Marked by the presence of Stanley Clarke and the band Jazz Funk Soul with Jeff Lorber, the 17th annual Gardena Jazz Festival drew a crowd of over 10,000 to Rowley Park in South Bay L.A. County city. With audio, lights, and staging provided by MixOne Sound and Hudson Audio Works, a VIO L212-based PA from dBTechnologies made its inaugural main stage debut at the event along with an onstage complement of LVX XM12 and LVX XM15 floor monitors also culled from the dBTechnologies catalog.
Frequent collaborators, MixOne Sound and Hudson Audio Works are both based in Orange County, CA. “We work together so frequently people may think we’re interchangeable,” says MixOne principal Spenser Bishop, commenting on his relationship with counterpart Gregg Hudson. “But in reality, our skills and inventories just blend really well together.”
On the Gardena Jazz Festival’s main stage this year, Hudson Audio took charge of much of the backline strategy, while MixOne stepped-in out front. Within the VIO PA, 22 L212 active three-way cabinets were flown left-and-right, buttressed below by 27 VIO S218 subwoofers triple-stacked in a cardioid configuration. Three VIO L210 enclosures residing on top of the subs served as frontfills.
“Our area of coverage for the PA was 150 yards deep and 80 yards wide,” Bishop relates. “We didn’t use any outfills because we simply didn’t need them. You could hear what was coming from the stage everywhere, feel it too. I walked 1,000 or more feet away and still could feel the subs hit plus all the power of the top-end.”
System tech Billy Catlin described the PA as “pretty plug-and-play—two of us had it up in the air within 15 minutes. Since these are all self-powered boxes, we didn’t have a large amp rack footprint taking up space. All of which would have required a lot more cabling, and frankly, a lot more work from me.”
Gregg Hudson notes that “I’ve been around this system while it’s been used in many genres: Jazz, rock, country, hip-hop, and R&B. Every single time it’s delivered the sound you want to hear. There is never the addition of any artificial coloration.”
Established as a free community event by California state senator Steven Bradford, the Gardena Jazz Festival has grown steadily beyond anyone’s expectations. In addition to Stanley Clarke and Jazz Funk Soul, this year’s bill included Marcus Johnson, Jazz in Pink, and Cornelius Mims.
