This summer Napa will be at the center of the jazz music universe when the Blue Note Jazz Festival touches down July 28 through 30.
The three-day festival will return with Grammy Award-winning producer Robert Glasper as the artist-in-residence. Comedian Dave Chapelle will host all three nights.
Guests can expect performers like Mary J. Blige, Big Freedia, Chance the Rapper and DJ Jazzy Jeff over the course of three nights. CapRadio’s Chris Campbell spoke with Robert Glasper about how the festival was born and what he hopes attendees will take away from it.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Interview Highlights
On the origins of the festival
The festival originated from my residency at New York’s Blue Note [Café]. I would do five to six weeks of performances during the month of October and November and would have special guests come through.
So last year, [the organizers] were like “we should make this into a festival.” So, it became a thing — a festival that still gives you the intimacy of a small club. It’s dope to have something that started off in a small club end up evolving into this.
On this year’s festival lineup
To have De La Sol and Chance the Rapper [in the lineup] means we’re just touching all of the different vases of hip-hop there. There’s Mary J. Blidge, BJ the Chicago Kid, Nas, Digable Planets [and more.]
The festival touches on so many different aspects of Black music from the 1980s to the early 2000s, including amazing DJs like Jazzy Jeff. It’s something for everybody.
On how the festival will mark the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and it’s connection with jazz genres that were born out of struggle
We all come from the same mother, you know what I mean? I always say that hip hop was birthed from jazz. Jazz is the mother of hip-hop. So many of those break beats that are from hip-hop come from jazz records.
There’s that lineage there … hip hop and jazz come from necessity, come from struggle — hardcore struggle. What it really comes down to in modern music, those two [are the] struggling musics of African Americans in America.
On comedian Dave Chapelle serving as the MC for the festival
[Chapelle’s] show was like a modern soul train in a way where it really gave a lot of [underground artists] a platform. People loved that show. He’s always been a big supporter of me — this is not something that he just slapped his name on. He’s been a music lover from the beginning: He’s a real one.
Photo courtesy of Blue Note Jazz Club
The Blue Note Jazz Festival will take place July 28 through 30 in Napa. Three-day and VIP passes are available on their website.
