Some of the Past Artists That Have Been Involved With The Snowbird Jazz and Blues Festival:



Koko Taylor Sings the Blues at Snowbird


Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women, Walter Trout Round Out Jazz Trifecta

Grammy Award-winner Koko Taylor lit up the Snowbird Jazz and Blues Festival Friday, July 26, 2002 with hits from her first album in seven years, "Royal Blue."

From foot-stomping barnburners to powerful slow blues, Taylor prooved in an instant that her blues are joyous and life affirming. "My blues isn't designed for people to look down, but for people to get up and dance."

"Blues is my roots," said Koko Taylor. "It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Blues is what I love and blues is what I always do."

In nearly 40 years of singing the blues, Taylor has received 19 W.C. Handy Awards (more than any other female blues artist), received Grammy nominations for six of her last seven Alligator albums and took home a Grammy in 1984. Rolling Stone magazine named Taylor, a 1999 Blues Hall of Fame inductee, "the great female blues singer of her generation.

Joining Taylor for the 2002 blues portion of the Snowbird Jazz and Blues Festival was Walter Trout and the Radicals as well as the previous year's hit Saffire The Uppity Blues Women. Featured on the April/May 2002 cover of Blues Revue, Saffire's Ann Rabson, Gaye Adegbalola and Andra Faye combine stellar musicianship with witty songwriting that keeps audiences listening, laughing and clapping. "People like the humor," Adegbalola told Blues Revue. "If that's what brings them in you've got to serve it up."

The third portion of the Blues Night trifecta was Walter Trout and the Radicals hailed by fans and reviewers alike as one of the best guitar players of his generation. The Los Angeles Times wrote: "Trout is about as good as a guitar player can get. Big, gnarly guitar solos, gritty vocals this is great rockin' blues. If more blues sounded like this, there would be more blues fans."




Sergio Mendes Brought His Latin Jazz to Snowbird


Legendary Brazilian Highlights Jazz Night at Annual Festival

Sergio Mendes, one of Brazil's most globally recognized musicians whose career spans four decades, headlines an exciting collection of artists performing at past years' Jazz and Blues Festivals.

Having sold over a million copies of the chart-topping album "Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66," Mendes has entertained and enlightened fans around the world with his Latin jazz piano.

Also having performed in the past, the versatile pianist Cedar Walton, the first pianist to record with John Coltrane. Walton, who will perform with Red Holloway, is one of the most valued of all hard bop accompanists whose "funky touch and cogent melodic sense has graced the recordings of many of jazz's greatest players," according to Chris Kelsey of AMG. Equally talented on the alto and tenor saxophone, HollowayÕs playing partners have included Aretha Franklin, Redd Foxx, Chuck Berry, John Mayall and many others. Holloway also plays the clarinet, flute, piccolo, piano, bass, drums and violin.

The evenings of jazz usually began at 5:30 p.m. also had included a cornucopia of musicians in a new act "L.A. meets S.L.C." featuring Jack Wood, Larry Jackstien, Jay Lawrence, Matt Larson, the Doug McDonald Trio, the Rob Mullins Trio and Mickey Rhyne.

"We wanted the 15th Annual Snowbird Jazz and Blues Festival to be one to remember and with the likes of Sergio Mendes, Cedar Walton, Red Holloway and Mickey Rhyne promised to be just that," says Larry Jackstien, Snowbird Managing Director of Sales and Marketing, Jazz Night performer and Jazz at the Bird pianists, speaking of past summers' successful Jazz and Blues Festivals.


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2004 Snowbird Jazz and Blues Festival

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Best Jazz Albums of the Past 50 Years

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