Healdsburg Jazz Festival hosts 10 days of top talent

Over the past decades, the annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival has established a national reputation for drawing top jazz talents to Sonoma County while maintaining an intimate small-town atmosphere.

This year more than ever, the 20th anniversary festival that starts its 10-day run today, will feel like a family reunion with jazz stars George Cables, Charles Lloyd and others returning to play the festival one more time.

“It’s like coming back home,” Cables said by phone from his home in New York, “because I lived in the Bay Area for so long.”

It is at the Keystone Corner jazz club in San Francisco that Cables first met Healdsburg Jazz Festival founder Jessica Felix, who worked at the club long before she moved north to Healdsburg, and has parlayed her many jazz world contacts from those days into all-star rosters for her annual local celebration of jazz.

It’s a testament to Cables’ regard for Felix and her festival that the 73-year-old pianist is coming out to perform in public for the first time since his left leg was amputated above the knee three months ago as a result of complications from chronic circulatory problems. He won’t be able to get fitted for a prosthetic in time for the trip, but he’s coming anyway.

“I’m really excited about being at Healdsburg,” Cables said. “I was concerned about coming out on the stage with one leg. I don’t want to gross anybody out, but I really want to be there.”

Cables gets around on a walker but he knows that once he makes it to the piano, he’ll be flying. He never even contemplated an end to performing on the road.

“Not touring? That’s what I do,” he said with a hearty chuckle. “The thing is that I love playing.”

Cables is a lifelong musician, who formed the Jazz Samaritans combo at age 18, and went on to perform with jazz greats including Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper and many others.

During the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Cables is scheduled to perform with his trio on a double bill that also features the Festival-All Stars at the Raven Theater in Healsburg.

Festival founder Felix was instrumental in setting up a GoFundMe web campaign to help with Cables’ medical costs, and sums up her regard for the man simply: “He’s such a great person. This year’s festival is all about love and friendships.”

Like Cables, famed tenor saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd has known Felix for decades and has played her festival several times before.

Born in Memphis, Lloyd began his jazz career in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, and went on play with some of the genre’s legends, including Charles Mingus and Cannonball Adderly, as well as ’60s rock bands like the Doors and the Byrds.

During the festival, Lloyd - who turned 80 on March 15 - will perform at his “80th Year Celebration” Sunday in the Jackson Theater at the Sonoma Country Day School in Santa Rosa. The lineup includes Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain, drummer Eric Harland, pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Harish Raghavan and guitarist, composer and arranger Bill Frisell.

“I’ll be performing with some of my closest musical collaborators,” Lloyd said by email while on tour. “One of the jewels of the night will be Bill Frisell.”

Frisell also opens the festival tonight in a sold-out show with star guitarist and Santa Rosa native Julian Lage at Healdsburg SHED.

Like Cables, Lloyd credits Jessica Felix for the success, longevity and sheer star power of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.

“This is her vision and her passion,” Lloyd said. “Slowly but surely, she has educated the community and the county by offering them some of the best that jazz has to offer.”

You can reach staff writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.