Summon your inner night owl and dance the night away at the after-hours shows at the 2024 Telluride Jazz Festival. With a stacked lineup featuring foot-stomping funk, soul, and jazz, you won’t want to go home when the night is over. Explore the schedule and get ready for a fun-filled weekend.
OPENING SHOW
Sexmob
Venue TBA
Sexmob
Thursday at 7:30 pm (The elks Lodge)
Sexmob is slide trumpeter and founder Steven Bernstein, saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr and acoustic/electric drummer Kenny Wollesen. This experimental jazz band defies easy classification and with good reason. Their music is intentionally exploratory, much in the vein of the Miles Davis era that gave us the urgent and arresting On The Corner. Words like “visionary” and “reinvention” are thrown around when discussing Sexmob. They are all that and more. For as boundary-pushing as Sexmob goes, the musicians’ roots in jazz and their dedication to American song (early records celebrate the music of Duke Ellington and John Berry) is apparent in every conversation they have on wax. This is deeply engaging music that Bernstein hopes will resonate with the adventurous listener. "I wanted to turn people on the way the Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra record turned me on. It was real listenable, but there was all this slightly scary stuff going on there. It's not background music. And neither is this," he said in reference to Sexmob’s 2004’s release, Dime Grind Palace. Their latest is The Hard Way, a fascinating collection of compositions that are, at once, listenable and yeah, slightly scary.
JAZZ AFTER DARK
After the festival ends in Town Park on Friday and Saturday, the music continues at music venues around town. Once the Jazz After Dark series gets jamming, downtown Telluride feels like a walk down Frenchmen Street in New Orleans. Catch your choice of artists in an intimate, up close and personal setting. Jazz After Dark passes allow access to all three venues for the night purchased. See 3 different shows for only $35. All venues are first come, first served and based on the capacity of each venue. After the shows begin, entry is dependent on capacity.
The Moon at O’Bannon’s and Telluride Elks Lodge are limited to attendees ages 21 and over. The Sheridan Opera House is open to all ages.
Marco Benevento
Sheridan Opera House
Marco Benevento
Friday at 10 pm (Sheridan Opera House)
Marco Benevento is a bender of time and space, and certainly, of musical conventions. The fairest assessment of his body of work and his approach to jazz would be to call it experimental. Have no fear, you more straightlaced types. Marco is a devotee of the rhythm, too, and on his 2022 solo release, Benevento, that inclination takes his sound to West Africa. In a nod to Paul McCartney’s first, post-Beatles solo album, simply called McCartney, Marco took to his home studio — Fred Short — with a raft of musical ideas for a hunker-down sesh in which he played every instrument, save for some percussion work with Mamadouba “Mimo” Camara. That collab, Benevento said, brought out “the whole West African psych element.” It’s a joyous excursion, layered with his trademark brilliant synthesizer and keyboard work, and even his kids’ vocals. “This record really acts as a psychedelic window into my studio and my brain,” Benevento remarked.
His latest on the Royal Potato Family label is Barn Burner, recorded live at his neighbor’s place, the late Levon Helm’s intimate venue in Woodstock, New York. In all his musical journeys — be it Benevento/Russo Duo, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead or his own solo work — this prolific genius’s set comes with a guarantee that your brain will be devoid of cobwebs once the final note fades into the cliffsides. May the experiments go ever onward.
Cool Cool Cool
The Moon At O’Bannon’s
Cool Cool Cool
Friday at 10 pm (The Moon At O’Bannon’s)
From the funky whirlwind that was Turkuaz, a new iteration of grooviness has spun off in this exciting, new group, Cool Cool Cool. Shira Elias and Sammi Garrett are Cool Cool Cool’s dynamic duo up front, bringing sass and sophistication on a silver platter of tremendous vocal chops. The band’s throw-down horn section is Chris Brouwers, Greg Sanderson and Josh Schwartz, with Michael Carruba on drums and the electrifying Craig Brodhead on guitar. Many of these cats are multi-instrumentalists, creating a swirling sound dedicated to the groove. Getting the word out in a live setting is their stock in trade and they’re in the midst of their Never Noticed Tour, one that has brought them before audiences from festivals to jam cruises to steamy little venues. Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew dig ‘em and have tapped Cool Cool Cool as special guests for a slew of dates on their Remain In Light Tour.
We’re pretty stoked they said yes to us. We think that’s pretty cool. Times three.
