The festival, as its name implies, takes place in the charming Northern California town of Healdsburg. Healdsburg, which sits in the heart of Sonoma County (and in the heart of Sonoma’s wine country), is a shining example everything that Americans love about small towns. It’s also got a great location, just 65 miles North of San Francisco, tucked in between three fertile valleys, and surrounded by over sixty wineries (many of which are world-renowned for their wines).
This year’s Festival takes place from June1st through June 11th, and includes public performances by a wide variety of world-renowned jazz musicians in a number of diverse settings, including the historic Raven Theater, the new Hotel Healdsburg, and several area wineries.
Headlining the 2006 Healdsburg Jazz Festival Line-up are Jazz greats McCoy Tyner and Mark Murphy.
Tyner, who is considered by many to be one of the most gifted jazz pianists of the Twentieth Century, was the pianist in the history-making John Coltrane Quartet of the ‘60s, and his association with Coltrane, including their 1960-65 recordings with bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones, are still regarded by jazz historians as major landmark events. Tyner is one of today’s most important and influential living proponents of straight-ahead jazz, and his contributions are considered to have been crucial to the maturation and evolution of the Jazz genre. His credentials stretch back to the ‘50s and include stints with Benny Golson and his ‘Jazztet’, Art Farmer, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins and Michael Brecker.
Six-time Grammy Award nominee Mark Murphy is also scheduled to perform during the Festival. Murphy, the singer about whom Rex Reed once said, ‘He is arguably the best male jazz singer in the business,’ is another veteran performer who traces his beginnings back to the early 1950s when he was discovered in his hometown of Syracuse, New York by Sammy Davis Jr.
