In late 2024, prolific guitarist Julian Lage embarked on an intense writing sprint that led to Scenes from Above, a new project forged for a special quartet featuring steadfast bassist Jorge Roeder, dynamic drummer Kenny Wollesen, and vaunted keyboardist John Medeski — close collaborators who had never before recorded together. The music emphasizes interaction, restraint, and real-time discovery over virtuoso display.

Produced by Joe Henry, the album marks a shift from Lage’s large-ensemble ambitions toward a deeply egalitarian band dynamic, drawing inspiration from folkloric traditions, blues, and global song forms. The result is an intimate, vivid listening experience: four dazzling musicians sharing space, listening closely, and shaping music that feels both spontaneous and purposefully alive.

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Julian Lage Quartet

Lobero Theatre

An intimate and powerful evening of music honoring the enduring legacy of Billie Holiday comes to the Lobero Theatre this September 5th.

The Billie Holiday Project

Wynton Marsalis has been described as the most outstanding jazz musician and trumpeter of his generation – a level raiser whose breadth of talent is equated with genius. One of the world’s top classical trumpeters, a big band leader in the tradition of Duke Ellington, a brilliant composer, a devoted advocate for the Arts, and a tireless inspiring educator, he carries these distinctions well. His life is a portrait of discipline, dedication, sacrifice, and creative accomplishment. Wynton is taking new steps and, in doing so, achieves a sometimes-mystical radiance in his writing and performance. From his skilled and adventurous composition to his swinging virtuosity, music will forever be changed, and our melodious landscape fundamentally enriched.

Wynton Marsalis Septet

Branford Marsalis Quartet: Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz Master, GRAMMY® Award winner, and Tony and EMMY Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical universe remains the Branford Marsalis Quartet. After more than three decades of existence with minimal personnel changes, this celebrated ensemble is revered for its uncompromising interpretation of a kaleidoscopic range of both original compositions and jazz and popular classics.

After receiving GRAMMY® nominations on its last two albums, Upward Spiral and The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, the Quartet made its Blue Note Records debut with the release of Belonging, a full album interpretation of Keith Jarrett’s 1974 ECM album of the same name. The New York Times commented “Marsalis has tackled imposing jazz masterworks before…but at its best, his ‘Belonging’ goes deeper…its a performance that both honors and amplifies.” John Zeugner captured the impact of the Quartet in a review of a live performance, calling it “casually confident, professional, cerebral, and supercharged with energy. The Branford Marsalis Quartet… was all of those adjectives and more.”

Branford Marsalis Quartet

The Shame Disco. DJ Reform94 throws a youth disco for adults, with the best/worst music from the nineties.

Reform94

Union Scene

A free, family-friendly street dance on the west side of the Stadium of Fire site, featuring a Miner Music DJ spinning tunes from across the decades, held after the fireworks on Independence Day.

Street Dance: Post-Stadium of Fire Celebration

LaVell Edwards Stadium

Closing reading of the Queer Literature Festival Munich with Sophia Merwald, moderated by Franziska Setare Koohestani. Reading from the debut novel "Sperrgut".

Closing Reading: Sophia Merwald "Sperrgut"

Gasteig HP8

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ_ZQW5C2pw&amp;t=2s

The Artelize Podcast Presenting Will Shutes: 'Bring it down out of the clouds to human being level'

Six-time GRAMMY®-nominated pianist, composer, and band leader Gerald Clayton earned recent Recording Academy recognition for Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard, his debut release on Blue Note Records. Collaborating over the years with such distinctive artists as Diana Krall, Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Terence Blanchard, John Scofield, Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Bernstein, Ambrose Akinmusire, Gretchen Parlato, Ben Wendel, the Clayton Brothers Quintet and legendary band leader Charles Lloyd, Clayton currently serves as Director of Next Generation Jazz Orchestra following service as Musical Director for Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour. Clayton’s creative spirit honors the legacy of his father, bassist-composer John Clayton.

