Steve Hochman on June 14th, 2016

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On the 38th annual Playboy Jazz Festival weekend at the Hollywood Bowl that featured performances by such name figures as dynamo Janelle Monae, the engaging Jon Batiste (the “Late Night” bandleader and Colbert sidekick) and smooth jazz legacy quartet Fourplay, arguably the toughest slots on the bill went to singers Cécile McLorin Salvant and Seth McFarlane.

Salvant followed 13-year-old piano sensation Joey Alexander, the Bali-born pint-sized prodigy whose set leading his trio wowed the crowd with talents that would be astounding in a decades-older veteran star. McFarlane — yes, the “Family Guy” guy — came right after Naturally 7, an all-vocals septet that dazzled with its full-band sounds and stunning harmonies using nothing but their mouths that brought dropped jaws and wild applause from the fans.

The vivacious Salvant rose to the occasion by bringing her vivid talents and imagination to songs both familiar and obscure, even taking on material tied to iconic greats — Judy Garland with “The Trolley Song,” Frank Sinatra (and Fred Astaire) with “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” — and soaring in the process. And the sly social commentary of  “Wives and Lovers,”  bringing the Burt Bacharach-Hal David woman-gotta-please-her-man cringe from the era of Jackie K. into the age of Hillary C. with casually wry aplomb, was a weekend highlight.

McFarlane sang the theme from “My Mother the Car.”

Really.

Well, most of his set was basically a Rat Pack tribute, the territory he’s been mining, credibly if not revelatory, for a while now as an alternate career to his TV animation successes. He sings fine and the big band was great. But it added up to little more than kitsch and he drew a rather lackluster response.

So mark Alexander, Salvant and Naturally 7 among the tops of the day, each getting the crowd up on its feet. So did long-running Cuban band Los Van Van, who had nearly everyone dancing. And Batiste finished the night by taking his Stay Human band into the audience, his signature move from his roots in New Orleans to his spot on network TV.

Several others managed the feet feat in Sunday’s very varied lineup too. Singer Liv Warfield, the first of three Prince proteges on the day, did it with powerful rocked-up soul that would have torn the roof off the place, if it had one. New Orleans sax star Donald Harrison Jr. turned the Bowl into an ersatz Crescent City street parade when he brought out the colorfully costumed Congo Nation Mardi Gras Indian tribe — he’s their Big Chief. A little earlier, Harrison’s nephew Christian Scott managed the neat trick of winning the crowd over with his challenging, but involving and personable genre-busting sounds he calls “Stretch Music.” And veteran Houston guitarist Roy Gaines did it with both with sparkling licks and good-natured showboating in his guest role in the Robert Cray Band’s tribute to the late B.B. King.

And if adolescent Alexander was a revelation on Saturday, saxophonist Jimmy Heath was one on Sunday, though from the other end of the age scale — he’ll turn 90 in October. Sitting in with Javon Jackson and Sax Appeal, Heath showed he still has his sax appeal that made him and his brothers core figures of the bop world going back more than six decades, and this band, which also featured veteran pianist George Cable (a kid at just 72) was the lone representative of true bop on the two-day roster.

The most poignant turn came from Monae in the middle of her rousing set when she introduced her hard-hitting “Cold War” by referencing the horrific attack on the LGBT club in Orlando. If you think love is a sin, she said, “check your religion.” It was, pointedly, the only reference to the tragedy aside from one mention by master of ceremonies George Lopez. Monae evoked another recent loss, both cultural and personal, with a boisterous version of “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince, who had taken her under his wing when she was just launching her career. That, of course, was pure celebration and had everyone in the place dancing — which they kept doing for much of the closing set by Pete Escovedo, the Latin jazz percussionist who was part of the early Santana band, joined here by his sons Juan and Peter Michael, as well as his daughter Sheila — Sheila E, as you know her, also a Prince associate — all percussionists too. The family that drums together … well, something. Their mother? Not a car.