Rialto’s 2024-25 season plays it safe with jazz, political satire

The Rialto Center’s rather safe 2024-25 season with its familiar jazz and popular music concerts may be a reflection the presenter’s new structure and leadership.

The Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University kicks off its 2024-2025 season September 21 with the political satire troupe Capitol Fools, an offshoot of the defunct Capitol Steps, veterans of the Rialto stage. Given this year’s tumultuous political climate, there will be plenty of material for the Fools to work with

In a year highlighted by changes to the theater’s managerial structure — the Rialto has merged with GSU’s Office of Educational Outreach — the new season features several returning artists alongside a few first timers for a relatively familiar lineup. 

West African circus troupe Cirque Kalabanté takes the Rialto stage for the first time October 6 for Afrique en Cirque (Africa in Circus), an evening focused on the “beauty, youth and artistry of West African culture.” The brainchild of multidisciplinary artist and circus veteran Yamoussa Bangoura, Afrique en Cirque  promises an acrobatic spectacle set to Afro jazz and traditional music.

That sort of performance sits well with the Rialto’s commitment to international art forms, jazz music and dance styles.

The jazz component definitely looms large next season — jazz funk legends Tower of Power will appear October 19, and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater (another returning champion) will usher in the spring months of 2025 on March 29. 

Female vocal groups are also getting a couple of spotlights this season in the form of the Grammy-award winning säje (October 26) and the Grammy-nominated Black a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock (January 25, 2025), which has been part of the Civil Rights Movement for more than 46 years.

Sweet Honey has previously played the Rialto, while säje appears for the first time. According to DownBeat magazine, the female quartet uses “soaring harmonic interplay to intensify feelings of dread and liberation.”

On March 8, 2025, Jazz at Lincoln Center will present New Orleans Songbook, an evening of jazz standards from The Big Easy. The set will feature classics by Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong — mainstays of the city’s history and titans of jazz music. 

The 1950s of The Drifters and The Platters will come alive again on February 8, 2025, when Coasters singer “Yakety Yak” Cornell Gunter tunes in with jukebox favorites such as “This Magic Moment,” “Under the Boardwalk” and “The Great Pretender.”

All things considered, it looks like the Rialto is playing it safe, serving up plenty of familiar faces and time-honored soundscapes seasoned with a few tasteful pinches of the new and unique. 

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Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.