Join Us for the San Diego-Tijuana International Jazz Festival

Dan Atkinson and Julian Plascencia at Caesar’s Place.

I have to begin this piece with some personal history. When I started the Athenaeum’s jazz program back in 1989, an organization called San Diego Jazz Festival was just winding down after several years of very ambitious jazz presentations. Many of their concerts took place at the Sherwood Auditorium (now sadly demolished) at the then La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art. But they also ran a festival that had its last iteration at the Old Globe Theater’s outdoor stage in around 1984.

Rob Hagey was the director of San Diego Jazz Festival and at the time he also booked Elario’s in La Jolla. At some point in the 1980s, he began Street Scene as a fundraiser for the San Diego Jazz Festival. Street Scene grew and grew into a major event that became Rob’s primary focus for many years. A lot of us look back on the performances at those festivals as our formative musical experiences.

So, my beginning as a jazz presenter more or less coincided with the last truly international-level jazz festival that took place in San Diego.

Another piece of the puzzle for me has been the nearly 30 years that I have been involved with an association called the Western Jazz Presenters Network. Through this organization I became familiar with the directors of major festivals in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tucson, Albuquerque, and most recently, Denver. And I also travelled to Europe and became friends with directors of festivals like North Sea, Montreal, Strasbourg, London, Berlin, and Barcelona.

Over the past nearly 40 years I have taken part in countless conversations about how our town ought to have its own festival and what that should look like. Finally, when I retired from UCSD in 2020, I decided it was time to take a run at this.

I think because of the international perspective that I gained from my colleagues, the idea began to grow on me that a festival in San Diego should have a mission that recognizes our unique position in sharing a border with Tijuana. I cannot think of anywhere else in the world where two major cities from two very different countries sit directly next to one another. This is a fantastic situation that opens up some amazing creative territory that we are fortunate to inhabit.

The roots of the San Diego-Tijuana International Jazz Festival began in 2018 when I brought the Charles Mingus legacy band, Mingus Dynasty, from NYC to play music from Mingus’ album Tijuana Moods in both La Jolla and Tijuana. My longtime friend Ramon Amezcua (known as Bostich in the Nortec Collective) introduced me to Julian Plascencia, the director of the Tijuana Jazz and Blues Festival. Ramon and Julian were instrumental in getting the CECUT in Tijuana to agree to host the performance. This marked the beginning of my friendship with Julian, who makes all that we now do together in Tijuana possible.

Jorge Castillo & Arturo O’Farrill. Photo by Belongo.

Another key moment also came in 2018, when I heard from George Varga that there were rumors that Arturo O’Farrill was bringing his entire 19-piece Latin big band from New York City to perform a recording session at the border wall in Playas de Tijuana. He was there as the guest of Fandango Fronterizo, a festival of son jarocho music founded by Jorge Castillo. Arturo’s project incorporated Jorge’s son jarocho band, a Middle Eastern ensemble, an Afro-Cuban percussion group, and a violin trio that featured Regina Carter and the Villalobos Brothers. All I can say is that this whole experience was mind-blowing, down to the fact that the power source for the sound system failed so that everything had to be played acoustically, which actually drew us all in closer to the music. The recording, Fandango at the Wall, went on to receive a Grammy Award.

I can’t say how excited I am to have Arturo and Jorge back together at this year’s festival, which will feature their first performance in Tijuana since the 2018 recording session. The brilliance of this project lies in how it unites two musical languages that are rooted in African culture—jazz and son jarocho. They share call-and-response, polyrhythmic improvisation, instrumental improvisation… so much, like long lost cousins.

Another mission of the festival is to explore the jazz history of our own region. Last year we began at the beginning with a celebration of Jelly Roll Morton’s little-known period in Tijuana during the Prohibition years. Jelly Roll is revered as the first composer of jazz and, in fact, he composed several of his most important pieces in Tijuana.

This year, we are celebrating James Moody, one of the most eminent jazz musicians ever to call San Diego his home. Moody lived here for 20 years and brought his special shining energy and musical mastery to many stages in our city, including the Athenaeum series. When his widow, Linda, called to suggest that we should host a tribute to his 100^th birthday like one that happened this spring in NYC, I did not hesitate to say yes! And this was the same spirit that I received when I approached the musicians who will take part in this tribute. All of them have a profound sense of respect and affection for Moody and I am sure that energy, his energy, will radiate from the stage.

The festival will also feature several other pieces of local history. Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock bandmember Bennie Maupin’s 1974 composition, “Ensenada,” will be performed for the first time by a band from Ensenada led by trumpeter Ivan Trujillo. And Arturo O’Farrill will play a piece by a giant of jazz, Carla Bley, called “Tijuana Traffic.” When I presented Carla years ago at the Athenaeum series, I remember that she told me she had lived in San Diego for a brief period in the late 1950s. I have to guess that this piece, recorded by her in 2003, must reflect back on her experiences from that time.

We will also host a homecoming by rising star vocalist, Gabrielle Cavassa, who was born and raised in Escondido. She won the world’s most prestigious jazz vocal award, the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, in 2021, and has been touring the globe for the past two years with Joshua Redman.

And we are also hosting a major album release by one of San Diego’s leading jazz pianists, Irving Flores. Irving’s album, Armando Mi Conga, is an amazing, ambitious breakout project that he recorded with the top Latin jazz musicians of NYC. We have brought together half of that band, plus Gilbert Castellanos and two top musicians from L.A., to celebrate his achievement in this special album in both San Diego and Tijuana.

I will add just one more thing in closing. When we conceived of this festival, we decided that it should be for the people. We took inspiration from longstanding festivals in Detroit, Chicago, and Atlanta that are offered all or mostly at free admission. This makes fundraising a rather monumental challenge, with only a minor potential for ticket revenue, but I think it sends an essential message that jazz welcomes everyone, regardless of borders. I look forward to sharing that message through the music with the people of both San Diego and Tijuana.