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SFJAZZ presents two-time GRAMMY-winning blues icon Taj Mahal. This concert, originally filmed on Aug 5, 2023, is the world premiere performance of material from his album Savoy — a jazz-inflected tribute to the music of his childhood and the legendary Harlem ballroom of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, featuring his singular interpretations of Great American Songbook classics.

Personnel:
Taj Mahal guitar, harmonica, vocals
Maria Muldaur vocals
Sandy Cressman vocals
Carla Holbrook vocals
Destani Wolf vocals
Sheldon Brown saxophone, flute, clarinet
Erik Jekabson trumpet
Mike Rinta trombone
Lincoln Adler saxophone
Evan Price violin
Danny Caron guitar
John Simon piano
Ruth Davies bass
Leon Joyce, Jr. drums

Setlist:

"Stompin At The Savoy" by Benny Goodman, Andy Razaf, Edgar M Sampson, Chick William Webb
"I'm Just A Lucky So & So" by Mack David & Edward Kennedy Ellington
"Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You" by Andy Razaf & Don Redman
"Summertime" by George Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward, & Dubose Heyward
"Lady Be Good" by George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin
"Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me" by Edward Kennedy Ellington & Sidney Keith Russell
"Caldonia" by Fleecie Moore Jordan
"I Left My Heart In San Francisco" by Douglas Cross & George Cory
"Sweet Georgia Brown" by Ben Bernie, Kenneth Casey (Senior), & Maceo Pinkard
"I'm Confessin' That I Love You" by A.J. Neiburg, Doc Dougherty, & Ellis Reynolds
"Mood Indigo" by Edward Kennedy Ellington, Irving Mills, & Barney Bigard
"Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" by Billy Austin & Louis Jordan
"Baby, Won't You Please Come Home" by Charles Warfield & Clarence Williams
"Killer Joe" by Benny Golson & Jon Hendricks
"One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)" by Harold Allen & John H Mercer
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser
"Blue Light Boogie" by Jessie Mae Robinson
"My Baby Just Cares For Me" by Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson
"Baby, You're My Destiny" by Taj Mahal
"Mailbox Blues" by Taj Mahal

ABOUT TAJ MAHAL

Two-time GRAMMY-winning blues icon Taj Mahal is the closest thing we have to an American griot. His music embraces the raw energy of field hollers, the rent-party gumption of early jazz, the urbane grooves of rhythm and blues, the church-derived cadences of soul music and the rhythms of West Africa, via New Orleans and the Caribbean.

His Summer Sessions concerts are the world premiere performances of material from his forthcoming album Savoy — a jazz-inflected tribute to the music of his childhood and the legendary Harlem ballroom of the 30s,40s, and 50s, featuring his singular interpretations of Great American Songbook classics including “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” “Summertime,” and “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You.” The project has special meaning for Mahal — his parents met at the Savoy during an Ella Fitzgerald concert and the music of that era was the soundtrack of his early life. In his words, “I heard (the songs on Savoy) as a kid when all of those people who made those musics were alive and speaking to us through the records.”

Since his first release 50 years ago with the Rising Sons, which he founded with Ry Cooder, Taj has been a cultural force, bringing blues culture to new generations. Equal parts preservationist and visionary, Taj Mahal wields his expressive growl of a voice to conjure an era when social gatherings without live music were simply unthinkable.