SAN DIEGO — Irwin Jacobs, the founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, is giving nearly $400,000 in seed money to help launch and sustain the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival through its first three years.

The inaugural Oct. 4-6 event has been designated as an "impact project" in the yearlong World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024, whose goal is to showcase how cities united by their physical spaces, economies, and cultures can develop collaboratively and harmoniously.

The debut edition of the festival will open Oct. 5 with a ticketed performance at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. It will be followed by free performances on a block of Avenida Revolucion in downtown Tijuana on Oct. 5, and at the Quartyard in downtown San Diego on Oct. 6. The Tijuana performance is a collaboration between top San Diego jazz impresario Daniel Atkinson and Tijuana Blues & Jazz Festival founder/director Julián Plascencia.

Each venue will feature a borders-leaping roster of bands and solo artists from Mexico and the United States. The lineup includes Mexico City-bred singer Magos Herrera, Los Angeles pianist Gerald Clayton, Tijuana's Nortec Collective, Guadalajara-born trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos (who is the San Diego Symphony's jazz curator), Ensenada trumpeter and band leader Ivan Trujillo; and a collaboration by student musicians from the Castellanos-led San Diego Young Lions Jazz Academy and the Trujillo-led Instituto Contemperáneo de Música de Baja California.

Trujillo is also serving as an artistic adviser to the festival. On May 2 in Ensenada, he will be presented with the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Hero Award by festival founder Atkinson. Trujillo is the first Mexican jazz artist in the association's 38-year history to receive the prestigious award. He performed with his band in 2019 at the first Festival of New Trumpet Music West, a San Diego event co-produced by Atkinson.

The headliner at the festival's Oct. 4 opening concert in Escondido will be a band led by acclaimed jazz drummer Cindy Blackman Santana. Her husband and frequent musical partner is Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Carlos Santana, who cut his teeth as a teenage guitarist playing in various Tijuana nightclubs. He is not a member of her band, but she is the drummer in his group, Santana.

Years in the making, the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival is the brainchild of Atkinson. He is the founder of San Diego Jazz Ventures, the nonprofit organization that is producing the festival, and is the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library's longtime jazz program coordinator in La Jolla.

"It's absolutely a dream come true to do this — I've had it in mind since 1988," said Atkinson, who is also the executive director of the Western Jazz Presenters Network

"What makes working in the arts in San Diego the most unique is our position here on the border and the opportunities it opens up to collaborate with Mexico, which to me is an endlessly rich and fascinating source of creativity and cultural history. So, I'm thrilled to be able to proceed with this festival."

Those sentiments are shared by Qualcomm founder Jacobs, a former avocational trombone player and clarinetist, and by Tijuana Blues & Jazz Festival founder Plascencia, a blues and rock guitarist.

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