This year marks the 31st edition of the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and as Vancouver’s largest and most diverse music festival enters its fourth decade, its organizers have once again gone above and beyond to bring the best musical talent in the world to our fair shores. Here’s some of the highlights of this year’s festival you’re not going to want to miss.
Ms. Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill’s performance chops are as guaranteed as her unpredictability. The woman behind the Fugees and the Grammy Award-winning 1998 solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a tour de force of jazz, soul and R&B, who also happens to arrive hours late for the occasional show, esoteric excuses in tow. Meanwhile, Detroit export Khari Wendell McClelland (who made his name with gospel power group the Soujourners) and his band, the Unsung Heroes, are sure to add some soulful certainty to the double-bill, performing uplifting renditions of popular soul tunes and moving interpretations of slave songs from the Underground Railroad.
Queen Elizabeth Theatre, June 26, 8pm, $79-151
Tedeschi Trucks Band
Derek Trucks, ranked by Rolling Stone as No. 16 of the top 100 guitarists of all time, and vocalist Susan Tedeschi drive this 12-piece blues train. In its rolling journey through R&B belters and smooth, grooving ballads, TTB boasts dual drummers, two singers, a three-piece horn section, bassist and multi-instrumental keyboard player. The collective won a Grammy for its 2011 debut, Revelator, and follow ups Everybody’s Talkin’ and Made Up Mind have cemented TTB as a runaway blues-rock leader.
Queen Elizabeth Theatre, June 28 at 8 p.m., $69-118
Joe Jackson
Making his highly anticipated Jazz Festival debut, Joe Jackson will play a career-spanning show, opening with a short solo piano set before bringing out a full band, including long-time collaborator Graham Maby on bass, as well as Feist guitarist Teddy Kumpel and Suzanne Vega drummer Doug Yowell. The British-born, NYC/Berlin-based singer-songwriter is known for hits like “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and “Steppin’ Out” as well as his wide-ranging musical mastery, from cabaret and film scores to classical music and big-band jazz.
Queen Elizabeth Theatre, June 24, 8pm, $52-96
