“Bebop & Beyond: The Music Of Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie,” featuring Charles McPherson, Gilbert Castellanos, Jeremy Pelt, Antonio Hart, Gerald Clayton, David Wong and Joe Farnsworth
Concerts celebrating the timeless music of jazz giants Charlie “Yardbird” Parker and Dizzy Gillespie are not uncommon in the U.S. or abroad. But concerts celebrating their music that feature nationally acclaimed alto saxophone great Charles McPherson and trumpet dynamo Gilbert Castellanos — both San Diego residents — are rare anywhere.
This suggests their Saturday concert at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park will be a likely highlight of the season. The fact they will be joined by another top sax and trumpet team, Antonio Hart and Jeremy Pelt, makes the evening doubly enticing. Add in an ace rhythm section, led by Los Angeles-based piano star Gerald Clayton, and “Bebop” and Beyond’s” allure grows even more.
The concert will celebrate the enduring impact of bebop, the revolutionary jazz style that rose to prominence in the first half of the 1940s. That was when Parker, Gillespie and such like-minded visionaries as drummer Max Roach and pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk joined forces.
Together, they created music as intricate and sophisticated as it is fiery and liberating, distinguished by deviously fleet melodies and cross-crossing rhythms, ingeniously altered harmonies and dazzling improvisational forays.
McPherson, 84, was just 23 when his debut solo album, “Bebop Revisited,” came out in 1964. In 1988, film director Clint Eastwood — a longtime jazz devotee — extensively featured McPherson on the soundtrack to “Bird,” his biopic about bebop Charlie Parker. The album “Charles McPherson With Strings – A Tribute To Charlie Parker” was recorded in 2001.
Castellanos, 50, is the San Diego Symphony’s jazz curator and the founder of the Young Lions Jazz Conservatory. He was 15 when he shared the stage with Gillespie at the Monterey Jazz Festival and is a longtime collaborator of McPherson’s. Hearing them play side by side is always a treat.
7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, 222 Marina Park Way, downtown. $32-$115. theshell.org
The Four Tops, The Temptations
Both of these classic Detroit vocal groups rose to fame in the 1960s as supreme hit-makers for Motown Records. Those hits still abide, from “My Girl” and “Get Ready” to “Baby I Need Your Loving” and “Reach Out I’ll Be There.”
Not so, alas, the original lineups of both groups. Abdul “Duke” Fakir, 87, is the sole surviving founding member of The Four Tops. Otis Williams, 81, is the sole surviving founding member of The Temptations.
That both are still touring with their respective groups is a testament to their dedication. Seeing the latest iterations of The Four Tops and The Temptations perform here on the same bill, with Fakir and Williams both still on board, seems like an opportunity that is both welcome and bittersweet.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island. $76.50. humphreysconcerts.com
Bruno Major
UK native Bruno Major — not to be confused with Hawaiian native Bruno Mars — seems to be two musicians in one.
A crooning singer who writes and performs mellow ballads about heartbreak, Major tends to kick into high gear with his guitar solos, which have a bluesy bite and jazz-informed fluidity. He has collaborated with such disparate artists as They Might Be Giants, John Legend, Tori Kelly, Lianne La Havas and Billie Eilish’s brother and songwriting partner, Finneas.
While Major’s recordings tend toward undue restraint, his live shows allow him to draw from his studies as a jazz and classical guitarist. The contrast is intriguing.
7 p.m. Sept. 15. Observatory North Park, 2891 University Ave. North Park. $66. livenation.com