Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
The first St. Martin Gourmet-Jazz Festival will celebrate music and the culinary arts in a uniquely St. Martin fashion from Dec. 1-8. For a week, the Caribbean island will be transformed into a fabulous gourmet celebration where the local gastronomy professionals and their friends—chefs and wine growers from France and elsewhere—will compete to delight and surprise with sophisticated and creative cuisine.
Complementing the food will be a marvelous lineup of Latin jazz, headlined by the great Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés. In all, 14 groups from the Caribbean and beyond will share the stage, including Pupy y Los Que Son, Habana All Stars, Orlando Sanchez Soto & the Cuba Jazz, El Greco & Top Secret (Cuba), Alfio Origlio Quartet (France), Ernan Lopez-Nussa Quintet (Cuba), Paco Charlery Quintet (Martinique), Mezcla (Cuba) and Maracud’Jazz Quartet (Guadeloupe). For jazz fans in the United States, this festival provides an opportunity to hear marvelous Cuban musicians who have been unable to play in the States since Homeland Security initiatives have made security clearance nearly impossible for them.
This fusion of musical and culinary arts should become a St. Martin tradition and a rendezvous for the musicians and gastronomy professionals.
For more information on this exciting new festival, go to its web site at www.sxmjazzfestival.net.
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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