St. Michael’s by-the-Sea Hosts Weekly Jazz Evensong Concerts

Festival Highlights Year of Jazz at Carlsbad Church

Twenty-two steel drums tintinnabulating in unison. A greasy blues trombone solo played by a lady manipulating the slide with her bare foot. Crackling Latin jazz by a crack unit of elite San Diego musicians. An all-star band of jazz veterans showcasing prodigious chops on original and classic tunes. Sinewy sax solos and snarling trumpets backed by booming sousaphone bass lines. Climaxing with the world-renowned Rebirth Brass Band funkifying with New Orleans-inspired second-line grooves—the musical gumbo performed for more than a century by spontaneous neighborhood ensembles in post-funeral processions.

Yet, this was no wake, man. It just happened to happen at a church.

The aforementioned sound bites were a few among many highlights of the second annual jazz festival presented by St. Michael’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Carlsbad with the support of numerous co-sponsors. The event, free of admission, attracted several thousand folks on a sunny Saturday last month, on the church’s grassy grounds a couple of blocks from the city’s coastal bluffs.

“It was pure joy seeing people of all ages, from all different backgrounds, dancing and grooving together,” said St. Michael’s rector, Father Doran Stambaugh. “With so much division in the world, this day of communal celebration and togetherness was pure joy. I pray it sows the seeds of peace and joy for all who attend.”

The festival is an outgrowth of the church’s weekly Jazz Evensong Series, in which a quintet of top-flight musicians coalesces each Sunday from 4 to 5:30 p.m. The concerts take place with outdoor seating when the weather is good or indoors in the church’s historic chapel during wintery times.

“The icing on the cake was the idea of an annual fall music festival held around the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (on September 29), a way for the parish to throw a big community parity. The mission is simple: Creating Community Through Music.”

A lifelong music lover, Father Doran said he has been cultivating an appreciation of jazz over the last decade. The idea of hosting a weekly outdoor concert sprang from the restrictions placed on gatherings during the Covid-19 epidemic that began six years ago.

“In my day job as friendly neighborhood local vicar, I have long pondered the mix of jazz music with ancient Christian liturgical worship,” he said. “It know it sounds a little nuts.

“That’s why the idea mostly just resided in my head. Then COVID hit. The uncertainty of the future gave me the courage to stop thinking about it and just give it a go.

“Live music was locked down, but churches were permitted to gather in worship. And that’s what we did. Jazz Evensong is essentially an hour and a half of straight-ahead jazz, with a wee bit of prayer.”

The current ensemble, which performed at the festival, consists of Keith Bishop, master of several saxes and other reed instruments; keyboardist Leonard Thompson, guitarist Joey Carano; bassist Gunnar Biggs; and drummer Bob Weller.

Father Doran’s commitment to the weekly jazz session and the festival led Biggs to label him “the high priest of bebop,” a phrase borrowed from the compliment long applied to modern jazz pioneer Thelonius Monk.

“Jazz Evensong is the best band I’ve ever played with,” Bishop said. “Everybody is a good soloist. Everybody is a good listener. It’s synergistic in the way the group comes together.”

That’s a mind-blowing statement, considering his resume includes playing with legendary drummer and Big Band leader Buddy Rich as well as numerous other headliners.

Each week, Jazz Evensong features the compositions of renowned musicians and/or tunesmiths in the tradition. Bishop usually selects the artist who will be featured based on their birth dates. The quintet performs the sets without rehearsals, meaning they engage in true, unfettered improvision from week to week. Recent sessions have featured the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball and Nat Adderly, Sonny Rollins, Jerome Kern, and the list goes on.

“The whole history of jazz is what we’re trying to address,” Bishop said. “We’ve all grown up with and studied this music our whole lives.”

Bassist Biggs, who lives a few blocks from St. Michael’s, joined the group a few years ago. Like Bishop, Biggs was a veteran of the Rich band but before the saxophonist’s stint. Biggs spent most of his career in this region to maintain his teaching career at SDSU. Many bands hired Biggs to play with them when they came through Southern California, notably the blues composer, singer, and pianist Mose Allison. Biggs said he enjoys playing with Jazz Evensong so much he gave up other gigs to participate weekly.“It’s kind of like a jazz history class,” he said. “We’re all good players and we’re having a ball. I read up on each of the artists, some of whom I played with or heard before. That’s what I dig about it. I’ve got to go home and look all these tunes up.”

