Aneesa Strings returns to Oakland a rising star in music

Up until the moment that the Hollywood Bowl’s stage started to rotate, bringing her band face to face with some 15,000 jazz fans, Aneesa Strings hadn’t felt the least bit anxious.

The first in a series of high-profile summer gigs, her Father’s Day set at the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival wasn’t just a triumphant arrival into the big leagues for the Oakland bassist and vocalist. It served as a dramatic measure of the vast distance she’d traveled in the past year.

“I wasn’t nervous at all...