Aug 12, 2025 10:24 AM
Vocalist Sheila Jordan Dies at 96
Sheila Jordan, a vocalist who was celebrated for her scatting and lyric-improvising abilities, died Aug. 11 at her home…
Cindy Blackman Santana will be among the performers at the inaugural San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival.
(Photo: Courtesy Cindy Blackman Santana)While politicians proclaim crisis on the U.S. and Mexico border, one jazz producer sees perfect harmony. On Oct. 4–6, the inaugural San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival launches with a lineup that should make border crossings the most popular activity of the weekend.
The festival, being produced by San Diego Jazz Ventures, will feature concerts across the Southern California/Baja California region, focusing on the area’s musical comaraderie and expansiveness.
“We launched San Diego Jazz Ventures in 2020 with the goal to create a major jazz festival that would be binational in scope,” said Dan Atkinson, festival founder and executive director. “To me as a native San Diegan, our location on the border, adjacent to the increasingly vibrant city of Tijuana, is a unique asset that opens a world of opportunities for people who live and work here. The designation of our two cities as the World Design Capital provided the catalyst to bring our vision for the festival into reality, with the collaboration of some very essential partners from both sides of the border.”
This year’s lineup focuses on musicians who have deep cross-border ties, like San Diego trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos’ sextet featuring pianist Gerald Clayton, Rolling Stones saxophonist Karl Denson and Dizzy Gillespie drummer Ignacio Berroa. The lineup also includes Mexico City-born, New York-based vocalist Magos Herrera, whose Aire project combines her jazz quartet and San Diego’s Hausmann String Quartet; Tijuana’s Nortec Collective; Cindy Blackman Santana; and Latin jazz/funk band Sure Fire Soul Ensemble.
Ensenada trumpeter, composer, educator and bandleader Ivan Trujillo, an artistic advisor to the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival, also will be featured with his band.
The music takes place at the California Center for the Arts Concert Hall in Escondido, Tijuana’s Avenida Revolución and Quartyard in downtown San Diego’s East Village.
For more information, visit sdtjjazz.org. DB
Jordan was a dyed-in-the-wool bebopper whose formative musical experiences were with Charlie Parker.
Aug 12, 2025 10:24 AM
Sheila Jordan, a vocalist who was celebrated for her scatting and lyric-improvising abilities, died Aug. 11 at her home…
“I don’t guess I’m going to excite you; I know I’m going to excite you,” Palmieri said in an August 1994 DownBeat feature.
Aug 12, 2025 10:33 AM
Famed Latin jazz composer, bandleader and pianist Eddie Palmieri passed away in his New Jersey home on Aug. 6. He was…
“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
“I love the place that fate or whatever has positioned me in Gil Evans’ life and legacy,” said Ryan Truesdell.
Aug 5, 2025 12:26 PM
“I originally set out to give two years of my life to Gil,” Ryan Truesdell said of his mindset in 2009, when he…
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…