BLUE JAY JAZZ FESTIVAL 2025
Shuffle, Swing, Sizzle!
AUGUST 21, AUGUST 22, and AUGUST 23, 2025
TICKETS ON SALE – JULY 1
It’s time to lend us your ears and your dancing feet. Our 2025 Festival is booked and ready to rock. We have Grammy winners, Emmy winners, a big band, a finalist from NBC’s The Voice, and composers for film, television, and music videos. These pros have performed with Barbara Streisand, Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Boz Scaggs, Carlos Santana, and Lennie Karvitz. And that’s a partial list! Tickets go on sale July 1.
Our immersive 3-day live jazz experience includes two evenings: Thursday and Friday, August 21 & 22 at Arrowhead Lake Association’s Tavern Bay Beach Club. Thursday evening musical performances includes the award-winning special guest performances by the 2025 Blue Jay Jazz Foundation Future Generation Jazz Scholars.
Saturday, August 23 the party moves to Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa for an early evening of live jazz. Experience sensational live jazz under tall pine trees overlooking the beautiful lake.
Best of all, the 2025 Jazz Festival is for a good cause – Proceeds help provide instruments, equipment and music making opportunities for our local youth.
Thursday, August 21 brings Ms. Monét & Friends (guitarist Michael O’Neill and keyboardist George Whitty) to our stage at Tavern Bay. She’s toured with Boz Scaggs, Michael McDonald, and Joe Bonamassa, and sung with R&B legend Soloman Burke. Critics say, “She shines, channeling the class and vocal genius of the greats before her.”
Friday, August 22, award-winning composer and arranger Gordon Goodwin leads his “Little” Phat Band bringing the joy of jazz and funk wrapped in big band swing. The ten band members are seasoned pros ready to win over every audience they entertain.
Saturday, August 23, the Festival offers Los Angeles Jazz Salon on the lawn of the Lake Arrowhead Resort & Spa with piano virtuoso Tamir Hendelman’s take on the Great American Songbook and jazz standards. One reviewer noted his playing “is firmly in the tradition of (Oscar) Peterson.
Joining Hendelman will be Eddie Wakes for “An Evening of Nat King Cole and more…Eddie turns heads, his vocal style is reminiscent of another time; with his velvety, wide-ranging baritone. Eddie was featured in the documentary, “Nat King Cole: Afraid Of The Dark” (2014) along with Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole and others. Director Jon Brewer said “Eddie’s knowledge of The Great American Songbook” is as profoundly informed as the creators of this singular music.”
The Blue Jay Jazz Festival is presented by the non-profit Blue Jay Jazz Foundation, dedicated to music appreciation and education. Since 2008, the Foundation has supported our community’s music students with scholarships and a free instrument lending program, as well as master classes and private tutors.
Festival and Concert Sponsors: Mountain News, Arrowhead Lake Association, Bill and Dinah Ruch Foundation, Yamaha Music, The Lake House, and Arrowhead Premier Properties/Arrowhead Property Rental
