Music: Jazz, Blues, World, and Popular

Jesse Cook
Saturday, January 23 @ 8pm
Jesse embarks on a brand new tour in support of his latest studio album to be released in September 2009 as a follow-up to his chart-topping, Frontiers. Jesse returns to one of his favorite venues, the Duncan Theatre, with his band of top-rate musicians. Audiences fall quickly under the spell of Jesse's passionate guitar work, Moorish rhythms and smoldering on-stage charisma. This million selling, Juno Award-winning composer, arranger, & producer has spent a lifetime listening to and absorbing sounds from cultures as diverse as Spain, Africa, Cuba, Egypt, France and Brazil. Jesse's exotic "Rumba Flamenco" fuses with world music and percussion and the effect is an intoxicating and "gypsy-esque" blend of jazz and ethnic compositional styles.

Individual Tickets: All seats $27

Esperanza Spalding
Saturday, February 20 @ 8pm

Blessed with uncanny instrumental chops, a multi-lingual voice that is part angel and part siren, and a natural beauty that borders on the hypnotic, the 23-year-old prodigy-turned-pro might well be the hope for the future of jazz and instrumental music. Spalding has worked with the industry's top musicians, including pianist Michel Camilo, vibraphonist Dave Samuels, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Pat Metheny, singer Patti Austin and saxophonists Donald Harrison and Joe Lovano.

"She is an irresistible performer," says The Seattle Times. "She sings and plays bass at the same time and does a sort of interpretive dance as she plays...Her analysis of what's going on in jazz today is perceptive." "Those following jazz ought to keep an ear on the bassist ESPERANZA SPALDING, who is going about things her own way... Essentially she's a singer, using both her instrument and her voice to similar ends. Her musicality is all integrated: The Esperanza Spalding experience is light, melodic, joyful, always sort of minimalist and airborne." - Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

Individual Tickets: All seats $27