From local acts to international stars, live music lights up the stage

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Santa Cruz has always maintained a unique and slightly enchanted vibe. It’s a Northern California coastal city close enough to San Francisco that it gets some of the city’s collateral luster yet far enough away (and over a mountain) to be its own specific place. The Santa Cruz live music scene is just as vibrant and unique as the city is, containing diverse and legendary venues that present a broad swath of contemporary performers and genres from local artists to international touring acts.

The Catalyst in downtown Santa Cruz has long held an acclaimed spot because it often has major artists dropping in. Neil Young, Iggy Pop and Nirvana have all rocked the main room, which holds up 800 patrons, and there is a smaller space known as the Atrium which holds up to 350. In its current location since 1976, the Catalyst, like most Santa Cruz venues, books across the range of popular music so you’ll find progressive rapper Tyler the Creator on the calendar or indie popsters Tegan and Sara taking the stage.

The Rio Theatre first opened in 1949 as an east side Santa Cruz movie palace. In 2000, Laurence Bedford moved down to Santa Cruz from San Francisco to take over the now dilapidated building, which was a shell of its former self.

“The building was being sold by United Artists because they were going out of business,” Bedford said. “We decided to jump in there and originally just thought we were going to be a community theater, a small community kind of place.”

First, there was a substantial amount of building rehab that needed to be done.

“The place was pretty, pretty rough when we got it,” Bedford said. “The movie screen was held together with dental floss. A lot of people in town were just kind of like ‘there’s no way this is gonna happen.’ ”

Bedford built out a stage over the first few rows of seats and left the seats underneath intact as a sound buffer.

“People were renting us for dance classes and drumming classes — then, we got a call to do a Joan Jett show. I had nothing in place, no sound, no lighting. But Joan was our first concert, and from there, people realized that we could be a concert hall,” Bedford said.

The Jett show packed the space to its 700-person capacity and it was a revelation for Bedford.

“We started getting more calls — we didn’t make that much money, but we put everything back into the theater and now 23 years later, we’ve grown to be what we are,” Bedford said.

Bedford books all kinds of shows himself but also hosts various promoters who want to use the space.

“What we do is called ‘four walling’ — me renting to the production company and then I supply all the staff and technical equipment and then they just bring in the artist,” Bedford said. “We do films, we do a ton of different things, not just music. I do know what works for us and doesn’t work for us. That’s why I do check and I can suggest to people another venue.”

Bedford has turned the Rio into a true multi-use, multipurpose facility hosting film festivals, speaker series and even the occasional Patti Smith performance.

Moe’s Alley, which sits outside the downtown hub, has a honky tonk vibe and is a locals favorite for its Americana leaning bookings. It’s essentially a standing room only performance space with seats on its outdoor patio where you can bring your leashed dogs. While all of Santa Cruz has a low key vibe, this is a comfortably casual spot.

Kuumbwa Jazz co-founder Tim Jackson is the last active member of the trio of jazz lovers who founded the organization back in 1975.

“Our idea was to develop a home for jazz in Santa Cruz using a nonprofit model,” Jackson said.

They were able to achieve their goal within a year and by 1977 had secured the 200-seat venue, which became Kuumbwa Jazz Center.

“We’ve developed it over the decades into a community institution and one of the major arts organizations on the central coast,” Jackson said.

Creating a lasting jazz organization requires a lot of things going right and Jackson confirmed that was the case.

“Our community played a huge role, and if you want to be successful with a venture like ours, you have to have the community support. It was a very culturally warm spot at the time,” Jackson noted.

Kuumbwa received institutional support from Santa Cruz County, and federal work programs helped fund full-time positions. Cabrillo College, the local community college, and UC Santa Cruz both had vibrant jazz programs, which helped feed their audience.

“There was just a tremendous amount of activity in the arts and emerging institutions and mechanisms that would support them,” Jackson said.

The staff was dedicated to their mission and message in presenting mainstream jazz and facilitating jazz education. Jackson said because they’ve “never wavered” from that vision, they’ve never lost focus on what they’re trying to do.

“I do feel an obligation to present a lot of music that would fit under the jazz or jazz adjacent world,” Jackson said. “Then, it’s a matter of finding that balance of programming that feels good and frankly, having some shows each quarter that we know are gonna sell a lot of tickets, which will allow us to sometimes do some music that we know probably won’t sell a lot of tickets but is very relevant music and music that should be heard in the community.”

One of the reasons for Kuumbwa’s continued solvency over the decades, Jackson said, has been their diverse source of incomes, particularly renting out their facility to independent promoters to produce their own shows. Kuumbwa might produce two or three of their own shows during a particular week but also host a couple more produced by independent promoters they rent to. That’s why acts like a Beatles tribute band or the former San Francisco Giant coach turned folk rocker for charity Tim Flannery are on the calendar.

“They don’t really have any relevance to jazz but still fit the style of the room. We’re just renting the facility out to another promoter and that gives us venue capacity,” Jackson said. “We call it ‘feeding the beast.’ The beast is the venue and the beast must always be fed. This model allows us the ability to produce significant and relevant music in the jazz genre and still have the venue be the major small performance venue in the community. So you hear all kinds of music here, comedy shows and poetry readings, things like that.”

Kuumbwa is moving into a conscious leadership transition with Jackson stepping down and with Chanel Enriquez, the managing director, and Bennett Jackson, the new creative director, taking over. Enriquez was particularly instrumental in keeping Kuumbwa viable during the pandemic shutdown.

“We were dedicated, determined to keep our organization strong and healthy so we would be ready to welcome audiences when it was safe to do so,” Enriquez said.

She moved education programming to streaming formats along with some performances they were able to safely record.

“We hosted our annual summer jazz camp virtually in 2020 and 2021,” Enriquez said. “Then, we started producing master classes virtually. We found creative ways to keep the music going during the pandemic until we were ready to reopen our doors safely.”

Tim Jackson explained Kuumbwa’s vitality this way: “We have a commitment to that generation of artists that are not the young lions anymore. Yet their artistry is still intact, their spirit is still there, they’re still playing their asses off — so they deserve to be heard.”