San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival soars high in its second year

The San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival scored so well and often on Saturday that first-time attendees may easily have assumed this borders-leaping musical fiesta was celebrating its 10th year, not its second.

Review: San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival kicks off with borders-blurring verve

Funded with nearly $400,000 in seed money from Qualcomm co-founder Irwin M. Jacobs, this year’s edition of the weekend festival opened Thursday in downtown San Diego and concludes today on the streets of downtown Tijuana. Saturday’s performances were held on indoor and outdoor stages at California Center for the Arts, Escondido, where a bevy of rising young newcomers, established veterans and Grammy Award-winning stars delivered equally inspiring performances.

The Grammy winners included bass great John Clayton and Puerto Rican sax master David Sanchez. Both performed in a star-studded centennial tribute to the late sax legend James Moody, which also featured pianist Gerald Clayton and San Diego jazz mainstays Gilbert Castellanos on trumpet and Holly Hofmann on flute.

James Moody at 100: The late music great is being celebrated near and far

Their performance honoring Grammy-winner Moody — a longtime San Diego resident who died here in 2010 — was dedicated to Hofmann’s husband, acclaimed pianist Mike Wofford, who died Sept. 19 after a brief illness.

Two other Grammy winners, pianist Arturo O’Farrill and singer and jarana jarocha player Jorge Francisco Castillo, a Tijuana resident and former Chula Vista librarian, teamed up with their respective bands for a joint performance that fused jazz and Afro-Cuban music with the traditional Mexican son jarocho folk traditions of Veracruz. Their ebullient versions of “La Bamba,” ” El Cascabel,” “Conga Patria” and other selections were a sheer delight.

Newcomers included Escondido native Gabrielle Cavassa and Veracruz native Lucia Gutiérrez Rebolloso, who performs as Lucia. Cavassa and Lucia are the winners, respectively, of the 2021 and 2022 editions of the prestigious Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition.

Both singers easily won over listeners and Cavassa’s too-short performance was a marvel of understatement, sophistication and deeply felt emotion. Her moody, slow-as-molasses version of “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” gave a fresh spin to the oft-heard song, while her own song, “Bossy Nova,” was a lilting delight that included a fleeting quote from the 1964 Astrud Gilberto hit, “Girl From Ipanema.”

Gabrielle Cavassa’s San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival gig a full-circle moment

Saturday’s nearly seven-hour-long music marathon opened with a robust 3 p.m. set by Ensenada trumpet standout Ivan Trujillo and his band, which includes his wife, clarinetist Martha Rolon. The performances by Trujillo and — several hours later — Cavassa were both held on the outdoor stage and were free of charge.

“We want to make great jazz available to anyone and everyone on both sides of the border,” said Daniel Atkinson, who launched the festival last year with Tijuana music impresario Julian Plascencia.

“I’ve been crossing the border back and forth, since I was a baby, to study and work,” Plascencia

Atkinson has headed La Jolla Athenaeum’s jazz concert series since its inception in 1989 and is the founder of San Diego Jazz Ventures. On Saturday, he thanked Irwin Jacobs and his late wife, Joan Jacobs, saying: “Their generosity truly made this entire event possible. They allowed us to take this vision and make it a reality.”

The festival’s inaugural edition last year came prior to the 2024 U.S. presidential election. With this year’s advent of mass deportations, the subsequent rise in international tensions made this weekend’s festival an even more timely reminder of the power of music to transcend borders and to uplift and unify musicians and audiences alike.

“We are proud to host this in such a pivotal time,” said Gina Lopez, the CEO of California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Tad Parzen, a festival underwriter and the CEO of the Burnham Center for Community Advancement, noted from the stage that the festival has been several decades in the making. He also announced the launch of the nonprofit OneSD, which is designed to bridge differences and bring people together at a time of intense polarization.

“San Diego and Tijuana can be the pluralistic capital of the world,” Parzen said.

The ease with which music can transcend borders was demonstrated by virtually every performer Saturday.

Lucia sang in both English and Spanish, while Cavassa sang in English and Italian. Castillo and O’Farrill, who is the professor of Global Jazz Studies at UCLA, addressed the audience in Spanish and English.

“Music doesn’t have borders, and neither should the world,” said Castillo, who this year shared in a Best Latin Jazz Album Grammy Award win with O’Farrill for their album “Fandango at the Wall in New York.”

Highlights abounded Saturday, starting with trumpeter Trujillo’s set-closing number, the aptly named “Volkano.” The 24-year-old Lucia, whose band featured the terrific pianist Edward Simon, sang the 1932 bolero “Veracruz” with the same elan she brought to the 1930 George and Ira Gershwin gem, “But Not For Me.”

The posthumous 100th birthday tribute to James Moody was introduced by his wife, San Diego Realtor Linda McGowan Moody.

“I cannot believe I was married to someone who would have been 100 this year, because I am not aging!” she said with a smile. “I hope you continue to support this so that we will forever have a San Diego/Tijuana jazz festival,” she told the 1,000-plus audience.

The tribute to her late husband opened with a luminous version of “Autumn Leaves” and included a suitably sly “Bennie’s From Heaven,” which featured a delightful vocal by drummer Nash. “Freedom Jazz Dance” built from a simmer to a sizzle and was boosted by Gerald Clayton’s gospel-infused piano solo.

Commenting on Moody’s sterling talents as both a saxophonist and flutist, Hofmann said:”He really did both so well.” She then joined the band for two selections, the jaunty “Darben, The Redd Foxx” and the bossa-nova classic “Wave,” which featured a sumptuous alto flute solo by Hofmann.

“James gave more than 100 years of great music to the world,” John Clayton said. “We dedicate this (performance) to him and his soulmate, Linda Moody.”

The concluding joint performance by the Castillo-led Fandango Fronterizo Colectivo and the O’Farrill-led Afro-Latin Ensemble was a frequently charged affair that brought the audience to its feet to sway and dance. In his spoken comments, O’Farrill expressed his outrage over current anti-immigrant policies forcefully (and, perhaps, a bit too often).

But he also eloquently articulated the power of music to overcome divisions and bring people together by helping to bridge borders and foster better understanding. His joyous collaboration with Castillo and their respective bands underscored that with passion and verve.

What the producers of the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival have in store for 2026 remains to be seen. But this year’s edition set the bar admirably high for an event well worth celebrating in both its namesake cities — and beyond.