Small crowds gather several times a year in a William Turnbull Jr. house on the Inverness Ridge to enjoy Grammy-award-winning jazz and world music. The intimate concerts, organized by a Gatsbyesque patron of the arts, take place under 35-foot-high wood-clad ceilings that make for a significant sonic experience.
John James Audubon prints, two stately fireplaces and a nine-foot Steinway grand piano round out the atmosphere. The last time West Marin likely saw this kind of talent up close was in the 1970s, when the Marshall Tavern was a haven for acts like Neil Young and Joan Baez.
Camille LeBlanc started the Every Blue Moon Concerts in 2017. Since that time, she’s featured artists from a range of genres, from bluegrass to classical, Indian to bossa nova, chamber to Americana, and above all, jazz. “The genres are very broad,” she said. “I try not to do things that you can hear in this region, to make it something special. Often the musicians don’t live in the state. I’m trying to give exposure to the community of a class of artists they otherwise would have to drive to go see.”
The roots of Ms. LeBlanc’s house concerts go back to the early 2000s. Living in the Berkeley Hills at the time, she attended salons of classically trained pianists and soon began inviting them into her home to play. Her concerts have evolved over time in scale and frequency, and as she has brought in more musicians, her role as a host has expanded into one of promoter.
This winter, she’s been working as a pro bono consultant for jazz pianist Jahari Stampley, whose career she says is on the cusp of huge success.
Ms. LeBlanc herself played classical piano from a young age, growing up in a family of musicians in Duxbury, Mass. Her brothers were in rock bands, her sister was a jazz singer and before she was born, her parents owned a nightclub. Every night after dinner, she and her siblings would play one of the instruments strewn across her home, from guitars to pianos to a Hammond organ. On road trips to visit relatives, the family’s five-part harmonies would fog up the windows.
Though she has continued to practice, play and listen to music throughout her life, Ms. LeBlanc did not opt for a career in music. After working in the software industry for several years, she attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information in the 1990s. She said her decision to go back to school “was a great way to stay off airplanes for a while. I thought, ‘If I don’t go back to school now, I never will.’”
She bought a house in the Berkeley Hills and, with money she had left over to purchase furniture, she opted instead to buy a seven-foot Steinway piano. She lived without furniture for a while, but the piano allowed her to meet new friends and practice while she was in school.
From 1998 until 2004, Ms. LeBlanc attended a monthly salon for musicians who had gone through conservatories and made their living playing classical piano.
“Well, I didn’t do either of those things, but I was training with these very advanced pianists,” she said. She would invite over the cohort for dinner parties, fill her house with food and have people play until 2 in the morning.
After graduating from Berkeley, Ms. LeBlanc founded several companies with offices as far as New York and London. She’s worked in artificial intelligence, social media and news, often as an early-stage consultant for growing companies.
Shortly after renting her home in Inverness in 2017, a friend offered her his Steinway. The piano was lifted by a crane from a New York City apartment and hauled 2,900 miles to her cliffside property.
Soon she found herself a new teacher: Antonio Iturrizo, a classical pianist who lives along the Russian River. Mr. Iturrizo played a few notes on Ms. LeBlanc’s Steinway, and the potential of the room as a concert hall was clear. “I have played in many places, but the sound was so live and so brilliant yet warm at the same time,” he said. “Part of it is that beautiful Steinway. I’m very picky about the kind of piano I play, and that’s a beautiful piano. It belongs there. You can play delicately, and the sound carries like a bell. You can also play brilliantly without harshness—the acoustics remain warm.”
Mr. Iturrizo had just finished mixing his album, “Gottschalk and Cuba” at Skywalker Sound when Ms. LeBlanc asked if he would be willing to perform the work at her home. He declined her offer for compensation but said that if just one person showed up, he would play a full program.
The show was a hit, and it didn’t take long for Ms. LeBlanc to attract more world-class musicians. She has gleaned talent from the musicians who come to the Bay Area’s jazz and classical venues, from the SFJAZZ Center and Yoshi’s to the Mondavi Center in Davis. After a musician plays at one of these venues, she’ll contact them with an offer to play an intimate show at her home. In exchange for their performance, she offers them the sum of ticket sales, an eager audience and room and board in her guest house—a quiet respite from the stress of touring.
In some cases, she said, musicians travel from her home straight to Carnegie Hall.
Ms. LeBlanc said her experience as a C.E.O. has served her well in the realm of artist development. Last month, Mr. Stampley, a 24-year-old breakout pianist from Chicago, received one of the highest accolades in jazz music: first place in the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Competition.
“Over the last two weeks, I’ve opened the top of my head and poured the music industry into it so that I can help him effectively,” Ms. LeBlanc said. “It’s complicated stuff and it’s been really interesting.”
Last January, Ms. LeBlanc saw Mr. Stampley play a rendition of Chick Corea’s “Return to Forever” at SFJAZZ. Every solo received standing ovations. The show left her in awe, and that week she invited him to come play in Inverness. He performed his first show at her home with his mother, multi-instrumentalist D-Erania. The next time he played in Inverness, he brought 21-year-old drummer Miguel Russel. The three will return in January for another house concert.
Last week, the Every Blue Moon Concerts series saw the return of Matt Von Roderick, a jazz trumpeter whom the New York Times called “a post-millennial Chet Baker.” His looped trumpeting and vocals formed chords, basslines and dissonant soundscapes. Though he was just one man on a wind instrument, he managed to utilize the Steinway, blowing his horn into its inner frame to produce an echo that drifted over the crowd.
To learn more, go to https://everybluemoonconcerts.org/