SFJAZZ Historic Opening Night Concert with Master of Ceremonies Bill Cosby, featuring McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, and More

Bill Cosby
Served as a Navy medical corpsman and helped with the physical rehabilitation of Korean War veterans. Received a track scholarship to Temple University. Won six consecutive Grammy Awards for his comedy albums, beginning with I Started Out as a Child in 1964....

Pete Escovedo
Pete Escovedo has been a major force in Latin music since the late '60s, and his versatility has resulted in success in several areas of music, from Latin jazz and salsa to rock and Latin pop....

John Handy
A talented and adventurous altoist whose career has gone through several phases, John Handy started playing alto in 1949. After moving to New York in 1958, he had a fiery period with Charles Mingus (1958-1959) that resulted in several passionate recordings that show off his originality; he also recorded several dates as a leader for Roulette....

Joe Lovano
Active during a period of jazz history when it seemed radical innovation was a thing of the past, Joe Lovano nevertheless coalesced various stylistic elements from disparate eras into a personal and forward-seeking style....

Mary Stallings
Greatly influenced by Carmen McRae, San Francisco native Mary Stallings is a passionate, robust singer who isn't nearly as well known as she should be. The niece of saxman Orlando Stallings, she started singing as a child and sang jazz in Bay Area clubs during her teenage years, when she performed with Louis Jordan & His Tympani 5 and shared the stage with such greats as Wes Montgomery and Ben Webster....

Joshua Redman
Every few years it seems as if the jazz media go out of their way to hype one young artist, overpraising him to such an extent that it is easy to tear him down when the next season arrives....

McCoy Tyner
It is to McCoy Tyner's great credit that his career after John Coltrane has been far from anti-climatic. Along with Bill Evans, Tyner has been the most influential pianist in jazz of the past 50 years, with his chord voicings being adopted and utilized by virtually every younger pianist....

Regina Carter
Violinist Regina Carter is a highly original soloist whose sophisticated technique and rich, lush tone took the jazz world by pleasant surprise when she arrived in New York from her native Detroit....

Chick Corea
Chick Corea has been one of the most significant jazzmen since the '60s. Not content at any time to rest on his laurels, he has been involved in quite a few important musical projects, and his musical curiosity has never dimmed....

Bill Frisell
The defining characteristic of any given jazz musician is frequently his sound. The more control a player has over the nature of that sound, the more likely he is to project a distinctive musical personality....

Bobby Hutcherson
Easily one of jazz's greatest vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson epitomized his instrument in relation to the era in which he came of age the way Lionel Hampton did with swing or Milt Jackson with bop....

Rebeca Mauleón
An accomplished educator, producer, and performer, Rebeca Mauleón is one of the West Coast's leading Latin jazz talents. Mauleón began her performance career accompanying well-known jazzers like Steve Windwood and Carlos "Patato" Valdez....

Jason Moran
Along with Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran was one of the most significant and forward-looking pianists to emerge on the jazz scene in the 1990s. Moran came to New York from Texas, studied under such jazz-piano luminaries as Jaki Byard and Muhal Richard Abrams, and played in saxman Greg Osby's group before emerging as a powerful bandleader....

Esperanza Spalding
Hailed as a prodigy on the acoustic double bass within months of first touching the instrument as a 15-year-old, Esperanza Spalding has emerged as a fine jazz bassist, but has also distinguished herself playing blues, funk, hip-hop, pop fusion, and Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles as well....

SFJAZZ Collective
The SFJAZZ Collective is an all-star jazz ensemble comprising eight of the finest performer/composers at work in jazz today. Launched in 2004 by SFJAZZ—the West Coast’s largest nonprofit jazz institution and the presenter of the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival—the Collective has become one of the most exciting and acclaimed groups on the jazz scene....

Miguel Zenón
A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Miguel Zenón dug Coltrane in high school but didn't get serious about a career in jazz until attending the Berklee School of Music. While at Berklee, he hooked up with drummer Bob Moses, who invited him to play with the Either/Orchestra, giving the saxophonist his first professional experience....

John Santos
Since the 1970s, percussionist/bandleader/arranger/producer John Santos has been one of the San Francisco Bay Area's strongest proponents of salsa/Afro-Cuban music and Latin jazz (mainly Afro-Cuban jazz)....