April 1, 2021
The 9th Annual True Blue Jazz Year will host Jazz Appreciation Month events April 29-30.
Celebrating April as Jazz Appreciation Month, live jazz will return to Nassau Valley Vineyards & Winery from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, April 29, featuring outstanding young trumpeter, vocalist and third-generation jazz musician Benny Benack III. His latest album release is titled “A Lot of Livin’ To Do.” The Cape Henlopen High School Jazz Combo, under the direction of Chris Burkhart, will open the show.
For tickets, go to truebluejazz.org and click the events tab.
“Having Benny Benack III in town for a Jazz Appreciation Month show at Nassau Valley Vineyards is a dream come true after the year of the lockdown we’ve all just been through,” said Peggy Raley.
It did not take long for a booking at Little Tokyo’s Blue Whale to become a stamp of approval among music fans with an ear for improvisatory sounds. If you could get your name on the chalkboard marquee, it was a validation from the owner and booker Joon Lee that you were doing something interesting. Probably not commercial. Maybe a little hip. But definitely new and worth pursuing.
That approval was enough to keep the club as the centerpiece of L.A.’s imaginative and expanding jazz scene for more than a decade. But amid an evaporated source of revenue and unforgiving lease obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic, Blue Whale has permanently closed.