Randy Newman, Jackson Browne, Jeffrey Wright, Merry Clayton and More Raise Money for Musicians in Crisis at Jazz Foundation Benefit
variety.comChris Willman Music WriterThe return of the Jazz Foundation of America’s annual benefit at Herb Alpert’s Vibrato club saw lifetime achievement awards being presented to four musical legends whose careers date to the ’60s or before, Randy Newman, Smokey Robinson, jazz fusion figure Bennie Maupin and producer Lou Adler.
Homage was paid at the intimate nightspot in Bel Air by singers and actors including Jackson Browne, Merry Clayton, Herbie Hancock, Jeffrey Wright and Danny Glover.Drummer Steve Jordan — currently between Rolling Stones pickup gigs — led a house band out of the fantasies of anyone who scanned liner notes during the last 60 years, joined by Stones backup singers Lisa Fischer and Bernard Fowler among the serenaders, and jazz players Tom Scott, Billy Childs and Davell Crawford also taking the lead on tribute numbers during a two-and-a-half hour dream jam.
The annual Jazz Foundation benefits at Vibrato (picking up three years after the last, when Joni Mitchell was celebrated in 2019) stand in complement and contrast to the much larger shows the JFA puts on each year at the Apollo in New York, although the musical starpower in L.A.
tends to be just as significant, even with a tiny fraction of the east coast’s audience size. And the money raised can be as vivacious at Vibrato.
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