There’s been a lot of talk over the past few months about what — and what isn’t — the sound of San Jose. Well, leave it to San Jose Jazz to find a great way to engage in that conversation by listening instead of talking.
As part of the 30th anniversary celebration of Summer Fest — coming Aug. 9-11 throughout downtown San Jose — the SJZ Boom Box stage is hitting the road to showcase homegrown performers through “Do You Know San Jose?,” a traveling concert series.
The first two stops for the mobile stage were in downtown’s SoFA District in July and outside P.F. Chang’s at Oakridge Mall on Aug. 3, where pianists Javier Santiago and Bennett Roth-Newell were set to perform. During next weekend’s festival, it’ll be parked at the Jazz Beyond stage’s new location on Post Street, featuring artists such as Peanut Butter Wolf, ASTU and Sons of Kemet. (Local acts actually will be featured on six of the festival’s 14 stages, including the Hammer Theatre and San Pedro Square Market stages.)
The spirit of the “Do You Know San Jose?” initiative will extend beyond the stage itself, with locally sourced art, food and craft beer adding to the Post Street scene. San Jose-based producer and songwriter B. Lewis, the Jazz Beyond Artist-in-Residence, will perform DJ sets with featured vocalists at the festival, and he’s also working on “New Works Suite,” a full-length studio recording of compositions written and performed to represent San Jose.
He says he’s proud to be part of “Do You Know San Jose?” to help people better understand the “thriving artistic nature of San Jose.”
“I’ve lived in San Jose a majority of my life and I’m super excited for a full-on collaboration with San Jose Jazz,” said the musician. “Beyond being booked as an artist at the festival in the past, it means a lot to write an album dedicated to my hometown, teach music classes to kids at San Jose Jazz Summer Camp, and present my latest compositions live at the 30th annual fest.”
Following the festival, the SJZ Boom Box will take “Do You Know San Jose?” to History Park on Aug. 30 and Village Fest on Cottle Road in South San Jose on Sept. 7. You can get more details and updates on the initiative at www.doyouknowsj.com.
FAIRGROUNDS ART SHOW: Another addition to the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds this year is an amazing collection of 24 murals representing various communities that make up the county, from downtown San Jose to Los Gatos and Gilroy. The colorful display covering Gateway Hall was coordinated by San Jose artist Lila Gemellos, who painted six murals herself and worked with 16 different mural teams.
Gemellos has her own special connection to the fair. She won Best of Show for the arts division as an 8-year-old in 1994 with her fifth oil painting ever. The painting, a pastoral scene of Gemellos with geese and a cow, is on display in the historical exhibit by the Fairgrounds Heritage Foundation near Gemellos’ murals.
“I was able to sell my first works this year off the walls of Gateway Hall, which we’ve now painted,” she said. “It meant so much to me that they asked me to be part of the fair. I felt such a huge responsibility because it gave me a hunger for art, and a professional art way of life.”
THE LANGUAGE OF TELEVISION: The Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley’s Latinx Speaker Series kicked off Friday with a packed house of more than 200 people at the Rotary Summit Center in downtown San Jose. Francisco Ramos, vice president of Spanish Language Originals for Netflix, talked about the Los Gatos-based media giant’s offerings for Latino audiences with Consuelo Alba-Speyer, executive director of the Watsonville Film Festival.
During the wide-ranging conversation, Ramos — an independent film producer who was born in Mexico and lived in Spain for more than two decades until Netflix hired him in 2017 — said programs like the dramedy “La Casa de las Flores” have been big hits with audiences both in and outside the U.S. because of their specific storytelling. The global language of entertainment may now be English, he said, but he sees that changing. “The global language of entertainment will be specificity and truth that comes from someone’s point of view to the whole world,” he said.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: A panel including slow-food pioneer and chef Jesse Cool will have a conversation Aug. 15 in Los Altos about how our food choices can affect ongoing social concerns, including sustainability, climate change and health. The event at the Los Altos Library is being held in conjunction with the Los Altos History Museum’s current exhibition, “Silicon Valley Eats: A Taste for Innovation,” which looks at everything from the region’s agricultural roots to today’s tech-driven sustainability efforts.
“We’re living in a time when climate change is an unavoidable reality, and the country is incredibly divisive. What does this have to do with food? Food can be a solution to both of these problems in caring for the earth, one another, and our health,” said Kim Marinucci Acker, a leader with Slow Food South Bay and moderator for the panel.
Other panelists include Sibella Kraus, founder of SAGE (Sustainable Agriculture Education); Blair Thompson, animal husbandry manager for Hidden Villa; and Peter Ruddock, the board president of Slow Food California. The panel starts at 7 p.m. You can register to attend for free at www.losaltoshistory.org.