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Check out what's happening: January | February - Download this month's calendar (PDF)

SETS NIGHTLY AT 7:30 & 9:30
FRI & SAT, THIRD SET AT 11:30

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RICHARD BONA: MANDEKAN CUBANO

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New Year's Eve week always means something special at JAZZ STANDARD, and this year is no exception. We're proud to present international world music sensation and Grammy Award-winner Richard Bona and his exciting new project, Mandekan Cubano, inspired by the shared heritage, and rich folkloric and traditional music of West Africa and Cuba. "Imagine an artist with Jaco Pastorious's virtuosity, George Benson's vocal fluidity, Joao Gilberto's sense of song and harmony, all mixed up with African culture. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Richard Bona!" (Los Angeles Times)

Tickets: $35 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleMonday - Wednesday January 2 - 4
Jazz STANDARD CLOSEd

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dotted ruleThursday - Friday January 5 - 6
TOM HARRELL CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

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Tom Harrell is widely recognized as one of the most creative and uncompromising jazz instrumentalists and composers of our time. With a discography of over 260 recordings and a career that spans more than four decades, Tom has stayed fresh and current as he continues to actively record and tour around the world. The trumpeter’s affinity for strings goes back to his arrangements for Santana’s classic Caravanserai (1972) and continued through Tom’s own albums like Wise Children and Paradise. For two very special nights, Tom Harrell will lead a rhythm–and–strings octet in a program celebrating the special affinity between jazz music and the works of Debussy and Ravel.

Tickets: $25 Thursday / $30 Friday - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleSaturday January 7
JOSÉ JAMES

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We’re extremely pleased to welcome back the thrilling young vocalist José James, who knocked everyone out when he appeared on our stage last October. José wasn’t long out of The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music when his 2008 debut album The Dreamer became an international critical and con­sumer favorite and in 2011 he was voted “Rising Star Best Male Vocalist” in the Down Beat Critics Poll. He’s performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orches­tra’s “A Tribute to Billy Strayhorn”; and toured with McCoy Tyner’s acclaimed project “The Music of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.” “Outside of Sade, few contemporary artists can match James’ smooth voice, head-nodding beats and cosmic atmos­pherics.” (Jeff Weiss, The Los Angeles Times)

Tickets: $30 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleSunday, January 8
DAVELL CRAWFORD: A TRIBUTE TO RAY CHARLES

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Appearing at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Davell Crawford’s “over­whelmingly beau­tiful performance with two prominent piano players, Jon Cleary and Dr. John, was worth the price of ad­mission alone,” wrote Josh Jackson on the Web for National Public Radio. “The Piano Prince of New Orleans,” Davell Crawford continues to bring the glorious Crescent City piano tradition into the 21st cen­tury in the spirit of Professor Longhair and James Booker. His recordings include Let Them Talk, Just Friends, and Love Like Yours and Mine; his stirring tribute to Ray Charles has thrilled audiences from Tipitina’s in New Orleans to Madison Square Park in New York.

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleMonday January 9
MIngus Orchestra

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The legacy of jazz giant Charles Mingus (1922–1979) lives on in our continuing “Mingus Monday” series – tonight featuring the Mingus Orchestra. “Critical among his many innovations in jazz was the use of non–standard chorus structures, contrasting sections of quasi–‘classical’ composed material with passages of free–form and group improvisations, often of varying tempos and modes, in complex pieces knitted together by subtly evolving musical motifs. Such pieces as ‘The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady’ (1963) show enormous vitality and a great depth of immersion in all jazz styles, from New Orleans and gospel to bebop and free jazz.” -- from The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Stockton Press; New York, 1995)

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleTuesday January 10
ETIENNE CHARLES & KAISO

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The musical roots of trumpeter Etienne Charles run deep through four generations of Caribbean heritage. His father, Francis Charles, was a member of Phase II Pan Groove, one of Trinidad’s most progressive steel bands; this group, along with the elder Charles’ vast record collection, imbued young Etienne with the sounds of calypso, steel pan, and African Shango drumming that form some of the diverse colors of his present–day harmonic palette. Following music studies in Boston and Los Angeles, Etienne entered Juilliard; soon he was touring internationally with the Juilliard Jazz Band and freelancing around the New York scene. (He’s worked with such greats as Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, Frank Foster, and Marcus Roberts.) For his Jazz Standard debut as a leader, Etienne Charles will spotlight the music of his latest album, Kaiso, which features guest appearances by pianist Monty Alexander and calypso legend Lord Superior. Kaiso earned four stars from DownBeat and inspired Sharonne Cohen to write in JazzTimes: “Charles and his bandmates, a core sextet plus guests and orchestra, effortlessly fuse Caribbean music with a jazz aesthetic, paying homage while pushing forward.”

