Summer Concerts in the Park, the popular free music series, returns to Ober Park at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 24, featuring the Los Angeles-based band Incendio.

Due to popular demand, this is the third consecutive year that Incedio has been booked to play the summer concert series.

“This is the only band I’ve ever brought back in consecutive years, because at the end of every one of their shows, the audience screams for it,” said Susan McCabe, Vashon Park District program coordinator.

“I’m preserving my life by bringing them back,” she joked.

The lively group plays richly textured music, rooted in a variety of styles from flamenco to rock and jazz fusion. McCabe said the band’s music is “inflammatory,” and promised “intense, pounding rhythms — perfect for dancing away a summer night.”

Incendio’s members include bassist Liza Carbé and guitarists J.P. Durand and Jim Stubblefield. Playing more than 200 concerts every year, the group has appeared at venues ranging from elegant halls to outdoor bandstands such as Ober Park.

McCabe said the band members are “consummate professionals.” She described Stubblefied as a “fleet-fingered guitarist who can play almost any style” and called Durant not only an “amazing player, but a real showman as well.” Carbé’s bass playing, McCabe added, is not only “rock solid, but also full of great poetry.”

Incendio has released six albums and one DVD. Their tunes have been heard on hundreds of radio stations, and the band was recently profiled on ABC’s Los Angeles television program, “Vista LA” and Telemundo’s entertainment magazine “Buena Onda.”

Word of mouth has been crucial and delightfully kind to Incendio. On Incendio’s Web site (www.incendioband.com), band member Carbé wrote how a concert booker was turned on to the band by her guitar-fixated teenager: “This 14-year-old boy saw us on “Vista LA,” and he’s into Hendrix; he’s into Coltrane, and he said to his mom, ‘You need to hire these guys.’ So she looked us up because of her son.”

Incendio’s richly textured music is rooted in myriad

sources: Carbé’s flamenco and

classical training, Durand’s Peruvian heritage, Stubblefield’s European travels and musical collaborations with Kuwaiti oud maestro Waleed Hamad, not to mention Durand’s penchant for rock-style dramatics and Stubblefield’s jazz fusion mastery. Carbé’s deceptively graceful bass playing grounds Durand and Stubblefield’s twin-guitar attack.

Durand and the other band members clearly relish appearing before audiences.

“It’s important to be humble,” Durand pointed out. “No matter how big the crowd or small the crowd, six years in, we still feel like we’ve got stuff to prove. We’re all on the same page. I can’t remember this band ever, ever sleepwalking through a gig. If we do, then it’ll be over.”

The band will have CDs for sale at the concert. 

Bring picnics and lawn chairs, but please observe the park’s no alchohol rule.

Summer Concerts in the Park is sponsored by Vashon Park District, Vashon Allied Arts and Windermere Realty.

— This article was written by Elizabeth Shepherd based on information submitted by Janice Randall.