Gerald Clayton Trio

Through an inimitable voice that The New York Times touts as, “a smooth, dark alto possessed of qualities you might associate with barrel-aged bourbon or butter-soft leather,” acclaimed vocalist and songwriter Lizz Wright sings with a soaring reflection of the cultural fabric of America. Wright is one of the great modern American singers, with an illustrious 20-year career transcending social divides with her offer of love and deep sense of humanity.

Rooted in her Southern upbringing and shaped by more than two decades on the world’s stages, Wright’s sound is both grounded and expansive — anchored by acoustic textures, rich harmonies, and emotional honesty. Audiences can expect an evening of profound musical storytelling that honors tradition while embracing reflection, healing, and connection.

Lizz Wright

Pat Metheny continues the evolution of Side-Eye with a new tour featuring new music. Side-Eye III+ features Chris Fishman on piano/keyboards, Joe Dyson on drums, and Jermaine Paul on bass. With 20 GRAMMY® wins, Metheny has the second-most GRAMMY® wins out of all jazz artists to date, revered for expanding the palette of the guitar and reshaping the genre for the modern era.

Created to elevate young musicians and offer the mentorship he once received, his Side-Eye project features a handpicked rotating cast of today’s most exciting players. This is contemporary jazz at its finest — innovative, accessible and absolutely unmissable for both longtime fans and newcomers to Metheny’s musical world.

Pat Metheny

The UCSB Jazz Ensemble performance explores the depth and versatility of large-ensemble jazz, blending sharp precision, rich balance, and plenty of expressive personality that keeps the music swinging.

UCSB Jazz Ensemble Winter Concert

University of California, Santa Barbara

At a moment when musical streams are crossing with unprecedented frequency, it’s crucial to remember that throughout its history, New Orleans has been the point at which sounds and cultures from around the world converge, mingle, and resurface, transformed by the Crescent City’s inimitable spirit and joie de vivre.

Nowhere is that idea more vividly embodied than in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which has held the torch of New Orleans music aloft for more than 60 years, all the while carrying it enthusiastically forward as a reminder that the history they were founded to preserve is a vibrantly living history.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

GRAMMY® Award-winning bandleader, conguero, and percussionist Poncho Sanchez is among the most influential percussionists in jazz. For more than four decades, he’s stirred up a fiery stew of straightahead jazz, gritty soul music, and infectious melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources.

Throughout his career, Sanchez has held aloft the torch lit by such innovators as Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente and Cal Tjader, embraced by each of those icons and entrusted to carry forward the traditions of Latin Jazz. Poncho recently completed his 31st recording, “Live at The Belly Up Tavern” in Solana Beach, California in March 2025.

Poncho Sanchez

Join the UCSB Jazz Ensemble for an open rehearsal and performances by the finalists of our second ever competition. Join us as we listen to our finalists and vote (audience and band) on the finalists via Google Form (provided at the event). The winners will perform with the Jazz Ensemble at our Winter concert “Let’s Dance”, February 25 at 7:30 PM in Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall, and for the Santa Barbara Jazz Society on April 12 at 1:00 PM at SOhO Restaurant and Music Club. Selected vocalists may also be invited to record with the UCSB Jazz Ensemble at Santa Barbara’s premiere recording studio, Santa Barbara Sound Design, during the Spring quarter.

UCSB Jazz Ensemble 2nd Semi-Annual Vocal Jazz Solo Competition

A fundraiser in support of the San Marcos High School Jazz Band and helping us get to New Orleans.

The evening will start with a reception and silent auction, followed by a concert featuring some popular charts, classic standards, and a few surprise guests.

San Marcos Jazz Band Benefit Concert

Konrad Kono is a music educator, pianist, composer, camp director, and performer with 30 years of experience teaching children music in the Santa Barbara Community. “Mr. KONO”-as he is known- is a master of the keyboard with a rich musical background spanning many genres of music including Classical, Jazz, Pop, Gospel, Latin, and Soul- and his own original style! His infectious energy and magnetic stage presence pull audiences into his world, where laughter, singing, and spontaneous clapping are all part of the experience! When Konrad Kono sits down at the piano, people gather around because they do not know what to expect, and that’s half the fun! Please come and enjoy the Santa Barbara Treasure, Konrad Kono, when he performs at the Lobero Theatre on Saturday, January 10th at 7pm.