Ghost Funk Orchestra
Telluride Elks Lodge
Ghost Funk Orchestra
Friday at 10 pm (The Elks Lodge)
Once upon a time, before this incredible band became a collective, it was the solo vision of composer and multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum. Since then, he’s grown his dream into the fully-fledged outfit it is today. Their live shows are the stuff of legend. That’s why, following their 2022 performance at our festival, we asked for more. Grooving to Ghost Funk Orchestra is a slide down Alice’s rabbit hole, if Alice was the kind of girl who lived in her headphones and wore only dancing shoes. Numerous sounds come into play, be it salsa, soul and far-out, dreamy rock. One music blogger described GFO’s sound as a “psych odyssey of traditional sounds delivered in a non-traditional fashion.” All we know is, you’ll love the horns, the soulful vocals and the heady experimentation.
Antibalas
Sheridan Opera House
Antibalas
Saturday at 10 pm (Sheridan Opera House)
This storied band was born in Mexico in 1997 and came of age in Brooklyn, New York. Since Antibalas (Spanish for bulletproof or anti-bullet) came into being, they’ve filled stages with a who’s who of funk, Afrobeat and Latin musicians, some who’ve been in the band for most of its history, many of them players deep in Brooklyn’s Daptone scene. No matter the personnel, what’s delivered to ears and dancefloors around the world is a fiery, profoundly rhythmic sound by a group Questlove once said “is one of the few American bands I fear.” Such is their virtuoso power and brass chops. One music magazine called Antibalas “a raucous, joyous celebration of Afrobeat.” Indeed, Antibalas takes a deep bow to the great West African musician, Fela Kuti, an influence evident to this day.
Antibalas founder and saxophonist, Martin Perna, explains the music’s allure. “It's a timeless music in the sense that it is based on clave, this West African rhythmic concept,” he told NPR in 2020. “It's not one particular rhythm, but it's a sensibility — almost like the poles of a magnet or a battery that has a positive and a negative end. And when you put those two together and weave it into any style of music, it gives it this impression, a feeling of perpetual motion.” Now that’s what we call a dance party.
Karina Rykman
The Moon At O’Bannon’s
Karina Rykman
Saturday at 10 am (The Moon At O'Bannon's)
Are you ready to have some fun? Karina Rykman’s dynamic live act will fill you to the brim with the fun factor. This talented new force on the scene is making a name for herself on the live music and festival circuits. Her bass chops earned her a stint with Marco Benevento where fans of Vulfpeck, Dispatch, Guster and more were exposed to her exuberant stage presence. Her own trio — Karina on bass and vocals, Adam November on guitar, looper and effects, and drummer Chris Corsico — has opened for Khruangbin and the Infamous Stringdusters, and she’s in demand as a headliner for numerous club dates. Her psychedelic lens on the musical worlds between jam and indie pop is on full display on her 2023 record, Joyride, with Phish guitarist extraordinaire Trey Anastasio along for ride, too. This will be fun.
Takuya Kuroda
Telluride Elks Lodge
Takuya Kuroda
Saturday at 10 pm (The Elks Lodge)
This phenomenal trumpeter hails from Kobe, Japan, where his first musical forays were with his school’s big band. Takuya left his home for the U.S., where his musical education deepened, first at Berklee School of Music in Boston, and then the New School in New York City. In both towns he dove into the musical scenes connecting with his peers and sharing his own talents. It was in Boston he met upcoming jazz vocalist José James, who invited Kuroda to record with him. He appeared on James’ 2010 sophomore album, Blackmagic, and on No Beginning No End—for which he also wrote the horn arrangements. José produced Takuya’s Blue Note recording, Rising Son, continuing their fruitful musical partnership. A purveyor of a blend of post-bop and contemporary soul-jazz, Takuya brings to our stage his mesmerizing take on next-generation jazz. His playing is lean and sinuous and deft. We hate to gush, but he is amazing.
THE FINAL WALTZ
The festival weekend concludes with one final hurrah at Telluride’s most illustrious landmarks - the historic Sheridan Opera House. Built in 1913, the theater is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is referred to as “the crown jewel of Telluride”. Join us and cap off the festival with a performance from some of New Orleans’ finest - New Breed Brass Band.
New Breed Brass Band
Sheridan Opera House
New Breed Brass Band
Sunday at 10 pm (Sheridan Opera House)
Can’t make it to New Orleans this year? We’ll bring it to you. Everything this exciting group represents is right there in the name—New Breed Brass Band. This band has a New Orleans pedigree, make no bones about it. Band leader Jenard Andrews’ father is trumpeter James Andrews, and his uncle is Trombone Shorty, so there’s that. Jenard points out that brass bands tend to follow in the slipstream of Rebirth Brass Band, something Shorty noticed and truth-schooled them when he popped into one of their studio jams. Don’t be like Rebirth, he said, “You’ve gotta find your own thing.” And find it, they have. The streets of New Orleans can be heard in their second line cultural roots with plenty of bounce, jazz and funk thrown into the mix. Check out their latest, Made In New Orleans. It’s thrilling and distinctly their own. Now follow that second line!