Sting performs at the 2019 Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience. JAS CEO Jim Horowitz called it one of the top-five performances in the festival’s history. The former Police frontman is the Labor Day Experience’s Saturday night headliner.
Jazz Aspen Snowmass founder and CEO Jim Horowitz compares putting his festival’s lineup together from Friday through Sunday to putting together a musical meal.
“My family was in the restaurant business,” he said in an interview with the Aspen Daily News. “The meal I’m putting together is not in your mouth, it’s in your ears. I’m looking for variety. I’m looking for strong tastes. I’m looking for some of my favorite kinds of food, which will be the main course; I’m looking for some appetizers and I’m looking for some things that perhaps we’ve never had before, but I think my friends would enjoy having a taste of it.”
The main course of the 2024 JAS since is Sting. He is a repeat performer, having played JAS in 2019, a performance Horowitz called one of the top five in the festival’s history.
“Sting and his band were both in absolute top form, ” he said of that evening. “Sting himself is a super-charismatic artist and the show that he put together just musically exceeded everyone’s expectations. He really resonated because here’s a guy who’s an international rock star who’s also a yoga addict. His whole demeanor was perfect for our audience. Sting really resonated here because people just appreciated him on so many different levels.”
Once Horowitz has his main course for the weekend, he lines up his other two headliners to compliment the menu. So with a heritage rock ‘n’ roll artist headlining Saturday night, he found a good Friday night headliner in Brandi Carlisle.
“Brandi straddles the lines of rock ‘n’ roll and country,” Horowitz said. “She’s never played the festival before so she’s a new flavor for us. We’ve had good success with country bands that rock like Chris Stapleton and Eric Church. These are a couple acts that quickly come to mind who straddle that line. We know our audiences appreciate those acts so it’s a great fit for the menu”
Tim McGraw was another artist who had never played JAS and he brought in more dedicated country flavors to Horowitz musical menu. Unfortunately, McGraw had to pull out due to an injury.
“These things happen in the music business and in the kitchen,” Horowitz said. “Your goal as a chef is to find another dish that is similar to what you had planned for the menu, and in music you want to try to find an artist in the same genre who has a somewhat similar profile. Dierks (Bentley, a last-minute replacement) definitely fit the bill. We are confident it’s going to be a fantastic, high energy closing night performance that our crowd is going to love and a perfect dish to compliment our menu.”
Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, rock ‘n’ roll stalwarts, will take the stage Sunday at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience.
For the Sunday appetizers, Horowitz signed up the band The War and Treaty.
“They’ve never played our stage before so that’s a new flavor for us and they touch a lot of different varieties of music with country, blues and gospel,” he said. “And we felt by pairing them with the Black Crowes, who are just a powerhouse rock band, followed by a great up-tempo country show, we had a great musical menu for a JAS Sunday.”
Horowitz said that whatever genre his bands are in, there is one quality that is a necessity for all of his acts across the board at all JAS events.
“We book artists that have a reputation for putting on great live shows,” Horowitz said. “We’re looking for artists that really know how to connect. Whether it’s a JAS Cafe show for 150 people or it’s a Labor Day show for 10,000 people, we want artists on our stage that know how to connect.”
When asked if he had a name for the menu that he had put together for JAS Labor Day, Horowitz smiled and said, “I call it the Tasty Tasty.”
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