This week’s Fridays at Five session from SFJAZZ features the SFJAZZ Collective a group of musicians with an enviable international reputation, based at San Francisco’s JAZZ Center. This week’s streamed performance is devoted to the creator of the bossa nova style of music, Antônio Carlos Jobim.
Founded by SFJAZZ in 2004, the Collective is a leaderless group, very much representative of the current jazz scene, and in honoring some of the genre’s greatest figures, the group maintains the SFJAZZ commitment to jazz as a living, relevant, art form. Every year, the Collective aims to perform an original piece written by each of its members, as well as new arrangements of numbers by a modern master of jazz. Over their seventeen-year existence, the Collective has paid tribute to the mastery of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Stevie Wonder, Chick Corea, Joe Henderson, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis and Sly Stone, creating over 100 new arrangements and original compositions.
The Fridays at Five session being transmitted this week was recorded during the 2018-19 season at SFJAZZ, when the group premiered new arrangements of the music of Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim. During the 1960s, Jobim, merging Brazilian popular song with jazz, formed a new, and hugely popular style of music – the bossa nova – which has been captivating music lovers ever since the launch of the Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto collaboration in 1963. Regarded by some as the George Gershwin of Brazil, Jobim also credits Claude Debussy as having had a strong influence on his harmonies, and the Brazilian samba for its effect on the rather exotic rhythms of his music. He has gone on to write a vast number of compositions which are now considered jazz and pop standards.
For the SFJAZZ Collective’s latest project, existing group members Dávid Sanchez, Etienne Charles, Warren Wolf and Edward Simon will be joined by new members – Chris Potter, Lizz Wright, Aneesa Strings and Kendrick A.D. Scott – in the recording of a new studio album of original material, and the Collective will also be undertaking a tour in the Fall of this year.
The SFJAZZ Collective plays the Music of Jobim on August 27th at 5.00 pm (PT) and August 28th at 10.00 am (PT) for SFJAZZ members. For log-in information, and how to become a member, please visit the SFJAZZ website. The August 27th transmission includes a real-time chat with members of the Collective, but this will not be repeated during the August 28th transmission. This encore transmission on August 28th will be streamed at 1.00 pm NYC, 6.00 pm in London, and 7.00 pm in Paris and Johannesburg.
Fridays at Five is a weekly membership-based online concert series that brings people closer to the music, while providing support for artists, through exclusive hour-long broadcasts of SFJAZZ Center archival performances every Friday at 5.00 pm (PT). Conceived to create a unique shared experience, each event features multi-camera HD video and state-of-the-art audio, as well as real-time chats with artists, jazz fans, and SFJAZZ Members.
Information sourced from:
SFJAZZ program notes
Artists’ websites