Jazz for Dancing: The Birth of Rhythm & Blues | Yerba Buena Gardens
>> Want to see our Top Picks for this week instead?
Yerba Buena Gardens (Esplanade) | 773 Mission St., San Francisco, CA
Event Details
Submitted by the Event Organizer
SF’s Yerba Buena Gardens Festival 2025
The 2025 Yerba Buena Gardens Festival hosts a full lineup of free outdoor music, theater, circus, dance, poetry, and children’s programs. The Festival opens on Saturday, May 10, 2025 with La Santa Cecilia to kick off its 25th Anniversary Season.
With her playfully lascivious stage persona and sultry blues-inflected vocals, Lavay Smith emerged as the most swinging and deeply informed vocalist of the 1990s swing dance vogue. Backed by her stellar Red Hot Skillet Lickers and directed by pianist Chris Siebert, Smith delivers an incisive program commissioned by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.
Tracing the evolution and continuum of jazz and R&B from the early years in New Orleans through the swing era and the birth of rhythm and blues, Lavay and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers highlight the connection between jazz and dance while exploring stylistic innovations and regional influences.
The project includes dancers to provide a lesson and performance accompanying the concert.
Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.
Cost: FREE
Categories: *Top Pick*, Dance, Labor Day Weekend, Live Music
