KSDS Presents: A Bud Powell Centennial Celebration

KSDS Presents: A Bud Powell Centennial Celebration

Blog Name:Home Page News

Blog Author:San Diego's Jazz 88.3

Posted on:September 4, 2024

Don't miss modern masters interpreting Bud Powell's masterworks for solo piano, trio, and quintet. La Jolla Music Society's Baker Baum Concert Hall. Fri., Sept. 27 at 7 p.m.

On Friday evening, September 27, 2024, KSDS will celebrate the Bud Powell Centennial — Bud’s 100th birthday — in a manner befitting the only man who can rightly be called the principal architect of modern jazz piano conception. Though Powell himself won’t be playing — he’s been dead 58 years, which is just another way of saying he was already booked — we’ve arranged the next best thing, an evening of unforgettable musical testimony to Powell’s enduring artistic influence starring three modern masters of the piano: Joshua White, Alan Broadbent, and Bill Mays

Buy Tickets

Because a once-in-a-century event requires a venue of elevated gravitas, our home for the evening’s tribute in triptych will be the Baker-Baum Concert Hall, the stunning, acoustically perfect centerpiece of the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla. White will co-lead a quintet with reigning San Diego jazz patriarch Gilbert Castellanos; Broadbent will follow with a mesmerizing solo piano tribute to Powell, his hero; and Mays will close the evening out with a trio including Jim Plank on drums and Rob Thorsen on bass.

So join us: Friday, September 27th at 7:00 in the evening, at the Baker Baum Concert Hall in downtown La Jolla. Individual tickets begin at the $60 pledge level, with premium and VIP ticket packages also available.

Our VIP package will grant passholders rare, behind-the-velvet-curtain access to sacred ground: the musicians' soundcheck and final, pre-performance preparations. Exclusive musician interviews, as well as a question and answer session open only to VIP passholders, will follow at 6:30 p.m. And, afterwards, the musicians will graciously make themselves available to our VIP patrons for pictures and autographs, etc. Each VIP passholder will also receive a one-of-a-kind "Bud Powell on the Air" commemorative compilation CD, comprising live-to-radio-broadcast recordings of Bud Powell playing with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and others from the golden age of bebop. This item is a KSDS exclusive; it's only available here and now.

In sum, that's:

  • Insider's access to sound-check and pre-show tuning
  • Access to artist interviews and audience Q & A, plus meet/great with musicians open exclusively to VIP passholders
  • And a one-of-a-kind CD collection comprising the rarest radio broadcast recordings of "Bud Powell on the Air"
  • All for just an additional one-time pledge of $75
  • This VIP package is available as an add-on to ALL ticketholders 

For tickets and more information, call 619-388-3758, email .

Buy Tickets

Login to add to your bookmarks.
COMMENTS: