Author: V. Iyengar, Megaphone Editor-in-chief

📍Downtown San José, CA

Image Credit: San Jose Jazz

The San Jose Jazz Summer Festival, known as one of the country’s best jazz festivals, kicked off and came to a close this past weekend, drawing in audiences from all throughout California.

The San Jose Jazz Summer Festival is run by San Jose Jazz, a nonprofit founded in 1986 that aims to bring professional, high-quality jazz to the Silicon Valley community. It began in 1990 as a free, one day event with a single stage, and since then, has grown to become a 3 day festival that is ticketed and has multiple stages.

This year’s festival kicked off on August 9th and ended on August 11th, boasting a diverse array of incredibly talented acts, including, but not limited to: soloists, ensembles, high school bands, and Grammy-nominated artists.

Read about a couple of this year’s acts below:

Ken Okada Group Featuring Yoyoka

Ken Okada is known as one of the top jazz fusion bassists and composers in California, and has performed at festivals all over the state. At a young age, Okada discovered his love for both music and  programming, and has spent his life exploring the two interests, working as a musician and a software engineer. 

As a young musician, he often combined these skills, programming synthesizers and performing drums live alongside it. Okada recently formed his own band, the Ken Okada Group, and collaborated with YOYOKA on the band’s first album, Square One.

YOYOKA, or Yoyoka Soma was born in Hokkaido, Japan, and began playing drums before she could even speak. In 2009, she became the youngest person to be featured on Drummerworld’s list of the world’s Top 500 Drummers.

The rest of the quintet includes Murray Low on the piano and keyboard, tenor saxophonist Ben Torres, and guitarist Hristo Vitchev.

Andre Thierry Accordion Soul

Born and raised in Richmond, CA, Andre Thierry has become an international icon of accordion soul. His musical influences stem from his French-Creole heritage and his family in Louisiana. Growing up, Thierry was surrounded by Zydeco dance music, a genre of dance music created in the early 1800s by the Louisiana Creoles carrying elements from R&B, Cajun, and early Creole music, which he was exposed to while attending dances held by his grandparents at their church parish. Thierry is a self-taught musician who has spent his entire life developing his love for Zydeco music as well as his mastery of the accordion, even earning a Grammy nomination in 2023. 

Herbie Hancock

Boasting an over 60-year-long career, Herbie Hancock has gone on to become an irreplaceable figure in modern music. Born in Chicago in 1940, Hancock discovered his love for music at a young age and was a musical prodigy, performing piano at age 11 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Hancock’s solo career began in 1960, when he was discovered by trumpeter Donald Byrd, which led to him being able to publish his first solo album, Takin Off, in 1963. His debut album was a major success, and produced the hit, “Watermelon Man”. Since then Hancocks career has done nothing but blossom. In 1973, his single “Chameleon” became the first jazz album to go platinum. Since then, almost 50 years later, Hancock has gone on to participate in numerous successful collaborations, start a few bands, win 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year in 2008 for River: The Joni Letters, which is 1 of only 2 jazz albums to have received that award, and continues to enthrall audiences worldwide, including at this past San Jose Jazz Festival, for which he was the headlining artist.

See the full list of artists at the San Jose Jazz Summer Festival here.