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleWedesday - Sunday January 11 - 15
DR. LONNIE SMITH TRIO

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Dr. Lonnie Smith has been a firm favorite of Jazz Standard audiences for years, and we’re delighted to have him back on our stage for five exciting nights. In Jonathan Kreisberg and Jamire Williams, this master of the Hammond B–3 has found what New York Times reviewer Nate Chinen called “a pair of sharply attentive younger musicians. Their loose but intense bond as a trio, refined on the road, makes Spiral (Palmetto Records) one of Dr. Smith’s best albums in recent memory, and a good snapshot of the B–3 organ trio tradition as it stands. The playing reflects concentration and restraint throughout, but above all it shows the warmth of a particular kind of rapport, in which the musicians can support and push one another at every turn.” The Doctor is in – make your appointment now!

Tickets: $25/$30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleMonday January 16
MINGUS BIG BAND featuring "BLUES & POLITICS"

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The Grammy Award–winning Mingus Big Band will perform two special sets tonight featuring music from their latter-day album Blues & Politics (Dreyfus Records, 1999) with nonpareil musicianship, energy, and excitement! The lineup for this auspicious occasion (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) includes several of the most in-demand musicians on the jazz scene who don't regularly perform with the Mingus Big Band, such as trombonist Robin Eubanks, alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. 

“Mingus saw himself as a resolute outsider, an embattled figure of too vast a dimension to be contained by conventional categories…But the blustery Promethean was also a past master of the tradition – the entire history of jazz lay easily under his dexterous fingertips. And while his methods were demanding and his persona blunt, Mingus, again like Ellington, is noteworthy in that so much of his music, for all of its innovative force, offers such sheer accessible joy.” 
- Paul Evans, The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleTuesday January 17
ED REED

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Ed Reed’s story is the stuff of which jazz legends are made. Born 1929 in Cleveland OH, he relocated with his family to Los Angeles in 1936; a teenage bassist named Charles Mingus taught Ed how to sing to chord changes at age eleven. He sang at clubs on LA’s famed Central Avenue, but then dropped out of school and joined the Army. Ed soon developed a heroin habit that led to his spending more than a decade behind bars for addiction–related crimes, but in prison he met and sometimes performed with such jazz luminaries as Art Pepper and Dexter Gordon. Clean and sober for the past 25 years, Reed began singing in public in the early Nineties in the Bay Area; in 2007, at age 78, he released his debut album, the widely acclaimed Ed Reed Sings Love Stories. Ed Reed’s third and latest CD, Born To Be Blue, appeared in July 2011 – and now all of us as Jazz Standard are delighted to welcome back one of the premier male jazz vocalists of our time.

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleWednesday January 18
DAVE STRYKER ORGAN QUINTET

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The wonderful and much–traveled guitarist Dave Stryker often has appeared on our stage with long–time saxophone partner Steve Slagle. But tonight Dave’s got a brand new CD of his own, Blue Strike; and the relentlessly swinging organ trio of B–3 master Jared Gold and veteran drummer Billy Hart, further sup­plemented by the fiery young horn men Freddie Hendrix and Stephen Riley. Their sound takes Dave back to the early years of his career, when he worked with Brother Jack McDuff and Stanley Turrentine. The organ trio also is featured on Dave’s first DVD entitled Dave Stryker Organ Trio Live. “I have followed Dave’s playing since his early days in Omaha…He just gets better and better, with one of the most joyous feels around.” (Pat Metheny)

Tickets: $20 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleThursday - Sunday January 19 - 22
LOU DONALDSON QUARTET (7:30PM & 9:30PM ONLY)

Lou Donaldson is one of the last soul survivors of the bebop generation that revolutionized jazz beginning in the early 1940s. He began recording for Blue Note in 1952, and the following year his six sides with trumpeter Clifford Brown and pianist Elmo Hope forged a vibrant new sound that became known as “hard bop.” In addition to his own recordings, the altoist also participated in important studio sessions with Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, and Jimmy Smith; in 1967, he scored a major jukebox and R&B radio hit with “Alligator Boogaloo.” “It doesn't matter what I'm playing, I’m always shopping for the groove,” Lou Donaldson told The Wall Street Journal in 2010. “One way or the other, I always find it!”

