Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at San Francisco Jazz Festival at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

San Francisco vocalist Lavay Smith brings a touch of the blues to everything she sings. Now, the sensuous chanteuse and her hard-swinging band work their alchemy on a program that explores the real Kansas City sound. As a wide-open town that served as a hub for territory bands crisscrossing the Midwest in the 1930s, Kansas City boasted one of the nation’s formative jazz scenes, eventually giving rise to the famed big bands of Jay McShann and Count Basie. Backed by her evergrooving Skillet Lickers, with some of the Bay Area’s best musicians, Smith interprets the bawdy and uproariously swinging blues made famous by clarion vocalists like Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing...

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San Francisco vocalist Lavay Smith brings a touch of the blues to everything she sings. Now, the sensuous chanteuse and her hard-swinging band work their alchemy on a program that explores the real Kansas City sound. As a wide-open town that served as a hub for territory bands crisscrossing the Midwest in the 1930s, Kansas City boasted one of the nation’s formative jazz scenes, eventually giving rise to the famed big bands of Jay McShann and Count Basie. Backed by her evergrooving Skillet Lickers, with some of the Bay Area’s best musicians, Smith interprets the bawdy and uproariously swinging blues made famous by clarion vocalists like Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing. The Skillet Lickers are led by pianist, arranger and founding member Chris Siebert, a bona fide authority on swing, jazz and blues. The band also features Danny Armstrong, a tremendous trombonist and singer, and ferocious saxophone battles between Robert Stewart and Jules Broussard, the latter a Bay Area jazz hero since the 1960s. Like several other artists in this 30th Anniversary Festival, Lavay Smith has appeared with SFJAZZ many times across the decades.

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