Island jazzman Bruce Phares will celebrate his 70th birthday in November — and has a full month’s worth of concerts lined up that will have the whole island celebrating the occasion.

The good times will start rolling on Saturday, Nov. 1, when Phares hosts a star-studded “Jam in the Atrium” to close out the 2025 season of his beloved and long-running series at Vashon Center for the Arts.

The free concert — a departure from the Jam’s typical format of jazz trios and quartets — will fill VCA’s atrium with Afro-Caribbean drums, voices and horns.

Guests will include the Grammy Award-winning Trinidadian djembe player Richard Francis, also known by his stage name of Sanga of The Valley. After moving to New York City in the early 1970s, Sanga met the legendary player Babatunde Olatunji and spen

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