Tickets: $25/$30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleMonday January 23
MINGUS ORCHESTRA

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“Charles Mingus was a pre–Bird musician...in his love of pure emotion as exemplified in the blues, the church, and the polyphony of New Orleans; in his willingness to embrace the full panoply of jazz styles; in his absorption of the colors, styles, subtleties, and charms of Ellington and Tatum. He brought all of that into the modern era with individuality and a startling magnanimity of expression.” (Gary Giddins, Riding On A Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop)

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleTuesday - Wednesday January 24 - 25
WOLFF & CLARK EXPEDITION

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The Wolff & Clark Expedition is a true all–star aggregation whose collective personnel bring more than a century of creative music experience to the bandstand. Pianist Michael Wolff  logged fourteen years on the road with Cal Tjader, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, five years as singer Nancy Wilson’s musical director, and another five as the bandleader on “The Arsenio Hall Show” (1989–1994). Michael’s extensive discography including his latest CD Joe’s Strut – dedicated to the late Joe Zawinul – and featur­ing saxophonist Steve Wilson, another member of the Expedition. Drummer Mike Clark is best known for his tenure in Herbie Hancock’s legendary jazz-funk ensemble Headhunters; his latest CD as a leader, Carnival Of Soul (2010), features guest appearances by guitarist Rez Abbasi, drummer Lenny White, and soul/blues singer Delbert McClinton. At Jazz Standard, Wolff, Clark, and Company will explore songs by Joe Zawinul and Horace Silver, the O’Jays and the Beatles – sign up now to join the Expedition!

Tickets: $25 - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleThursday - Sunday January 26 - 29
BILLY CHILDS QUARTET

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Billy Childs is a two–time Grammy Award winner and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; as a pianist, he’s performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, and Chris Botti. After apprenticing with Freddie Hubbard and J.J. Johnson in the late Seventies and early Eighties, Billy Childs launched his solo jazz recording career in 1988 with Take For Example, This... – the first of four critically acclaimed albums on the Windham Hill Jazz label. Most recently, Billy has recorded two vol­umes of jazz/chamber music – Lyric, Vol. 1 (2006) and Autumn: In Moving Pictures, Vol. 2 (2010) – that capture a unique amalgam of jazz and classical elements, developed with his ensemble over the course of ten years. This Jazz Standard run will feature Billy Childs with an exceptional band including saxophonist Steve Wilson and the dynamic rhythm duo of Hans Glawischnig and Eric Harland.

Tickets: $25/$30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleMonday January 30
MINGUS BIG BAND

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“In the turmoil of his life and artistic achievements, and in his painful demise, Mingus became his own artistic creation. A desperate, passionate icon for the mid–20th century to which all can relate in some way, he articulated the emotional currents of his time in a way superior to that of almost any other con­temporary jazz musician.” (The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music)

Tickets: $25/$30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW

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dotted ruleTuesday - Saturday January 31 - February 4
DAVID SANCHEZ QUARTET

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In late 1991, the great Dizzy Gillespie spoke glowingly of his latest protégé in the United Nation Orchestra: “There’s a young tenor player from Puerto Rico – David Sanchez, good, very reserved mind, very old mind, knows his changes, knows where he's going and knows where he's coming from.” Over the next two decades, David Sanchez has worked to fulfill the promise that Dizzy saw within him. Sanchez weaves the multicultural threads of North and Latin American cultures into a colorful musical tapestry, the common ground being the spirit of the drum. His robust sound, taut melodic focus, and stir­ring rhythmic articulation reflect a talent wise beyond his years, searching for fresh ways to enrich the jazz vocabulary. David has recorded eight albums as a leader, beginning in 1994 with The Departure. His 2004 CD Coral earned him a Latin Grammy Award (he’s a four–time Grammy nominee) and in 2008 he released the stirring Cultural Survival (2008), recorded with a piano–less quartet featuring guitarist Lage Lund.

Tickets: $25/$30 Friday & Saturday - PURCHASE NOW

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