Palo Alto’s Earthwise Productions, in its 31st season as a promoter or manager of jazz and rock music and artists, announced three shows, all featuring guitar heroes, loosely marketed as “Guitarslingers series”.

The shows feature Jim Campilongo (as Spaghetti, featuring he, Scott Amendola, Sam Reider and Matt Muntz), free, Friday, May 10 at Lytton Plaza; Mark Lettieri (as a quartet), free May 24 at Mitchell Park Bowl; and Nels Cline (with Phillip Greenlief, reeds, and Amendola on drums) for $20 at The Mitch Hall.

All three events are available on EventBrite — the free shows require registration, the hard-ticket show accepts credit card payment and is limited to 200 capacity. (Earthwise nominally lists the capacity at downtown Lytton Plaza as 200. and that of Mitch Bowl (amphitheater in the 21 acre park) as 500.

Campilongo, who is from nearby San Bruno and lived in New York City for many years until recently, is known for playing with Norah Jones, and also played recently at Lytton Plaza as a duo with cellist Ben Davis.

Lettieri hails from adjacent Menlo Park, CA and is a five-time Grammy winner for his work with the jazz band Snarky Puppy. His group comprises Mark Lettieri, guitar and baritone guitar, Wes Stephenson, bass, Daniel Porter, keyboards and JJ Thomas, drums.

Earthwise founder Mark Weiss claims that the series fell into place somewhat arbitrarily but that it is loosely a tribute to Gryphon Guitar store founder Frank Ford, who died in December.

Earthwise has produced 15 shows so far in 2024, all in Palo Alto; it completed 61 events last year; it was founded in 1994 as a spin-off from Bay Area Action Earth Day at Stanford for which Weiss volunteered and organized “Earthwise Traditions” a cluster of indigenous’ groups takes on the environment. The first event that Weiss independently produced was an “Earthwise Mini Pow Wow” at Addison School, in conjunction with Cathy White Eagle’s Eagle Vision Educational Network EVEN of Sacramento.

Weiss says that more than half of his events are free and outdoors, especially since the COVID shutdowns in 2020 but that just recently he realized that outdoor shows are more earthwise than using public halls.

“Lita Albuquerque spoke outside the Anderson art building this week and her description of her work resonated with what I have been doing –although I’m an arts administrator and she is an actual artist”, he said. Creating a temporary audience in a public space, public park or public plaza, with or without music, is like an art installation, he said or wrote or is at least thinking this morning, 8 a.m on the dot, with his dog, waiting for breakfast.