On June 19, Tony and Grammy award-winning R&B pioneer Ruth Brown will open the annual Stanford Jazz Festival. Brown, who turned Atlantic Records into “the house that Ruth built” in the 1950s, is rocking (no chair in sight) at age 70, and festival organizers expect a performance worthy of a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer.
Before the spotlights fade on August 7, dozens of other jazz legends—including drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Ray Drummond, sax man Dave Liebman and piano great Harold Mabern—will present more than 50 concerts and special events in a festival that is widely hailed as one of the best on the West Coast. Cobb, who will perform with “Cobb’s Mob,” is the last surviving musician featured on Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue,” the bestselling jazz album of all time.
Jazz greats and up-and-comers also will teach more than 700 students, from teens to octogenarians, at the Stanford Jazz Workshop.
