The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of MiamiDade County (@arshtcenter) is proud to announce the 2024-2025 season of JAZZ ROOTS, which returns to the Center’s Knight Concert Hall with four curated evenings of live jazz featuring tributes to iconic figures and new works from living legends.
The 2024-2025 season of JAZZ ROOTS celebrates the enduring legacy of two jazz titans more than 100 years later and welcomes two Latin jazz legends back to the Arsht Center after a wildly popular and sold-out reunion concert last year. The season kicks off on November 1, 2024 with a celebration of the legacy of jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan 100 years after her birth. JAZZ ROOTS continues into 2025 with the return of living legend of Afro-Cuban jazz and 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Chucho Valdés as he performs music from his new album Cuba & Beyond with the Royal Quartet on February 7; Pianist and composer Jason Moran pays tribute to the enduring legacy of Duke Ellington on March 21, 2025; and the series wraps up with an evening with Cubanborn trumpet virtuoso and 2024 Kennedy Center Honoree Arturo Sandoval on April 11, 2025.
“This season of Jazz Roots celebrates the rich traditions of jazz as well as the current contributions from today’s most influential artists, giving audiences the chance to appreciate a wide spectrum of the genre,” said Liz Wallace, vice president of programming for the Arsht Center.
TICKETS
JAZZ ROOTS 2024-2025 series subscriptions, which include tickets to all four performances, are on sale to the public beginning today with seating priority given to renewing subscribers. Four-concert subscription packages range in price from $142-$430* and can be purchased online at arshtcenter.org/jazz or by calling the Arsht Center Box Office at 305-949-6722. Single concert tickets for all shows will go on sale on September 20.
The 2024-2025 JAZZ ROOTS season is presented by the Arsht Center with generous support from presenting sponsor Baldwin Richardson Foods, with additional support from PNC Bank, Alan and Diane Lieberman and Steinway & Sons, the official piano of the Adrienne Arsht Center. WDNA 88.9 FM is the media sponsor.
The star-studded four-concert season of JAZZ ROOTS includes the following:
SARAH VAUGHAN: A SASSY CENTENNIAL Friday, November 1, 2024 at 8 p.m.
Featuring Patti Austin, Randy Brecker, Lisa Fischer and 2023 Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition Winner Tyreek McDole with the Frost School of Music’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra and its resident conductor, Scott Flavin
This celebration of the versatile and widely influential jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, whose nicknames included “Sassy” and the “Divine Sarah,” will find talented admirers performing her music in front of a full orchestra. “Among the singers of her generation, only Ella Fitzgerald enjoyed comparable stature,” The New York Times wrote of Vaughan, whose hits included “It’s Magic,” “What Lola Wants” and “Make Yourself Comfortable.”
Leading audiences in the celebration will be Grammy-winning vocalists Patti Austin (@pattiaustinofficial) and Lisa Fischer (@l.i.s.a.f.i.s.c.h.e.r), along with Grammy-winning trumpeter Randy Brecker (@randybrecker) and the winner of the 2023 Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition, Tyreek McDole (@tyreek.mcdole), all accompanied by the Frost School of Music’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra.
Friday, February 7, 2025 at 8 p.m.
In his early 80s, Cuban-born pianist Chucho Valdés (@chuchovaldesmusic) continues to excite audiences with electrifying performances of music that draws from his deep well of jazz, blues, funk, Latin, classical and African influences. The title of Valdés’ new album, Cuba & Beyond, reflects the scope of his sound and ambition, and pays tribute to musicians and composers he reveres, including Chick Corea and Mozart. Named a 2025 NEA Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, Valdés recorded Cuba & Beyond with his Royal Quartet, which also includes Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez on drums, José Armando Gola on bass and Roberto Jr. Vizcaino on percussion.
This concert marks the continuation of Valdés’ ongoing relationship with the Arsht Center, which includes a a sold-out 50th anniversary reunion of the legendary band Irakere in 2023 and the world premiere of his epic composition La Creacion, which was commissioned by the Arsht in 2021.
JASON MORAN PERFORMS THE MUSIC OF DUKE ELLINGTON: MY HEART SINGS Friday, March 21, 2025 at 8 p.m.
Featuring Alicia Hall Moran and the Frost School of Music Big Band
Guided by Duke Ellington’s great canon, jazz pianist, composer and artist Jason Moran (@thejasonmoran) takes a solo piano climb up “Mount Ellington” in this extraordinary celebration of the composer’s enduring legacy 125 years after his birth. Audiences will experience the timeless genius of Ellington’s music, brilliantly reimagined by Moran.
ARTURO SANDOVAL: A MASTER OF AFRO-CUBAN JAZZ
Friday, April 11, 2025 at 8 p.m.
Cuban-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval (@arturo_sandoval_arocha) returns to the Arsht stage for an evening of virtuosic, hard-swinging jazz. A founding member of groundbreaking Latin jazz act Irakere, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary at the Arsht Center, Sandoval’s Dizzy Gillespie-inspired playing has earned him numerous awards and accolades. In 2000, For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, a biopic starring Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan, debuted on HBO. Sandoval performed the Emmy Award-winning music from the movie in a concert at the Arsht Center in 2022.
Dafnis Prieto’s Sí o Sí Quartet will open the show.
ABOUT JAZZ ROOTS
The Arsht Center’s JAZZ ROOTS series is an institution in Miami music and has been enjoyed by more than 88,000 people. In addition, the series has benefitted more than 15,000 high school jazz music students who have participated in the accompanying JAZZ ROOTS: SoundCheck educational program. JAZZ ROOTS was co-created by the Adrienne Arsht Center in 2008 with the late music industry entrepreneur Larry Rosen and, since then, has presented a rich variety of thematic concerts exploring the spectrum of jazz and featuring more than 160 of the greatest living jazz artists/ensembles on the scene today. Since its inception, the series has included jazz superstars such as Jon Batiste, George Benson, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Paquito D’Rivera, Michael Feinstein, Keith Jarrett, Eddie Palmieri, Sonny Rollins and Chucho Valdés as well as worldclass ensembles, including the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, the Count Basie Orchestra and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. Quincy Jones has heralded JAZZ ROOTS as “the most important new jazz and educational series in America!” This history-making series has sold out dozens of concerts.
Content and Photos Courtesy of The Arsht Center and Artist Management
