The Lao Tizer Band [photo credit: Levitt VIBE Pasadena Music Series]
The Lao Tizer Band headlines the sixth of ten free concerts in the Levitt VIBE Pasadena Music Series, the program that returned Levitt-funded music to the park’s band shell after nearly a decade without it. The set draws on AMPLIFY, released in August 2024. There is no ticket and no registration.
The concert is Saturday, August 15. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. and the show begins at approximately 6:30 p.m. The Old Pasadena Management District puts the evening’s end at 10:00 p.m. The Memorial Park Bandshell stands at 85 East Holly Street, near Raymond Avenue and Walnut Street.
Lao Tizer is a keyboardist and composer who grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and works out of Los Angeles. His announced Pasadena lineup is Yamin on vocals, Danny Janklow on saxophone and flute, Anthony Crawford on bass, Gene Coye on drums and Joey De Leon on percussion.
AMPLIFY runs nine songs — five with vocals, four instrumental — recorded and filmed live at EastWest Studios in Hollywood. The Old Pasadena Management District bills Saturday’s program as jazz. Tizer puts it differently. In his official biography he says the concept was to cross over, and calls the record “not really a ‘jazz’ record but it definitely has jazz elements.”
It was the first Lao Tizer Band album built around original vocal songs, and Tizer handed those songs to Yamin, a singer known from American Idol.
Big Mike Hart and Aretha Scruggs open the night on The Vibe Set, a slot for emerging performers sponsored by the Rose Bowl Stadium.
The series runs Saturdays through September 12 under a Levitt Foundation matching grant awarded to the Pasadena Recreation and Parks Foundation following a national public voting campaign. Levitt Pavilion Pasadena operated at the same band shell from 2003 through 2017.
“Music has the power to unite people,” Councilmember Justin Jones said in a City of Pasadena news release issued before the season opened. The city’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department and the parks foundation present the series in partnership with the Old Pasadena Management District.
Admission is free and the concert is open to all ages. There is no dedicated parking lot; metered street parking in the heart of Old Pasadena costs $1.25 an hour, according to the Old Pasadena Management District, a public parking facility sits at 171 North Raymond Avenue between Holly and Walnut streets, and the Metro A Line’s Memorial Park Station is at 125 East Holly Street. Lawn chairs, blankets, coolers and outside food are permitted; alcohol, glass containers, smoking, pets other than service animals, drones and pop-up canopies are not. ADA seating is limited and first-come, first-served, and requests for ASL interpretation or an assistive listening device must be made in advance at (626) 744-7311. Participating Old Pasadena restaurants sell food on-site, among them Pez Coastal Kitchen and Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery. Concerts go on rain or shine but may be canceled in extreme weather.
The band shell has stood in Memorial Park since 1930. On Saturday the music that was made under studio lights comes out onto the grass.
NEED TO KNOW
Levitt VIBE Pasadena: The Lao Tizer Band performs Saturday, August 15, at the Memorial Park Bandshell, 85 East Holly Street, Pasadena, CA 91103, near Raymond Avenue and Walnut Street. Doors open at 6:00 p.m., the show begins at approximately 6:30 p.m., and the Old Pasadena Management District puts the evening’s end at 10:00 p.m. Admission is free and open to all ages, with no ticket and no advance registration. The venue has no dedicated parking lot; metered street parking in the heart of Old Pasadena costs $1.25 an hour, according to the Old Pasadena Management District, a public parking facility sits at 171 North Raymond Avenue between Holly and Walnut streets, and the Metro A Line’s Memorial Park Station is at 125 East Holly Street. For more, call (626) 744-7311 or visit oldpasadena.org.
