*“Change” was the optimal defining term for this year’s Blue Note Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.
The mid-June Jazz event that started out in 1979 as the “Playboy Jazz Festival,” later morphing into the “Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival,” was a weekend event with both Saturday and Sunday shows beginning around 2 in the afternoon and ending between 10-11pm. When the “Blue Note Jazz Festival” bowed in 2025, it held to a similar schedule.
However, this year, the schedule was drastically cut, with the gate opening at 4 pm and the music not beginning until 5:40pm each day. On one hand, hardcore lovers of the festival missed the aural feast of “all-day music,” but it worked out nicer for those who were serial stragglers, enjoying a more focused evening of jazz presentation.
Another change this year is that the styles of the music presented each day were more stringently segregated. The Saturday program focused on more eclectic, up-and-coming, and Pan-African cultural and largely instrumental diversity, while the Sunday program leaned more toward mellow seasoned vocal performances by the likes of Gregory Porter, Samara Joy, and Patti LaBelle.
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This reviewer – who has been in attendance for 80% of all the “jazz festival” presentations since the start – was available for the high-energy Saturday program this year. Color me especially enthralled and impressed by the freshness and multicultural yet overriding Afrocentricity.
The first established artist up was a special set by flautist Elena Pinderhughes. After years of gracing the Bowl stage as a member of bands led by trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and the legendary Herbie Hancock, Berkeley-born Elena now bowed as a leader in her own right. Taking the stage barefoot in a sparkly copper dress, Elena lent her rapturous flute to selections that were alternately soul searching, groovy and vibey, or soaringly celestial. The 4th number was particularly dynamic, floating into a section where she was accompanied by piano and bass only, the drums entering for a 6/4 time meter then a powerful drum solo. The 5th selection was led by a haunting wordless vocal. And for her final number, Elena brought out longtime collaborator Chief Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah for an impassioned duet.
Next was the West African by way of London ensemble Kokoroko. After opening with the uplifting “Never Lost,” the 8-piece group put the audience in a trance with a cover American `70s Soul band Bloodstone’s classic “Natural High.” Fronted by ladies trumpeter/vocalist Sheila Maurice-Grey with saxophonist/vocalist Cassie Kinoshi, they turned up the heat with “Idea 5” followed by an instrumental of low brass loveliness titled “Abusey Junction.” One other song of note was “Closer to Me,” some feel-good vibe like something Frankie Beverly & Maze might do.
Drummer Yussef Dayez entered next ushering everyone into the mystic. A Jazz/culture fusionist, the London-based musician introduced selections from his new 19-song solo studio debut album, Black Classical Music. The sound was largely comprised of warm chordal progressions and mellow horns buoyed by drums and percussion that were ever affirmatively present. Originals such as “Raisins Under The Sun,” “Turquoise Galaxy” and “Cape Town Jugg” were interspersed with classics such as Jaco Pastorius’ “A Portrait of Tracy.”
Midway through Dayez’s set, young Blues champion Christone “Kingfish” Ingram joined the band for several selections. Together, they took the Blues back to Africa, highlighted by long, ringing Rock expression a la Carlos Santana, string stings a la B.B. King, and lots of emphatic riff repetitions. The finale was a chill lounge palate cleanser, perfect for host Arsenio Hall to take the stage and announce that the New York Knicks had just won the NBA Finals.
Modern Jazz chameleon Robert Glasper brought his “functionally egalitarian” all-star band R+R=Now for a richly immersive set of extended pieces. The “R+R” of the collective’s name stands for “Reflect and Respond,” a concept inspired by Nina Simone’s famous quote about artists’ responsibility. The collective consists of Glasper on keyboards and synthesizers, Terrace Martin on synthesizers and vocoder, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah on trumpet, Derrick Hodge on bass, Taylor McFerrin on synthesizer and beatbox, and newcomer Justin Taylor on drums. With every member a decorated leader in his own right, this ensemble packs a powerful and purposeful punch…flowing seamlessly into shifting musical atmospheres. Compositions contributed by each member included “Need You Still” (with lead vocals split among three members ranging from natural tenor to space age vocoder), the ambient four-on-the-floor club groove “Taylor Time,” Hodge’s piece “Respond” which was an explosive tour de force for Adjuah, and the lengthy closer “Rusting Warrior” which included several nods to Miles Davis honoring this year marking the centennial of his birth.
The final headliner was Haitian world superstar Wyclef Jean, an original member of Hip Hop trio The Fugees and a highly eclectic pop solo artist that integrates a multitude of musical genres with his 15-piece big band of players and singers, four dedicated to percussion alone. Opening this jazz festival performance with a nod to Duke Ellington, the band played “Take The ‘A’ Train,” which led into a smorgasbord of songs. These included “Gun Powder,” the a cappella “Good Things Come to Those Who Wait,” a freestyle in 7 languages, “Gone `til November,” “911” (on which Wyclef played guitar behind his head and with his teeth), the jazz standard “Summertime” (featuring his new student Nya on lead vocals), another female vocal feature “Two Wrongs,” the crowd favorite “Maria, Maria” (which Wyclef wrote for Santana and played a bass solo on this night), the Gospel hymn “His Eye is On the Sparrow,” and the carnivalesque closer, “Ra Ra Jazz.”
Wyclef dedicated his set to Quincy Jones, who introduced him years ago at the Montreux Jazz Festival and instructed him to study theory
The dearly departed “Q” would certainly be pleased looking down on this night of the Blue Note Jazz Festival. Tradition was honored…but in refreshingly forward-pointing ways full of passion, purpose, and complexity.
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