Getting into the groove

“We’re outgrowing our venues,” laughed Steve Adelson, musician and producer of the Long Beach Jazz Festival. “We have to build a new building.”Adelson said the four-day festival, from Sept. 10 to 13, now in its seventh year, brought in record crowds that jammed, danced and grooved with 70 musicians performing in the Long Beach Library and restaurants throughout the city.

The festival bill included musical acts playing diverse styles — from big band and swing, like New York’s Finest, to blues, such as the Kerry Kearney Band, to flamenco jazz played by Alex Fox and Friends with Bernard Soto — to give the event a wide-ranging, distinct feel. Long Beach legend Primo, a jazz-fusion band was also on hand for the festivities. Adelson scheduled the musical acts so that none overlapped, allowing music lovers to attend each event without having to choose between shows.

“It’s got that kind of vibe of ‘this is what we’re getting back to, the love of the music and presenting it to the people and entertaining people,’” Adelson said of the musicians who come back each year to perform.

The festival has grown so dramatically that Adelson said sponsors and musicians come to him vying for coveted spots. Next year he may have to organize two events to run simultaneously to accommodate musicians and music lovers alike.

Adelson said he wants to make Long Beach a place that, when you drive through it in September, you know there’s a festival going on. “Long Beach can now be known for some cultural elements that have been brought to the city,” he said.

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