Turning up the heat

Summer jazz forecast for East Lansing: Increased blue notes,with an upswing in swing. Bebop will also be boppier.

National headliners Joe Lovano and Somi, quadrupled tent spaceand a third day of festivities will twist the ratchet another few notches forthe 14th Summer Solstice Jazz Festival, set for June 18-20 in East Lansing.

Joe Lovano, arguably the top tenor saxman in jazz today,will bring his all-star Us Five group — the one with two drummers and26-year-old phenomenon Esperanza Spalding on bass — for an afternoon WhartonCenter performance Sunday, June 20, extending the festival to a third day andadding a venue.

The festival proper, held in downtown East Lansing, willfeature polystylistic young vocalist Somi, one of jazz’s most intriguing youngvocalists. The emerging empress of a blend of African, Latin and jazz stylescalled New African Soul will sing Saturday night under a new tent nearly fourtimes larger than the old one, according to East Lansing spokeswoman Ami VanAntwerp.

Taking their cue from a collaborative art form, a trio ofentities — the East Lansing, the Wharton Center and MSU’s College of music —joined to put some fire under the festival in 2008. The festival grew from oneto two days, took advantage of Wharton’s clout in snagging national artists,and beefed up its slate with more of MSU’s stellar jazz faculty and students.

It’s become a yearly tradition for the East Lansing festivalheadliner to return in the fall and play the Wharton Center. Following asuccessful formula established by vocalist Sophie Milman in 2008 and Spaldingin 2009, Somi will follow up her June appearance in East Lansing with an Oct.28 gig at Wharton.

Last year’s appearances by Spalding at the East Lansingfestival and at Wharton led indirectly to snagging the biggest fish of all: Lovano, a hard-driving, innovative tenor man who has conquered many facets ofjazz, from small groups to big bands and symphonic projects.

Lovano’s stature in the jazz world enabled him to assemble aquintet of top musicians: the two-drummer engine of Francisco Mela and OtisBrown III, pianist James Weidman and bassist Spalding. The Us Five quintet’s CD“Folk Art” topped dozens of 2009’s best-of lists.

Lovano needed to fill a blank spot in his schedule between aJune 18 gig at Mears Park in Milwaukee and a June 24 Carnegie Hall birthdaygala for pianist Herbie Hancock. After Spalding played the East Lansingfestival last summer and Wharton last fall, she urged her agent, who alsorepresents Lovano, to call Wharton.

Lovano’s Wharton performance will be ticketed; the rest ofthe festival will be free to the public.

The two-day slate of local artists mines a broad crosssection of MSU and Michigan jazz talent. Guitarist Neil Gordon, saxmen DiegoRivera and Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson, the neo-gypsy combo Hot Club ofDetroit, Latin combos Los Gatos and Ritmo, bassist Sean Dobbins, vocalist SunnyWilkinson and Rockelle Whitaker and pianist Rick Roe are all scheduled toperform, with MSU jazz student combos filling the air during set changes.

Van Antwerp estimated that 5,000-7,000 people attendedthe Summer Solstice festival last year. She said the city would like to see thefestival grow into a three- or four-day indoor-outdoor cluster of jazz events,like the Montreal Jazz Festival. Venues under consideration for futurefestivals are the nearby Valley Court stage and a black-box theater likely tobe built as part of East Lansing’s planned City Center II development.