Lyle Lovett, Joe Cocker, and Ziggy Marley will play Jazz +

The Sonoma Jazz + Festival announced headliners for the May concert ranging from the swinging to the soulful to the smooth, if not necessarily jazzy. The festivities will kick off on Thursday, May 21, with a dance party featuring Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Friday will follow up with bluesman Joe Cocker, and Keb’ Mo’ returning to Sonoma to open the show. Lyle Lovett & His Large Band (16 pieces) will storm the big white tent on Saturday night, with country diva Shelby Lynne opening. Ziggy Marley will co-headline the Sunday concert. The festival is yet to announce who will co-headline with Marley.
This is the fifth year of the four-day festival, which is held in a massive white tent at Field of Dreams. The festival also includes a lineup of “Wine and Song” events around the Plaza and an expanded after-hours program of live music following the main stage concerts.
Proceeds from Sonoma Jazz + enhance, promote and support local music programs in the Sonoma Valley schools, with over $400,000 raised to date. The festival is produced by Jazz Aspen Snowmass, a 19-year-old nonprofit that supports performance and education programming.
The festival’s co-founding benefactor, Stephanie Pugash, is the honorary chair of the 2009 festival. The festival also added several members to the board this year, including Darius Anderson, founder of Kenwood Investments, and Steve Page, CEO of Infineon Raceway, who both joined in the fall. The winter’s additions include Bruce Cohn, who came to prominence as the manager of the Doobie Brothers and who owns B.R. Cohn Winery, and August Sebastiani, a Sonoma city councilmember and the chief executive of Don Sebastiani & Sons.
This year’s sponsors include the Hearthstone Group, Union Bank of California, Bay Area News Group, Comcast Spotlight, NBC-11, Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance, and FIJI Water.
Tickets prices will not increase this year. Prices range from $30 general admission to $95 reserved. The tickets will go on sale in Sonoma, in-person only, on March 7 at the Sonoma Community Center from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sonoma Jazz + will distribute a limited selection of premium reserved tickets (center and side-center) for the Friday through Sunday shows on a first-come, first-served basis.
Tickets to the general public will go on sale Monday, March 9 at 9 a.m. at TIXX – 866.527.TIXX (8499), or through www.sonomajazz.org. Tickets will also be available after that date on a walk-in basis at Sonoma Valley Music, on Broadway. Lodging and ticket packages are available at 800.914.7511 or www.sonomacounty.com. The festival has added this year a special $15 ticket for patrons 15 years old and under for the Thursday night dance party.