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This week on Fridays Live we continue to present highlights from the San Francisco Jazz Festival with saxophone virtuoso and 2023 NEA Jazz Master Kenny Garrett with his stellar quintet featuring pianist/keyboardist Keith Brown, bassist Corcoran Holt, percussionists Rudy Bird and Melvis Santa, and drummer Ronald Bruner (of Kamasi Washington's band). They will be performing music from his album, Sounds from the Ancestors.

ABOUT KENNY GARRETT
Coming up as a teen through the Duke Ellington Orchestra and serving a memorable five-year stint with the iconic Miles Davis, Garrett is “one of the most admired alto saxophonists in jazz after Charlie Parker” (The New York Times). He returns to SFJAZZ with his latest ensemble.

A Detroit native, Garrett came of age in the 1980s and was grouped in with the so-called neo-traditionalist “Young Lions” of the era, but it was clear from the start that his adventurous spirit defied easy categorization. Beyond his work with Davis and the Ellington band, Garrett performed with trumpeters Woody Shaw and Freddie Hubbard before releasing his 1984 debut, Introducing Kenny Garrett, and joining one of the last iterations of Art Blakey’s vaunted Jazz Messengers.

Garrett’s extensive output as a leader established the saxophonist as a masterful composer and conceptualist, with standout sessions including 1990’s African Exchange Student, 1997’s Songbook, 2003’s Standard of Language, and the expansive, GRAMMY-nominated 2006 release Beyond the Wall.

Garrett received a GRAMMY nod for the 2009 all-star Five Peace Band Live with McBride, Chick Corea, and John McLaughlin, and his latest is the 2021 Mack Avenue quintet release Sounds from the Ancestors, featuring tributes to Roy Hargrove, Art Blakey, and Tony Allen.

SETLIST
all compositions by Kenny Garrett, unless otherwise noted
Haynes Here
Hargrove John Coltrane & Kenny Garrett
When The Days Were Different
For Art's Sake
Sounds From The Ancestors
Chasing The Wind
Happy People
Wayne's Thang

PERSONNEL
Kenny Garrett alto saxophone
Keith Brown piano, keys
Jeremiah Edwards bass
Ronald Bruner drums
Rudy Bird percussion
Melvis Santa vocals