Yusef Lateef

The first big jazz event of the season, the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl (June 17-18), includes a few acts that offer something more than accompaniment for an outdoor party, including Benny Carter's quartet and the Herbie Hancock trio. The festival's highlight will be Bill Cosby's band, the Cos of Good Music, featuring Stanley Turrentine, Christian McBride and one of the major emerging new saxophone stars, James Carter (June 18).

Why Gary Foster remains a virtual unknown is one of the great mysteries of the jazz world. After a long and distinguished career as an extraordinary alto saxophonist--a superb player graced with unfailing tone, expert technique and impeccable taste--he combines both cool and hot schools of playing into an emotive style all his own.

The Adam Rudolph Organic Chamber Ensemble, performing at the Electric Lodge in Venice, called up memories of one of the less visible musical aspects of the turbulent '60s. Although rock was the dominant sound of the decade, fascinating if vastly different music was resulting from a growing interaction between jazz and classical musicians swapping ideas at the frontiers of improvisation.

Veteran percussionist Adam Rudolph has an international following, performing with such artists as Yusef Lateef, Herbie Hancock and Don Cherry. Guitarist Kevin Eubanks is a featured performer with Branford Marsalis' "Tonight Show" orchestra. And, every week, these artists and others spend their Sunday afternoons playing improvisational music for children.

The colorful array of instruments spread across the stage of the Jazz Bakery Friday night--a shenai, didjeridoo, dumbek, kalimba and oud, in addition to more familiar saxophones and brass--immediately underscored Yusef Lateef's status as one of the first jazz globalists. As far back as the 1950s he was actively pursuing the connections between jazz and the music of the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and his fascination with such syntheses continues into his 74th year.

Percussionist Adam Rudolph has been one of the improvisational world's more adventurous players. He has, for example, worked for many years in tandem with veteran saxophone/woodwind artist Yusef Lateef in a continuing exploration of the cross-cultural linkages between jazz and a variety of world musics.

For decades, pianist Kenny Werner has been on a creative road less traveled. In search of an understanding of musical artistry, he has delved deeply into an array of philosophic and spiritual teachings. "Picasso," according to Werner, "once said something like, 'I spent a few years studying to be a painter, and the rest of my life trying to paint like a child again.' And all the profound voices have said something similar."

Sunday's virtually nonstop program at the San Francisco Jazz Festival was a classic example of the production's insistence upon integrating the event into the diverse energies of this colorful city. The day started with a stunning blend of music and place. The music was the brisk, Django Reinhardt-inspired violin-and-guitar jazz of the Hot Club of San Francisco, and the hard-swinging, Count Basie-style rhythms of singer Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers.

Some people just don't know what they're missing. That was certainly true Sunday evening at the Studio Cafe as drummer Wally Stryk's trio, Flight, played to a small, chatty, largely inattentive crowd. What those in attendance chose to ignore was a smooth performance of well-chosen standards, done with taste and a bit of flash.