Not all audiences stand to applaud a musician who has yet to play one note but such was the enthusiasm inside Balboa Theatre as jazz legend Herbie Hancock stepped on to the stage on April 18. His bandmates may be less famous but their resumes spanning Hollywood, “Saturday Night Live,” and recording sessions with greats like Stevie Wonder, Bruno Mars, and Kendrick Lamar meant their sound was likely no less familiar to the audience, if unknowingly.

Hancock is the headliner for La Jolla Music Society’s inaugural Jazz Festival taking place this weekend in honor of Jazz Appreciation Month. The rest of the concerts, performed by local jazz musicians as well as Japan’s genre-bending Hiromi and Afro-Cuban composer Dayramir Gonzalez, take place in La Jolla.

The jazz festival highlights La Jolla Music Society’s expansion from chamber music to other genres over the past 50 years while still maintaining its promise to bring world-class musicians to San Diego. The caliber of the musicians Thursday night certainly demonstrated that with each solo from Hancock’s bandmates more stunning than the last.

Trevor Lawrence, Jr. on drums broke a drumstick yet kept beating out at breakneck speeds. He is an in-demand hip hop drummer and producer who has been nominated for a Grammy award every year since 2000 for his work alongside superstars like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mariah Carey and Kendrick Lamar. “Saturday Night Live” bassist James Genus used a loop pedal to startling effect in his own hypnotic solo. There was no temptation to take a drink break as Genus enraptured the audience with thrumming melodies.

Lawrence and Genus are longtime Hancock collaborators alongside trumpeter Terence Blanchard who has composed dozens of film scores and two operas. Blanchard is an Oscar nominee for his work with Spike Lee on “BlaKKKlansman” and Hancock praised the Grammy-award winning artist for composing the score of “The Woman King” while in their tour bus. Blanchard also arranged the band’s adventurous rendition of “Footprints” that Hancock said his late friend Wayne Shorter, the original composer, loved.

Newer or less frequent band members Chris Potter and Devin Daniels rounded out the horns section, each on saxophone. Potter demonstrated intense technical mastery while Hancock urged the audience to remember alto saxophonist Daniels’ name as he is the next generation of jazz musician. Daniels is a master’s student at Herbie Hancock School of Jazz Performance at UCLA. “He used to study with me but now I study with him,” Hancock told the audience.

On the piano, keyboard and keytar, Hancock certified his living legend status with two energetic and invigorating renditions of his classic “Chameleon.” Hancock, who has won 14 Grammy awards including Album of the Year, is an innovator of the electronic jazz and R&B genres whose cutting-edge songs from five decades ago still sound modern. Technology has finally caught up to his ideas and he was able to play his 1978 song “Come Running To Me” now that vocoders can play live. His love of technological innovation was clear as he noted the looping pedals that did not exist when he started out as well as Lawrence’s invention of a cymbal Clap Stack other musicians use today.

With such an impressive line-up both at Hancock’s headlining show and the rest of the weekend, La Jolla Music Society’s first jazz festival became San Diego’s biggest jazz music event of the year. Many of this weekend’s events, from lectures to concerts, are free of charge. To make a reservation for a free event or buy tickets, visit TheConrad.org.