Macy Gray, with Divina Jasso
It’s one step back and one step forward for Grammy Award-winner Macy Gray.
The veteran singer-songwriter will release her 15th album, “Love Songs for Big Hearts and Robots,” this fall. The USC screenwriting major describes it as a collection of “re-imagined love songs,” Including her acoustic guitar-fueled take on La Jolla resident Alicia Keys’ 2007 chart-topper, “No One.”
For the record, this will be at last the third album of cover versions by the raspy voiced Gray — real name: Natalie Renee McIntyre — following 2007’s “Covered” and 2012’s “Talking Book” (which featured her remaking Stevie Wonder’s classic 1972 album of the same name).
But Gray’s current “On How Life Is” 25th anniversary tour devotes at least half its set list to her debut album, which she performs in its entirety. She’s also including some songs from her subsequent albums and some choice covers, including back-to-back readings of Bobby Hebb’s 1966 hit, “Sunny,” and Radiohead’s 1992 breakthrough hit, “Creep.”
Gray is being accompanied on this tour by her new, jazz-inspired band. By coincidence, her 2016 tour — which included a sold-out shoe here at the Belly Up — also featured a jazz-inspired band that she formed after joining former San Diego singer Gregory Porter as a guest vocalist on sax great David Murray’s terrific 2013 album, “Be My Monster Love.” Teaming with Murray was an epiphany for Gray.
“Playing with somebody like David, who’s such an expert musician on every level, has made me really step up my game,” she told me in a 2016 Union-Tribune interview. “I find I’m bringing some of the things I’ve learned from David and his band into to my regular shows.”
8 p.m. today, Aug. 15. The Magnolia Performing Arts Center, 210 East Main Street, La Mesa. $53.50-$76. ticketmaster.com
San Diego-bound Grammy-winning blues musician, Keb’ Mo’, is a Compton native. He divides his non-touring time between his homes in Nashville and Compton. (Jeremy Cowart)
Keb’ Mo’, with Shawn Colvin
Compton native Keb’ Mo’ has received five Grammy Awards since 1996, including a 2018 Best Contemporary Blues Album win for “TajMo,” his splendid collaboration with American roots-music giant Taj Mahal.
The two have now re-teamed for a similarly engaging follow-up album, “Room On The Porch,” which takes an easy-going dip into blues, country, folk, New Orleans-styled funk, and more.
Even without Mahal next to him on stage, it’s likely Keb’ Mo’ (short for Kevin Moore) will perform a number of songs from “Porch” here.
Veteran troubadour Shawn Colvin, herself a three-time Grammy-winner, is well worth arriving early to hear. Their current joint tour was rescheduled from last fall, after Keb’ Mo’ underwent open heart surgery to correct a leaking valve. He was back in action last December when he sang with Susan Tedeschi in honor of Bonnie Raitt at the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors.
7:30 p.m. today, Aug. 15. Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island. $87.05. ticketmaster.com
Grammy Award-winning vocal wizard Cecile McLorin-Salvant will perform Saturday Aug. 16 as part of La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest 2025. (Karolis Kaminskas)
Cecile McLorin Salvant
A multiple Grammy Award-winner and 2020 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipient, Florida native Cecile McLorin Salvant studied classical and Baroque singing at college in France before she discovered jazz and soared to new heights.
Three-time jazz Grammy Award-winner Cécile McLorin Salvant goes from baroque to Garage Band
One of the most talented, versatile and daring vocal artists of her generation, she is — at 35 — a masterful musician whose captivating new album, “Oh Snap,” will be released Sept. 19 by Nonesuch Records.
Salvant’s recent opus, the 80-minute “Ogresse,” is a voice-and-orchestra work that she describes as a “murder ballad-musical fable, opera, storytelling-around-the-campfire moment.”
For her La Jolla Music Society SummerFest concert, Salvant will perform “Book of Ayres,” a reimagining of early music, folk, jazz, vaudeville, sung Greek lyric poetry and more. She be accompanied by a five-piece group, led by ace pianist Sullivan Fortner, that includes Dušan Balarin on theorbo, a bass flute that has 14 strings and can measure more than six feet from end to end.
Salvant’s concert here takes place the night before fellow vocal wizard Cynthia Erivo’s sold-out Sunday show at The Shell. Their back-to-back performances promise to be highlights of the year for fans of first-rate singing.
7:30 p.m. Aug. 16. Baker-Baum Concert Hall, Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Avenue, La Jolla. $68-$105. theconrad.org