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Angel City Jazz Festival Ford Amphitheatre This Weekend

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In a climate where jazz clubs are closing, reports on jazz's demise are multiplying and a recession has taken a bite out of live music spending, the second annual Angel City Jazz Festival is taking the counter-intuitive approach: It's growing.

Conceived by longtime promoter (and former club owner) Rocco Somazzi, Angel City debuted last year as an all-day smorgasbord of local and out-of-town players from across the jazz spectrum, including Alan Pasqua, Elliott Sharp and Nels Cline. But this weekend's festival has expanded to two days at the historic John Anson Ford Amphitheatre.

From a location perspective, this elevates Angel City to comparable ground with L.A.'s other summer such celebration, the Playboy Jazz Festival. But with a bold tag line of “Rethinking Jazz," the younger upstart carves out an identity of its own by casting a broader yet more narrowly focused net than its friendly rival on the opposite side of the 101.

For instance, what tradition-minded jazz-head wouldn't be excited by the West Coast premiere of clarinetist Bennie Maupin's Dolphyana, a group dedicated to previously unrecorded compositions by the late Eric Dolphy? Or the trio of Scott Amendola, Devin Hoff and Ben Goldberg reworking the songs of Thelonious Monk through clarinet, drum and bass in Plays Monk?

And on the more outside-leaning end of the spectrum, the Nels Cline Singers team with Tortoise's Jeff Parker for a performance that will meld elements of post-rock, jazz and space-bound exploration in a way that should get indie-leaning guitar geeks furiously stroking their chins. And then there's the classical-informed ensembles led by Billy Childs and Wayne Horvitz, or further exploration of jazz's history with the New Orleans tradition of Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy and Jesse Sharps' revisiting of Leimert Park's jazz scene with the Gathering. All in all, Angel City covers a lot of ground for $35 a day, which isn't far from what an evening of jazz goes for at many clubs.

The full festival schedule and lineup is available after the jump along with an e-mail Q&A with Jeff Gauthier and Somazzi on how Angel City came together at its new location and more.

Moving Angel City to the Ford seems like a big step up from Barnsdall. What inspired you to move it to a different venue?

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