When an impressive line-up of professional jazz musicians convenes Saturday in Vero for the annual summer jazz concert of Space Coast Orchestra, it’s likely to be a transporting experience. Even in the somewhat austere 1000-seat Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center, the concert should feel like the “big band bash” it’s billed as. That is in part thanks to the baton of New Orleans-born Patrick Hennessey, a saxophonist and director of the Stetson University Jazz Ensemble.
Vero is already familiar with Stetson’s excellent music program. Its opera department regularly provides singers for Vero Beach Opera performances; professors often drive over to appear in venues like Community Church in chamber groups and as soloists.
Among those travelling musicians is Hennessey, who in addition to directing the jazz concert, also plays in Space Coast’s regular orchestra.
Hennessey has a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Hawaii, was principal trombone of the Royal Hawaiian Band for 26 years, serves on the board of the Melbourne Municipal Band, performed in the pit for half-a-dozen Broadway tours, and played in numerous jazz festivals across the country. The roster of talent he has freelanced for includes Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Burt Bacharach – and it’ll take a couple more sidecars to finish that list.
The Big Band Bash takes place at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance; $25 at the door with discounts and free tickets available to some through the website, based on age and need.
The First Friday Gallery Stroll in Vero’s downtown includes a celebration of the partner artists of one of the first galleries to open along 14th Avenue. Gallery 14, a cooperative gallery originally comprising 14 women artists, now counts as partners 10 artists (among them, one man: Edgardo Abello). Eight more artists are represented by the gallery. Works from all will be on display at the stroll this month and next.
And by the way, as you make your way through the dozen or so stops on the stroll, make sure to double check summer hours in the event you want to take time to think over a prospective purchase. Gallery 14, for example, goes to a three day a week schedule in July and closes for August and September, though it will continue to be open during First Friday strolls.
David Crosby has been a lot of things in his life: quintessential hippie in the 1970s, gun-toting coke head in the 1980s, an actor who played a pirate in the movie “Hook” in the 1990s, and the voice of two characters on “The Simpsons.” He also made news when his buddy Phil Collins paid for a new liver once he’d burned out his own with alcohol and a case of hepatitis C.
A diabetic, he lost 55 pounds fighting that disease a few years back and just last year he had to postpone a tour to have a cardiac catheterization after a routine stress test.
Last year he sold the Mayan, his 59-foot schooner that had been his muse since the 1960s and took him thousands of miles across the Caribbean and through the Pacific.
He’s also a dad and granddad, with four children including a daughter by the late Jackie Guthrie, Arlo’s wife, who died here in Sebastian in 2012. He also did his bit to help Melissa Etheridge conceive two children with her then-partner.
Just this past March, Crosby made headlines again: his car hit a jogger when the sun got in his eyes. He was sober, and the victim was expected to recover.
With all that noise out of the way, there is eternally Crosby’s music. From his early days with the Byrds to his recent solo career, Crosby has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 40 years of performing his tender harmonies with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and occasionally Neil Young, Crosby has recorded only four solo albums and Rolling Stone magazine calls his latest, “Croz,” the best since his first from back in 1971. He co-produced this latest album with his son, keyboardist John Raymond (the child he gave up for adoption and was reunited with in adulthood). The magazine uses words like “spare,” “minimal” and “silvery” to describe Crosby’s voice on this recording.
“I’m looking for some peace within me to embrace,” he sings in one of the two songs he himself wrote.
Now 72, Crosby appears on Sunrise Theatre’s stage June 10 with only a guitar and a microphone. His sound pared down to only this, it seems an important performance to witness.
Then on June 12, a departure from the usual American rock, blues and country artists appearing locally: the French-born, Catalan influenced Gipsy Kings perform at Melbourne’s King Center. The original group was formed of Spanish Romani musicians from two families living in the south of France, one from Arles and the other from Montpellier. The patriarch of one family, José Reyes, was a famous flamenco vocalist whose fans, the band’s website notes, included Picasso, Steinbeck, Dali and Miles Davis (not a bad bucket list to play for.)
The Reyes brothers performed with their dad in the 1970s as Los Reyes, and eventually linked up with cousins, the Baliardos. As the Gipsy Kings, they later performed in Spanish in a style they called Rumba Flamenco and they eventually broke into mainstream music in France and the rest of Europe. In 1988, they recorded their first album; it was a huge success. Their Grammy-nominated latest album, “Savor Flamenco,” is their first to be self-produced and containing all original compositions; it blends Rumba Gitano with new Brazilian styles, always with a refreshing pop overlay.