Her string of GRAMMYs includes an unprecedented three consecutive Best Jazz Vocal Performance awards and another for her contributions to the soundtrack of George Clooney’s film Good Night and Good Luck. She’s a performer with a gift for imbuing any performance space with the intimacy of a living room, and her 2015 Concord Records debut, Beautiful Life, won the GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album, melding jazz with elements of R&B, pop and Latin music.

Whether putting a personal stamp on lilting Brazilian standards, exploring contemporary fair by Ani DiFranco and Stevie Nicks, interpreting American Songbook classics by the Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin, or breathing fresh life into holiday chestnuts, Dianne Reeves always gets to the heart of a song. More than two generations have passed since jazz stars took on aristocratic titles, otherwise Dianne Reeves would surely be known as The Queen.

Frida & Saturday Performance | 7:30pm

Sunday Performance | 7:00pm

Springs first gained national attention with her 2014 self-titled EP, a hip-hop inflected project that led to performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, appearances at the Afropunk and Bonnaroo festivals, and an invitation to perform with Prince at Paisley Park for the 30th anniversary of Purple Rain. While elated by these opportunities, she started rethinking her musical direction and gravitated toward the jazz and soul-based sounds of her Nashville upbringing.

Reuniting with Grammy-winner Larry Klein, who produced her stunning debut Soul Eyes, Springs chose to honor the women whose music was such an inspiration during her early life in Nashville. Working with Klein (whose credits include albums by Lizz Wright, Melody Gardot, Joni Mitchell, and Herbie Hancock), The Women Who Raised Me is a loving tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Dusty Springfield, featuring Springs’ lustrous voice and deft piano accompanied by heavyweight players Christian McBride, Chris Potter, Avishai Cohen, and Elena Pinderhughes.

The son of Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés, the winner of seven GRAMMYs and four Latin GRAMMY Awards joined Armando Romeu’s celebrated Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music in 1967, a time when the communist government still considered American jazz anti-revolutionary. He was already recognized as the most formidable pianist of his generation when he launched Irakere in 1973 with a phenomenal cast that included saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval.

Discovered and introduced internationally by Dizzy Gillespie, the band’s unprecedented synthesis of folkloric Afro-Cuban rhythms, sacred drums, rock, funk, R&B, and jazz opened up vast new frontiers, and helped pave the way for the pervasively popular dance music known as timba. Over the ensuing years, Valdés has concentrated on his career as a solo artist, recording 25 albums and co-writing the landmark 2018 book Decoding Afro-Cuban Jazz in collaboration with SFJAZZ Director of Education Rebeca Mauleón.

A springboard from Valdes’ GRAMMY-winning Afro-Cuban Messengers band, Irakare 50 showcases a blazing new generation of Cuban talent.

Thursday ~ Saturday Performance | 7:30pm

Sunday Performance | 7:00pm