Konrad Kono

Get ready for a musical experience that’s electric, virtuosic, and straight from the heart. The Django Festival Allstars bring the legendary Django Reinhardt’s gypsy jazz legacy roaring into the 21st century — and it’s hotter than ever.

Veronica first gained major international attention in 2015 when she won 2nd place in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Vocals Competition. Swift comes from an esteemed family background in jazz, her mom a jazz vocalist and educator, and her dad a highly regarded gifted jazz pianist. She tours the world at prestigious festivals, clubs, and arts centers, always demonstrating her astounding vocal agility, also known for amazing scatting… honoring her idol, the great Ella.

The Django Festival Allstars

In our ‘Journey through Jazz!’ residency program, students are taken on a musical and narrative trek from early Dixieland to today’s Fusion jazz, while learning basic singing and performance skills, jazz terms, American jazz history, and ethnic/music diversity. The residency closes with a school assembly and performance, and a FREE public performance at the historic Lobero Theatre.

Journey Through Jazz

Robert Glasper is the leader of a new sonic paradigm with a career that bridges musical and artistic genres. To date, he boasts 5 GRAMMY® wins and 14 nominations across 11 categories, an Emmy Award for his song for Ava Duvernay’s critically hailed documentary “13th” with Common and Karriem Riggins, and a Peabody Award for his Composition of “Mr. Soul!” Glasper’s GRAMMY®-winning crossover album, Black Radio, transformed the genre and established new standards for popular music. His work and accolades bridge all aspects of the music business, from live touring to film scoring, composing and producing.

Robert Glasper

The well-known Hot Sardines know how to make audiences fall in love with classic, speakeasy jazz. The band has reinvigorated the music and won over new audiences worldwide – garnering over 60 million digital streams and making them “one of the most delightfully energetic bands on New York’s ‘hot’ music scene” (Downbeat).

The Hot Sardines

Rolling Stone says revered guitarist, composer and GRAMMY® winner Bill Frisell “is a genuine guitar hero and a major influence on generations of six-stringers that you worship.” With over 300 recordings (including over 40 of his own), Frisell is recognized as one of America’s most vital and productive performing jazz artists. He is a multi-Best Guitarist winner in the DownBeat Critics Poll, multi-Guitarist of the Year at the Jazz Awards, and subject of a feature film and behind-the-music profile, entitled Bill Frisell, A Portrait. He is also a featured special guest on recent albums by Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Charles Lloyd, John Zorn and Allen Toussaint’s final recording, among many others. The definitive biography Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed The Sound of American Music by Philip Watson (GQ, Esquire) is out now. New double trio + orchestra album Orchestras out now (April 2024, Blue Note Records).

Jazz events in Santa Barbara, CA

Julian Lage Quartet

Lobero Theatre

The Billie Holiday Projec...

Lobero Theatre

Wynton Marsalis Septet

Lobero Theatre

Branford Marsalis Quartet...

Lobero Theatre

Reform94

Union Scene

Street Dance: Post-Stadiu...

America's Freedom Festival at Provo

Closing Reading: Sophia M...

Gasteig HP8

The Artelize Podcast Pres...

Artelize

Gerald Clayton Trio

Lobero Theatre

Lizz Wright

Lobero Theatre

Lizz Wright

Lobero Theatre

Pat Metheny

Lobero Theatre

UCSB Jazz Ensemble Winter...

UC Santa Barbara Department of Music

Preservation Hall Jazz Ba...

Lobero Theatre

Poncho Sanchez

Lobero Theatre

UCSB Jazz Ensemble 2nd Se...

UC Santa Barbara Department of Music

San Marcos Jazz Band Bene...

Konrad Kono

Lobero Theatre

The Django Festival Allst...

Lobero Theatre

Journey Through Jazz

Lobero Theatre

Robert Glasper

Lobero Theatre

The Hot Sardines

Lobero Theatre

Bill Frisell - GOOD DOG

Lobero Theatre

Journey Through Jazz

Lobero Theatre