Jacksonville-based jazz vocalist Lisa Kelly first teamed up with trumpeter J.B. Scott at the 1997 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Since then, their Kelly/Scott Sextet has toured the U.S., Canada and Europe. Saturday, they’ll be playing at the Vero Beach Yacht Club for another in the Treasure Coast Jazz Society’s lunchtime concerts. Both got their start with the University of North Florida Jazz Ensemble, where Kelly was featured vocalist. Scott went on to train under the great Arturo Sandoval at Florida International University in Miami. The 1:30 p.m. concert is preceded by an optional buffet lunch and cocktails.
For 30 years, singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge has been pouring her soul into her music. Sunday night, she’ll be exposing that soul all by her herself as she takes the Sunrise Theatre stage in a solo tour. She’s released another album since her last visit to the Sunrise in November 2014; “A Little Bit of Me: Live in L.A.” is a recording of a performance at the end of the tour that promoted her last studio album, “This is M.E.”
Her 1993 hits “I’m the Only One,” and “Come to My Window” defined her music for a generation. A breast cancer survivor, she is an advocate for LGBTQ rights and environmental causes. Her 2007 song “I Need to Wake Up,” part of Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” earned her an Academy Award for Best Song.
There’s an unusually high-quality musical tribute to John Lennon opening this weekend at the Kravis Center in West Palm. Part spoken word and part song, “Lennon: Through a Glass Onion” is performed by the Australian actor, singer and guitarist John R. Waters, accompanied on piano by Stewart Arrietta. The show won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Best Revue. It is staged in Kravis’ Helen K. Persson Hall, a cabaret venue with tables for two and four, and riser seating in the rear. Originally conceived of and performed in Australia in 1992, the show played at the Union Square Theatre in New York in the fall and winter of 2014 and 2015. Performances run through Feb. 28.
Monday, journalist and political historian Peter Golden will be making a stop at the Vero Beach Book Center to talk about his new novel, “Wherever There is Light.” The book is a love story – with plenty of sex scenes – involving an interracial couple in the 1930s: a young Jewish man who made a fortune bootlegging, and the artistic black daughter of a college president.
The novel’s backstory particularly piqued my interest. I never knew that about 100 Jewish scholars fled Nazi Germany to find jobs at historically black colleges in the southern U.S., particularly in Florida. Golden’s signing is Monday at 3 p.m.
And on a light note later in the week, Vero’s Cynthia Bardes presents her latest children’s book, “Pansy in Venice: The Mystery of the Missing Parrot,” Thursday at 4 p.m. This is the third picture book based on the Windsor resident’s miniature poodle, Pansy. The first, “Pansy at the Palace,” was turned into an original musical by Riverside Theatre’s Ken Clifton and DJ Salisbury, which premiered last fall and was repeated a couple of weeks ago. Local artist Ginger Best is the book’s illustrator.
The countdown is on for a momentous weekend in Florida music history next month: The first of what promoters hope will be an annual event, the Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival, takes place March 4, 5 and 6. Organized by the creative force behind the Bonnaroo Superjam, a dance party portion of the massive music festival in Tennessee, the Okeechobee festival earned a mention in the New York Times in a listing headlined “Where Music Lovers Should Go in 2016.” The festival is set on the site of a failed subdivision, 850 acres with only one building – a 14,000-square-foot lodge.
For the festival, there are now camping facilities, art and yoga studios and food. The music, which goes on all night, features top names like Mumford and Sons, the Avett Brothers, Jason Isbell, Skrillex, Kendrick Lamar, Future and Fetty Wap. This is not music for the faint of heart; there is a strong emphasis on rap, electronic music and indie rock, though there are a couple of oldsters included like Daryl Hall and John Oates, former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and the Preservation Hall Jazz Society.
Gates open noon Thursday and everyone has to be out by Monday noon. There are day passes for people who don’t want to camp.
Either way, I recommend spending a little time on the festival website under “Artists,” where you can hear a few tunes and read the artists’ bios. If nothing else you can contemplate a soundtrack for the Sunshine State derived of more than Jimmy Buffett.
