You won’t find the statute in any lawbook or municipal code, but there’s a longstanding rule of thumb guiding the Bay Area music scene that club owners and festival promoters ignore at their peril. If you want to throw a successful event, book Pete Escovedo.

The fact that the Pittsburg native has lived in Los Angeles for the past two decades has done little to diminish the power of the directive, or Escovedo’s status as a Bay Area icon. Which is why institutions old and new are presenting the percussionist in the coming weeks, starting with Yoshi’s, which reopens its main concert stage after 16 long months, with the Pete Escovedo Orchestra, July 9-11.

He’s back in the South Bay on Aug. 14 with the Pete Escovedo Latin Jazz Orchestra as one of the headliners at San Jose Jazz’s Summer Fest, and then will be on hand on Aug. 28 to help launch the new Golden Gate Jazz Festival at San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre with Pete Escovedo & Sons, featuring percussionists Juan and Peter Michael Escovedo.

After cooling his heels for so long, “it’s so great to get back to work and play music,” said paterfamilias Escovedo, who turns 86 on July 13. “Those are my favorite places. I love playing at Yoshi’s, where we’re surrounded by friends and family. I live in L.A. but I’m such a Bay Area guy. San Jose and that jazz festival is a one-of-a-kind event that I’ve played many times.”

Pete Escovedo brings his Latin Jazz Orchestra to Yoshi’s July 9 and the San Jose Jazz Festival in August. (Courtesy of Pete Escovedo). 

Even if he wasn’t getting back on stage, Escovedo has got a lot to celebrate. Last week the Latin Recording Academy announced that he and his daughter Sheila E. are among the artists receiving this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award at Las Vegas’s Four Seasons Hotel on Nov. 17 as part of the 22nd Annual Latin Grammy week (the first father-daughter pair ever co-presented with the honor).

And he arrives at Yoshi’s with a new CD in hand, “Rhythm of the Night,” a hard-charging Latin jazz project featuring his L.A. band produced by son Peter Michael Escovedo. He’s bringing the same core of players to Oakland, with his sons Juan and Peter Michael joining him in the percussion section, and the great Colombian-born saxophonist/flutist Justo Almario. East Bay guitarist Ray Obiedo, an Escovedo compatriot for more than four decades, isn’t on the album, but he’ll be playing with the orchestra at Yoshi’s.

All the activity is a sudden departure after so many months at home, watching television “and doing a lot of painting,” said Escovedo, who’s been a dedicated oil painter since the age of 15. “We did a couple of live streams, and my daughter Sheila started a variety show on YouTube, so we’d go over to her studio and film that. We tried to keep as busy as possible. We have a little dog that I take out, though I don’t know if I’m walking him or he’s walking me.”

Music has always been a family affair for Escovedo. Encouraged to take up the timbales by pianist Ed Kelly, a high school buddy who became a pivotal Bay Area jazz artist, he essentially taught himself to play the instrument by listening to records by Machito and Tito Puente.

His love of Latin music carried over to his younger brother Coke, who also became a percussionist. They soon formed a sought after rhythm section team, and when they put their own combo together with their younger brother Phil on bass the Escovedo Brothers Latin Jazz Sextet earned an avid following across the state.

He and Coke went on to found the seminal 14-piece Latino rock band Azteca in 1970, a cooperative percussion-and-brass juggernaut that recorded two albums for Columbia. The band’s size made it a difficult proposition, and Pete ended up rejoining Santana (whom he’d played with before Azteca), performing internationally and contributing to the late 1970s albums “Moonflower,” “Oneness,” and “Inner Secrets.”

“I have really been blessed,” he said. “I never expected to be where I am. We were just young kids, and then it evolved into a business and our livelihood. I feel so lucky I was able to last this long. All my brothers are gone. All the great percussion guys I played with, the guys from Cuba and New York and Puerto Rico, they’re all gone.”

But Pete Escovedo is still here, and so are dozens of musicians who came through his bands, absorbing his singular mix of Afro-Cuban rhythms, jazz, rock and soul. He’s ready to pass the baton, but first he’s got to jump-start a scene that’s just shaking off its pandemic torpor.

Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.

PETE ESCOVEDO

The Bay Area native and Latin jazz icon has booked several summer and fall Bay Area appearances in various musical iterations. Here’s a rundown.

Yoshi’s: Escovedo and his Latin Jazz Orchestra perform in the iconic jazz club’s return to live jazz shows on its main stage. Shows are 8 and 10 p.m. July 9, 7:30 and 9:30 July 10, and 7 p.m. July 11; 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland; $34-$75; 510-238-9200, www.yoshis.com.

San Jose Jazz Festival: The annual event, which was idled by the pandemic last year, returns Aug. 13-15; with Escovedo and his Latin Jazz Orchestra taking the stage 6 p.m. Aug. 14; single tickets for the festival are $35-$190; three-day passes run $105-$470; summerfest.sanjosejazz.org.

Golden Gate Jazz Festival: Pete Escovedo & Sons, with Juan and Peter Michael Escovedo, perform during this inaugural event at San Francisco’s refurbished Presidio Theatre; 6:30 p.m. Aug. 28; daily tickets are $85-$135; goldengatejazzfestival.com.

Freight & Salvage: If you can’t catch him this summer, Escovedo and his Latin Jazz Orchestra return to headline two nights at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage; 8 p.m. Oct. 8-9; $40-$44; thefreight.org.