late night shift at the Century Room.

Dodge said that in its first decade, the HSL Tucson Jazz Festival has gained a good reputation with big names in jazz.

“People like to come to Tucson,” he said. “Tucson is a place where artists want to come. It’s a fun city to perform in. We have great crowds. It’s one of the top 10 places to come for live music in the U.S. … I expect attendance records to be broken this year and this will be the biggest festival we’ve ever had.”

A few new things at this year’s festival include:

A handful of Tucson restaurants will create special jazz festival cocktails and/or dishes throughout the event in a collaboration with the restaurants, the festival and Tucson Foodie. For a list of restaurants, visit tucsonjazzfestival.org/tucson-restaurants.

“I love the creativity that food artists will put into something like that,” Dodge said. “It’s very much parallel to jazz music itself. You can feel that energy, that synergy. That’s what we’re trying to create.”

The free Downtown Jazz Fiesta on Jan. 15 moves to Corbett’s, 340 N. Sixth Ave. Dodge said the new venue, which will feature two stages, offers more convenient parking and access than past years when the fiesta was centered directly downtown.

“It will be just a great experience,” he said.

Ticket prices vary by event and are available online at tucsonjazzfestival.org/get-jazz-festival-tickets.

Venues include: 191 Toole, 191 E. Toole Ave.; Hotel Congress (Plaza Stage, Century Room), 311 E. Congress St.; Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St.; Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd., on the University of Arizona Campus; Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress St.; Bahti Indian Arts, 4330 N. Campbell Ave. in St. Philip’s Plaza; Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.; and the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.

For a complete lineup and schedules, visit tucsonjazzfestival.org.

Tucson Desert Song Festival

The folks behind the Tucson Desert Song Festival created a spring leg last year to accommodate the Grammy-winning soprano Angel Blue.

It turned out to be one of those genius moves; festivalgoers were delighted to have more opportunities to see world-class vocalists on Tucson stages and artists were pleased that the festival could work around their schedules.

For the second year, the festival will extend into the spring, with concerts, recitals and workshops scheduled March 2-April 9.

But this year’s spring leg comes just two weeks after the winter festival wraps up with the Feb. 15 recital with tenor Michael Fabiano.

“We have set our sights so high that we are bringing in truly the most in-demand vocalists in the world,” said song festival coordinator George Hanson. “Now that they have heard of us, they are more available to us, but we really have to go on what their dates are.”

The lineup for the 12th annual Tucson Desert Song Festival Jan. 14-Feb. 15 and March 2-April 9 includes two world-class tenors in Fabiano and Lawrence Brownlee, who was just named one of Opera Wire‘s top singers of 2023. Both are making their Tucson debuts.

Bass Morris Robinson returns for his third song festival, joining Tucson Symphony Orchestra in April for Verdi’s Requiem while soprano Nicole Cabell returns for her third straight festival, this time teaming up with Eric Holtan and True Concord Voices & Orchestra for Francis Poulenc’s “Gloria” in April. (Bonus: Cabell also will perform a recital with Welz Kauffman on piano at the UA’s Holsclaw Hall.)

Other newcomers to the Tucson Song Festival roster: bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock; the Boston ensemble Blue Heron; composer and singer Cécile McLorin Salvant; and mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller.

In addition to Cabell and Robinson, artists returning to the festival include tenor Mario Chang, who was here in 2020; soprano Katie Van Kooten, who was here last in 2013; mezzo Cecilia Duarte, who returns for her third consecutive festival; and Tucson’s own mezzo Kristin Dauphinais, who has performed in every festival since 2015.

“We just feel that we have another year where we’ve been able to open this umbrella and include our wonderful performing arts partners,” said longtime Song Festival Board President Jeannette Segel, including TSO and True Concord, who have been involved since the first festival. “We have a very, very rich group of partners that we’re very proud of.”

In addition to the orchestra and professional choir, Tucson Desert Song Festival is collaborating with Tucson Guitar Society, the University of Arizona School of Music, Arizona Opera, Arizona Arts Live, Arizona Theatre Company, Ballet Tucson and the HSL Properties Tucson Jazz Festival.

Segel said one of the highlights of the 2024 festival will be the world premiere of composer Jimmy López Bellido’s song cycle “Quiet Poems,” the fifth and final installment of the song festival’s Wesley Green Composing Project. Bellido composed the work for renowned tenor Fabiano with poems from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz.

The piece reunites the Peruvian composer Bellido with Cruz, who was the librettist on Bellido’s opera “Bel Canto.”

For a complete schedule and more information, visit tucsondesertsongfestival.org.

Gem and Jam Festival

Tens of thousands of people usually pack the parking lot and fill the sprawling Pima County Fairgrounds every February for the annual Gem & Jam festival. For three days, national and regional electronica fusion, folk, rock, jam and New Age bands perform from nearly sunup to long after sundown in conjunction with the annual Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase.

This year’s festival, the 16th, features headliners The Discobiscuits, Of the Trees, Boogiet, LP Giobbi, Daily Bread, Spafford and Lettuce. The festival is Feb. 2-4 at the fairgrounds, 11300 S. Houghton Road.

The lineup features nearly 50 bands including several from Tucson performing from 9 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily. For details and tickets, visit gemandjamfestival.com.

Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival

Arizona Friends of Chamber Music will host its 30th winter festival and first one without the festival’s co-founder Jean-Paul Bierny, who died in October.

The festival opens March 3 where it did with its first festival: with Mozart’s String Quintet in G minor, which sets the stage for piano quintets by Franck and Shostakovich, the clarinet trio by Brahms and the world premiere of Pierre Jalbert’s Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, commissioned by Arizona Friends.

The commission was sponsored by Bierny, who launched and cultivated the commissioning program throughout his 35 years running the chamber music presenting organization. He stepped down in 2013.

The Dover Quartet — violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Julianne Lee and cellist Camden Shaw — heads the festival roster that includes cellist Edward Arron; violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Axel Strauss; clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois; pianists Bernadette Harvey and Jeewon Park; violist Masumi Per Rostad; and baritone Randall Scarlata.

Other festival highlights include performances of works by Mahler, Bach, Schubert, Brahms, Shostakovich and Florence Price. In addition to five concerts, the festival includes the return of the Festival Celebration, a casual meet-and-greet concert and dinner at Leo Rich Theater, 260 S. Church Ave., where festival concerts will be held March 3-10. For tickets and details, visit arizonachambermusic.org.

Tucson Folk Festival

The folk festival marks its 39th year and holds the record as the longest-running free folk festival in the U.S.

In case you missed that, admission is free.

And free comes with a whole lot of priceless: Tucson native and Austin-transplant Lisa Morales returns with her band to headline with Steve Poltz, Leslie Mendelson, Keith Secola, Heavy Diamond Ring, the Cross-Eyed Possum, Baba Marimba, Mariachi Nuevo Azteca de Tucson, Carnivaleros and more than 100 other bands and folk artists showcasing Americana and folk in all its sonic glories: country, bluegrass, jazz, blues, Celtic and Latin and Mexican.

The festival, presented by Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association and the Southern Arizona Arts & Cultural Alliance, runs from April 5-7 on six stages centered at downtown’s Jacomé Plaza. For details, visit tucsonfolkfest.org.