Albuquerque NM

Presented in partnership with the City of Albuquerque

Route 66 Summerfest 2025: New Mexico Jazz Festival Stage

Featuring Flambeaux, Dimi DiSanti's The Big Back Yard Band and Levi Platero

July 19 - 20, 2025

DOORS 5:00pm  •  All Ages
LOCATION
Nob Hill Albuquerque
Albuquerque NM

Fan Tang Restaurant parking lot- Carlisle & Central, ABQ

The New Mexico Jazz Festival Stage returns to Route 66 Summerfest in Nob Hill with a full evening of music by some of the best Jazz & Latin Music practitioners in the state.

5pm: Flambeaux: Flambeaux serves up a gumbo of traditional jazz spiced with spirited ensemble improvisations springing from vintage American tunes of the 1910s, 20s, and 30s. A fresh and swinging acoustic quartet, Flambeaux features four of Albuquerque’s most accomplished and beloved musicians. Saxophonist John Truitt is a distinguished composer, teacher, clinician, flamenco guitarist and woodwind specialist who, in addition to many other awards, recently received the John Donald Robb Musical Trust 2023 Robb Award for Excellence.  Trombonist Micah Hood is an award-winning composer/arranger and UNM teacher who has played with many New Mexico bands, including the popular Baracutanga. Wayne Shrubsall is a nationally-known scholar and performer of the banjo who is fluent in all styles of bluegrass, clawhammer, traditional jazz and dance music. And Mark Weaver’s agile tuba playing has underpinned many local and touring bands of all types, including teaming with Shrubsall in jazz groups for 25 years.

6:15pm: Dimi DiSanti’s Backyard Band: Guitarist and composer Dimian DiSanti, a fixture on the New Mexico music scene for over 40 years and one of the most sought-after guitarists in the region, is joined by his group, The Backyard Band, which fuses Jazz, Funk and Latin styles. Performing tunes off of their recent release, Our Big Backyard, it’s DiSanti on guitar; Alex Murzyn, saxophone; Steve Figueroa, piano; Milo Jaramillo, bass; and Arnaldo Acosta, drums.

7:45pm: The Levi Platero Band: Singer-songwriter and guitarist Levi Platero, who electrified the audiences at the New Mexico Jazz Festival’s Blues on Civic Plaza in 2022, returns, this time for Route 66 Summerfest. Platero hails from the Navajo Nation where his family band, The Plateros, emerged on the music scene in 2004 as a blues rock power trio comparable to the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lonely Boys and ZZ Top. After a decade of touring the US with his family band, and a one-year run as a member of the band, Indigenous, Platero got back to his own music as a solo artist and recruited a new band with whom he began touring and recording. His self-titled EP featuring the single “Take Me Back,” won the 2016 NAMA (Native American Music Award) for Best Blues, and that was followed up by two full length albums. His music mixes a spectrum of Texas Blues and vintage rock to modern guitar heroes such as eric Johnson and Steve Vai. Platero’s captivating live shows range from flurries of guitar acrobatics all the way down to soulful expressiveness.