For almost four decades, Karl Denson has been one of American music’s most in-demand horn players and bandleaders — co-founder of the acid-jazz institution The Greyboy Allstars, longtime frontman of the genre-blurring Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and since 2014, the man holding down the saxophone chair for The Rolling Stones. As he turns 70, Denson is pouring a lifetime of groove into his most personal project yet: Karl Denson’s AfroSonic. Built around his half century long deep love of Fela Kuti and West African rhythm, the band’s self titled debut album arrives early next year — a horn-driven, deep-pocket outing that plays like a career’s worth of funk, jazz and soul finally speaking its first language. It isn’t a victory lap, It’s Denson going back to the source.

This special event will raise funds and awareness for the High Sierra Foundation with an evening of music from Karl’s new Afro Beat project. The High Sierra Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that supports the charitable activities surrounding the High Sierra Music Festival, including music education, artist advocacy, and community investment. Independent of the for-profit festival, the Foundation draws on the generosity of festival fans to direct economic and cultural resources into live-music host communities, elevate, sustain, and care for working artists, and educate and inspire the next generation of musicians through micro grants and hands-on programming.