Furthering the historical aspect, Father Doran and the group members stream a weekly podcast called Jazz Legends that discusses the legacy of the featured artists.

At the festival, the Jazz Evensong Quintet provided a nuanced foil to the bravura of the brass bands that preceded and followed. The quintet mingled band members’ originals with classic compositions, including Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ”Insensatez (How Insensitive)” and jazz pianist George Cables’ “Think on Me.” Jazz Evensong’s set provided a fulcrum to a nearly 12-hour day of multiple musical acts.

The festival led off with the Atkinson Warrior Band, consisting of cadets attending Carlsbad’s Army-Navy Academy, located a couple of blocks north on Coast Highway from St. Michael’s. They were followed by Kainga, a North San Diego County steel drum band organized and directed by Keli Ross-Ma’u, son of North County’s legendary island music bandleader Semisi Ma’u. The second-line groove emerged with the performance of the first Marine Division Band, featuring three trumpets, two saxes, one trombone, a stand-up bass, drums, and a tuba.

Sue Palmer and Her Motel Swing Orchestra lived up to its appellation, including boss solos by guitarist Steve Wilcox and trombonist April West, who stunned fans with her slide footwork. Lionel Hampton’s “Hey Ba Ba Ba Rebop” was a highlight that got jitterbuggers hopping..

The Jazz Evensong Quintet mellowed the mood like waves lapping onto the nearby beach.

The scene went back to the streets of the French Quarter with the Chunky Hustle Brass Band followed by the high-pressure funk of Starsign.

That set the stage for San Diego trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos’ New Latin Jazz Sextet, including Brian Levy on tenor sax, Irving Flores on piano, Julian Esparza on bass, Fernando Gomez on drums, and Tommy Aros on percussion. Their version of Mongo Santamaria’s “Besame Mama” moved dozens of salseros to demonstrate their bachata moves in front of the bandstand.

San Diego’s own New Orleans’ styled brass band, Euphoria, warmed the crowd up for the internationally renowned headliner, the Rebirth Brass Band. Founded in the 1980s, Rebirth is among the most successful and popular of the New Orleans brass bands that emerged following guitarist and educator Danny Baker’s campaign to resurrect the music.

The Carlsbad set included some covers such as Fat Domino’s “Whatcha Gonna Do When the Well Runs Dry,” Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya,” Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass,” (son Sal Masekela, the sports commentator, grew up in Carlsbad), plus Rebirth favorites “Go Shorty Go,” “Takin’ It to the Streets,” and “Doin’ Whatcha Wanna.”

“Shorty” is co-bandleader Keith Frazier on the bass drum. The other leader is brother Philip, a sousaphone player, who couldn’t make the trip because he is sidelined with back pain. Other members are Vincent Broussard, sax; Stafford Agee, trombone; Glenn Hall III, trumpet; Eric Gordon, trumpet; Clifton Smith, sousaphone; Caleb Windsley, trombone; and Jenard Andrews, snare and cymbals.

It was no coincidence that Rebiirth was the headliner for both of St. Michael’s first and second annual festivals. Father Doran encountered brass band music on a sojourn in New Orleans and joyfully fell into a second line parade in the Treme district, from which many of the city’s most celebrated musicians originated.

“In recent years I have become mildly obsessed with the brass band tradition of New Orleans,” he said. “I have wept more than once, dancing in the streets in a second line. I’m not sure the exact source of the tears. I think it’s simply joy in the midst of such a communal celebration and beauty. Brass Band music is my catnip.”

A third annual St. Michael’s Jazz Fest is scheduled in fall 2026. Meanwhile, the church continues to hold its Sunday Jazz Evensong sessions and Jazz Legends podcasts.

Father Doran’s commitment to music is a lifelong evolution that eventually led him to the discovery of jazz, a genre that his parents had spurned.

“Inherent in this music is resistance in the face of oppression, defiant joy, and celebration of true spiritual freedom in the face of earthly Injustice. Plus, it makes me want to dance!”

And, Father Doran said, even his parents might be coming around.

“They actually traveled from Phoenix to attend the Jazz Fest this year and loved it! I caught my dad hanging in the parking lot with members of Rebirth!”