A jazz series with music that spans the rich history of the music form and its permutations around the globe will kick off this weekend and continue through June 6 at Vashon Center for the Arts.

The downbeat for the series will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 28, when three-time Latin Grammy nominee Jovino Santos Neto, a master Brazilian pianist, composer and arranger, will take the stage at VCA with his trio as well as Brazilian guitarist Kiko Freitas. The concert — promised by VCA to be a “creative blend of energetic grooves, deep harmonies, telepathic improvisation, lyrical melodies and great ensemble playing,” will include a tribute to the composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.

The second concert of the series, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 18, will feature Max Hatt and Edda Glass. For their first visit to Vashon, the duo will be joined by Seattle bass virtuoso Clipper Anderson. Audiences can expect to hear the same award-winning original compositions and interpretations of jazz standards, Brazilian bossa nova and American jazz that the pair have played coast to coast on stages including New York City’s Lincoln Center, NPR’s Mountain Stage, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center and the Sundance Film Festival.

The series will close at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6, with a concert by Jay Thomas, a Seattle native who grew up in the middle of the fertile jazz scene of the 1960s, becoming a masterful multi-instrumentalist playing trumpet, flegelhorn, saxophone and flutes.

“You can recognize jazz as an art form,” Thomas has said, adding, “but remember it is also used to be danced to. And that became a part of people’s lives.”

Series tickets ($60 to $70) are now on sale, as are individual tickets ($10 to $36), at vashoncenterforthearts.org.