Pink Martini vocalist Jimmie Herrod booked for jazz fest

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The Winnipeg International Jazz Festival announced its second wave of headliners, which includes Madeleine Peyroux, Jimmie Herrod, Richard Bona and George Colligan.

A concert by renowned American banjo player Béla Fleck and his trio was previously announced.

The 2025 festival, taking place June 17-22, is both a popular dance party in Old Market Square and Winnipeg’s flagship festival for jazz, attracting many of its best players from across the world.

The second wave of performers will all perform at the University of Manitoba’s new Desautels Concert Hall.

“Our audiences will make lifelong memories with the return of previous festival headliner Madeleine Peyroux … (and) will discover the once-in-a-lifetime vocal talents of Pink Martini singer Jimmie Herrod,” Jazz Winnipeg’s programming director Zachary Rushing says in a release.

Peyroux — whom the New York Times has compared to Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf — is perhaps best known for her album Careless Love, which sold half a million copies.

She plays the festival on June 18.

And while Pink Martini, which last performed in Winnipeg in 2011, is one of the world’s best-known pop-jazz crossover acts, vocalist Herrod is a growing pop phenomenon in his own right.

In 2022, actress Sofia Vergara awarded the jazz singer “Golden Buzzer” — the highest tribute a contestant can receive from a judge — on America’s Got Talent. The video currently has 17 million views on YouTube; judge Heidi Klum called him “a million-dollar act.”

Herrod is accompanied at his June 21 festival show by pianist George Colligan, a former University of Manitoba Jazz Studies piano professor.

An in-demand accompanist, the multi-instrumentalist has appeared on over 130 albums, performing alongside icons such as John Scofield, Cassandra Wilson, Ravi Coltrane and Chris Botti.

The Grammy-winning Bona — who has toured and collaborated with the likes of Quincy Jones, Harry Belafonte and Sting — is originally from Cameroon and fuses jazz and world music.

As a child, Bona, who performs June 22, fashioned his own instruments and performed in the village church. ‘

As a teenager, he discovered jazz in Cameroon’s French jazz clubs — in particular, the music of bassist Jaco Pastorius, to whose style Bona’s playing has been compared.

Today he’s a professor of jazz music at New York University and works on Afrobeat, Afropop, Latin and flamenco projects throughout the world.

The Desautels Hall concerts are also an opportunity to experience the University of Manitoba’s new 407-seat venue, which opened in 2024. The hall is designed specifically for acoustically pristine musical performances.

Tickets for the shows are on sale now for $49 to $69 at Showpass. Tickets for Bela Fleck’s June 17 show ($77-$94) are available at Ticketmaster.

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca