Going South

The venerable Ventura Music Festival – once merely a classical-meets-jazz affair spread over two weeks at various venues around the town – has evolved into multi-genre five-day bursts held more than once a year. The summer installment takes place July 24-28 at The Performing Arts Center at Ventura College, beginning with “Rising Stars from the Colburn School;” namely pianist and violinist Ray Ushikubo and pianist Chi-Jo Lee, followed by a sold-out show with swing-jump band and hometown heroes Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Multiple Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman and his all-star band play July 26, VMF’s Artistic Director Nuvi Mehta and pianist Greg Anderson offer a lunchtime exploration of the music, life, and times of George Gershwin on July 27, and the Beijing Guitar Duo wind up the series on July 28. 

Down the road, the Fall series in mid-October boasts The Moanin’ Frogs saxophone sextet, Latin Grammy-winning guitarist Twanguero, the Branford Marsalis Quartet, another Mehta/Anderson collaboration, and the boundary-pushing chamber ensemble Delirium Musicum.

Visit www.venturamusicfestival.org

Elsewhere, Allman Brothers scion Duane Betts, who has his own take on the Southern rock tradition with a similar soul-stirring blend of blues, passion and six-string mastery, fronts his four-piece, Hammond B-3-infused band Palmetto Motel at the Ventura Music Hall on July 18.

Details at www.venturamusichall.com