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Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart combine song and spoken word in their soulful R&B act, F

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Jamaican DJ and singer Buju Banton will perform at Reggae Day on Monday.

For its 20th anniversary, the annual JazzReggae Festival is going back to its Bruin roots.

Sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Commission, the two-day concert takes place Sunday and Monday. For the past 20 years, the festival has united tens of thousands of students, community members and music enthusiasts with its synthesis of great food, international vendors, ideal Los Angeles weather and prominent jazz and reggae artists. However, this year the lineup may look more familiar than usual.

“We felt that our festival should go back to the roots of when this festival began,” said Todd Hawkins, executive producer of the JazzReggae Festival. “We wanted to reach within the university and within the students, because this show was originally created as a jazz festival and it was not only to bring great music to the Los Angeles community, but also to showcase the talent of the students and faculty that create the community of culture and music here at the university.”

For Reggae Day, Monday, the commission has assembled a wide variety of international reggae artists – including natives of Kingston, Jamaica such as modern reggae-dancehall queen Tami Chynn and legendary DJ Buju Banton. Also performing will be Hawaiian R&B-reggae singer Irie Love and local Los Angeles club artists Reggae DJ Fyness and MC Lightfoot.

Despite the diverse international focus for Reggae Day, much of the emphasis for Jazz Day takes root in the university community, with performances by musicians including Kenny Burrell, the director of the Jazz Studies program and the founder of the Jazz Heritage Foundation at UCLA. Graduate and undergraduate students in the UCLA Jazz Studies program will also be performing.

Although Jazz Day also includes nationally acclaimed artists such as Dianne Reeves and soul duo Floetry, the emphasis is clearly on UCLA.

“(The) JazzReggae (Festival) has always been a place where people from our community gather to chill out and listen to some great music from around the world, but this year we also wanted to show people great music from people and professors in our own community” says Osa Omoruyi, a second-year student and committee member for the festival. “I’m glad to see that we are bringing light to the talents of the students and professors in our jazz program.”

Professor Gerald Wilson, who is a three-time performer at the festival’s Jazz Day, will return this year with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. At the VIP reception on Saturday night, Wilson will be honored with the second annual lifetime achievement award presented by the Cultural Affairs Commission. Last year, Burrell became the first recipient of the award.

The Cultural Affairs Commission initiated the award as a means of honoring a nominated performer’s commitment not only to jazz and music as a whole, but also to musical education and the greater community.

“To go back to the beginning of this festival, when it was largely run by faculty and people in the jazz department, we started getting some of the faculty involved again, particularly by highlighting and honoring one of them. It’s about time that we honor these individuals, these treasures, that rarely get enough praise,” Hawkins said. “This year, we chose (Wilson) and it was absolutely amazing because (many of us) did not quite know of all of his wonderful contributions to the university that he has yet to be publicly and formally acknowledged for.”

At 87 years old, Wilson has been teaching in the Ethnomusicology Department at UCLA since its inception. He is celebrated for bringing an infectious zest and a genuine love of music to all of his students, never allowing his work with prominent artists such as Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin and Ella Fitzgerald to affect the humble manner in which he teaches his classes.

“He has not allowed his being a legend in the industry to faze his contribution to the university,” Hawkins said. “Everything that he does aligns right along with our mission this year to bring culture, music and art to the city and to the university. He is an individual who has made countless contributions to the arts and entertainment industry, but he takes what he has learned and contributes that right back to the UCLA community.”

Despite his age, Wilson continues to energetically tour the nation with The Gerald Wilson Orchestra, a 19-piece orchestra, and continues his dedication to spreading jazz music in the greater Los Angeles community by playing events such as the JazzReggae Festival.

“I’ve been a citizen of Los Angeles for over 60 years, and I’ve been teaching at this school for 16 wonderful years so I’m just about as involved in the community as I can be,” Wilson said. “I play music all over the city here, and I think being in this festival is just wonderful because it’s all about communities and families enjoying music, and these are the things that are so valuable to me.”