The Long Beach Jazz Festival

Entertainment — By Lamar Webster on August 16, 2018 at 7:48 pm

By Lamar Webster

The community of Long Beach celebrated the 31st Anniversary of the Long Beach Jazz Festival last weekend (August 10-12) at the Rainbow Lagoon Park in downtown Long Beach. They had a great lineup of acts which included Friday night headliner Jonathan Butler, Saturday night headliner Marcus Miller and Sunday night headliner Stanley Clarke. The concert was coordinated by Rainbow Promotions, LLC and has been a popular attraction on the summer jazz touring circuit for several years.

I was able to attend the Sunday lineup, and the first act I saw was Memphis native Kirk Whalum, a popular tenor saxophonist. I have seen Kirk a few times and he is a crowd-pleaser. His tone is sharp and he always has a good unit of musicians backing him. This time was no exception. Two songs that I noticed the crowd tuned in on were the theme from Bodyguard the movie, and “All I Do,” (Stevie Wonder) as both songs were performed flawlessly. Since Kirk is a great performer, he delivered the goods on both songs.

Next up was veteran jazz vocal stylist Randy Crawford, whom you may remember recorded “Street Life” with the Jazz Crusaders back in the 70’s. Randy had a quartet of seasoned jazz musicians who backed her. Randy’s performance was notable for her smooth delivery and delightful banter with the jazz crowd. Of course, her biggest hit was a version of “Street Life,” which had a slight different spin on it, but enough of a melody for the audience to know what it was. Her voice soared over the Sunday afternoon breeze and she sounded great.

During an intermission, I ventured over to the JazzTyme Entertainment stage, near the food vendors. I caught the performance of a female vocalist named Sulpacio Jones, who had a nice band,  which performed a mix of original and cover material. Her unit was tight, and she put on a fantastic performance. JazzTyme Entertainment had mostly local acts performing on a smaller stage all weekend.

Closing out Sunday night was jazz great Stanley Clarke. The Philadelphia native had an awesome unit of young LA musicians playing with him. Stanley thrilled the audience on both electric bass and also a few numbers on his acoustic upright bass. Two brothers played keys with Stanley, Cameron and Taylor Graves. They were both really talented. Evan Harp on electric violin was another crowd-pleaser- he traded licks with Stanley back and forth. The drummer Mike Mitchell, a Dallas native, was a very energetic and powerful musician. Stanley also performed a song he co-wrote with George Duke, “Brazilian Love Affair.” He stated that he thinks they both toured South America for almost 11 years straight, and really enjoyed performing there with George. When his set was done, he came back for an encore and performed another George Duke number, their Funk version of ‘Mothership Connection!’ Of course they brought the house down with that one! What a great finish to fantastic weekend of music at the 31st Anniversary Long Beach Jazz Festival.