By Taylor Jordan

Angelique Kidjo

Since 2006, the annual June event at the Hollywood Bowl has been returning to its original mission of staging some of the best performers in the genuine business of jazz music. This year, it gave fans nearly 18 hours of formidable expressions of the music America gave the world.

The array of artists were distinctively different, but all were extraordinary, off the hook and outside of the box. Saturday was the stronger day musically, but amazingly there were no bad notes during the two-day music fest for the first time in many years. It was literally a feast for the soul, ears, eyes and heart.

Those occupying the loftier perches of the festival included Angelique Kidjo, James Carter, Buddy Guy, Phil Woods, Arturo Sandoval, Etta James and Peabo Bryson.

James Carter

She sang in several languages, using music as the universal language pushing her into everybody's heart and understanding. She's a legend in the making, as classically attractive as the famous masks of her homeland and with an unique voice accented with growling rifts, melodic caresses and combustible heat. She grabs you musically, spins you around, tosses you in the air and makes even small children and normally rhythmically challenged people joyously match her African dance moves step for step.

Carter is like an erupting volcano. Hot notes pour from his deftly played saxophones, cooling intermittently to drizzle sensual licks on listeners before boiling over with feverish tones. This double-time mesmerizer led an organ trio with the festival's most sizzling sideman Gerard Gibbs on Hammond B-3 organ and drummer Leonard King, then returned as the cream of the crop on this year's Cos of Good Music.

Buddy Guy

There are many imitators, but no one touches the genius of blues giant Buddy Guy.

One culturally deprived idiot in the audience had the nerve to say Eric Clapton was the greatest -- obviously unaware of Clapton's admitted reverence for Guy. He instantly ate humble pie as Guy electrified the closing Saturday set. Buddy's so bad he can play guitar with a drum stick and emit the same, pulsating sound. No one can capture the essence of the blues and an audience like this legend does.

Etta James and Musical Director/Lead Guitarist Josh Sklair

Sandoval stirred gyrating bodies all around the bowl with his mambo madness set. Dancers on stage lost attention to audience amateurs unable to stay in their seats. The real action moved up and down the aisles as Sandoval's fiery trumpet tore up the high notes and fans got their Latin grooves on.

Then came Etta - strangely and alarmingly too thin, but still purveyor of powerful vocals. Etta's name should always be accompanied with an exclamation point. She's not capable of giving a bad performance or failing to move always adoring audiences. No matter where the stage is in the world, if she's on it, she commands it. And has done so for four decades.

Peabo's ballads elevated Norman Brown's Summer Storm from mediocre pop fare to sensuously stylish staging.

Malcolm Jamal Warner

Guitarist Johnny Polanco and singer Issac Delgado appeased the audience's salsa and Afro-Cuban cravings. Malcolm Jamal Warner is no longer a Cosby "kid." He's a talented grown-up with great bass guitar skills, composer of socially relevant prose reminiscent of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill and creator of love lyrics pre-dating the roughness of gangsta rap sex.