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Freddy Cole, Ester Rada highlight 2014 Atlanta Jazz Festival lineup

By Melissa Ruggieri
March 14, 2014

The 37th annual Atlanta Jazz Festival will ping-pong from the traditional jazz of Freddy Cole to the contemporary flair of Russell Gunn’s Krunk Jazz Orkestra with a lot of other flavors filling in the gaps.

This year’s shows will take place May 23-25 in Piedmont Park with music performed across three stages — the main stage, an international stage and a local stage.

More acts will be announced in a couple of weeks, but some of the main players include:

Freddy Cole, 7 p.m. May 25: The brother of Nat "King" Cole plays piano and sings with a raspy, smoky edge to his voice.

Ester Rada, 5 p.m. May 24: Born in Israel, Rada offers a cross-cultural sound of jazz, soul and R&B. Last year, she released the EP "Life Happens."

Bill Frisell's Guitar in the Space Age — featuring Greg Leisz, Tony Scherr and Rudy Royston, 7 p.m. May 25: Frisell has worked with everyone from Elvis Costello to Rickie Lee Jones to Van Dyke Parks to T Bone Burnett. Expect to hear some country mixed with his jazz and blues.

Cyrille Aimée, 5:30 p.m. May 25: Her parents are French and Dominican and her jazz roots come from the village of her upbringing,Samois-sur-Seine, the same place where legendary gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt once lived. Aimée won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2012.

Russell Gunn's Krunk Jazz Orkestra, 7 p.m. May 24: Trumpeter/fluegelhornist/composer Gunn has worked with Cee Lo Green, D'Angelo, Maxwell and Branford Marsalis. Call him a neo-soul-hip-hop guy with roots in tradition.

Somi, 3:30 p.m. May 24: As a singer, she's been compared to Miriam Makeba, Sarah Vaughan and Cassandra Wilson — and she also delivers her material in English and three East African languages.

For more information, visit www.atlantafestivals.com.

About the Author

Melissa Ruggieri has covered music and entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 2010 and created the Atlanta Music Scene blog. She's kept vampire hours for more than two decades and remembers when MTV was awesome.

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