Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 8:00 PM
REDCAT, Los Angeles
**Angel City Arts** returns to REDCAT for its annual **Jazz Refractions Festival** with a dynamic double bill featuring two outstanding artists from Los Angeles in dialogue with the **Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra**. **Qur’an Shaheed** presents a free jazz performance with live projected visuals. Transcending genre, Shaheed’s mix of vocals, keys, and electronics are rooted in empowerment and a commitment to an expansion of music into a liberated poetics of sound. Joined by Mekala Session on drums and Devin Daniels on saxophone, Shaheed crafts a work that locates beauty in the improvisation of life. Drummer **Mekala Session** will premiere a new composition commissioned by the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Jeff Clayton Memorial New Note Award program. Session will perform in collaboration with the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, a Black music ensemble founded in Los Angeles by pianist Horace Tapscott in 1961. Dedicated to community, social consciousness, and Afrikan culture, the Arkestra has been led by Sessions since his early 20s. The music featured at Jazz Refractions is rooted in the jazz tradition of radical improvisation, freedom, and technical mastery. However, once it passes through the Angel City’s lens, it bends, distorts, and shatters into entirely new forms unrestricted by musical genres. Jazz is the source light, and Angel City is the prism.