Mayor Sylvester Turner will host the inaugural Jazz on the Hill concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre in Hermann Park this weekend, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019, featuring live performances by GRAMMY® Award winning saxophonist Kirk Whalum.
Special guest is 
Poncho Sanchez and His Latin Jazz Band. The free show will open with the Houston High School All Stars featuring Derrick Hodge, presented by a collaboration of the Monterey Jazz Festival and Texas Southern University.
Mayor Turner created Jazz on the Hill to promote music education and highlight national and local jazz artists.
“I’m thrilled to invite my fellow Houstonians to this memorable evening of jazz with world-renowned and budding artists on the same stage,” said Mayor Turner. “I’m equally proud to showcase this concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre, which hosts the largest always-free performing arts program of its kind in the country.”
Kirk Whalum
Forged from his Memphis gospel roots and his 1980‘s initiation into the thriving Houston nightclub scene, Whalum’s big, rich tenor sax sound is unmistakably his own. Whalum has played for notable artists including Barbara Streisand, Al Jarreau, Luther 
Vandross, Larry Carlton, Quincy Jones and Whitney Houston. He can be heard on Houston’s iconic hit, “I Will Always Love You.” Whalum followed that career high point with his phenomenal hit album released on Warner Bros. Records, For You, perhaps the most successful of over 25 solo recordings to date. In addition to his many solo projects, he was also a member of the popular soul/jazz group BWB, which features him as the “W” of the group with Rick Braun (trumpet) and Norman Brown (guitar).
Poncho Sanchez and His Latin Jazz Band
For more than three decades, Sanchez has created a combination of jazz and gritty soul music, with infectious melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources. Born in Laredo to a Mexican-
American family, Sanchez grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, where he was raised on an unusual cross-section of sounds that included traditional jazz, Latin jazz and American soul. His album Latin Soul received a GRAMMY award for Best Latin Album of 1999, and he continued to release multiple albums throughout the next decade. With his latest project, Trane’s Delight, Sanchez continues to honor the giants whose music has helped shape his own, while building on the rich legacy they’ve left behind.