Chloe Feoranzo a San Diego Jazz Fest veteran at 23

Standing just under five feet tall, Chloe Feoranzo was barely visible when she performed here in July at the sold-out Casbah with vintage American music singer Pokey LaFarge. But the 23-year-old saxophonist, clarinetist and vocalist will easily stand out at this week’s 36th annual San Diego Jazz Fest & Swing Extravaganza.

The diminutive multi-instrumentalist will be a guest soloist with no fewer than nine other acts at the festival, which opened last night and runs through Sunday at the Town & Country Resort in Mission Valley.

Her musical partners will include the Night Blooming Jazzmen, the Nicki Parrott Trio, 29-year-old stride piano specialist Stephanie Trick and the band Cornet Chop Suey. She’ll also perform as part of a clarinet summit and in the festival-closing jam session.

“I’ll do up to 12 sets,” said Feoranzo, who grew up mostly in Pacific Beach and now lives in St. Louis. “You really work hard at the festival, and it’s great. I love it, because you get to play with so many people.”

The Rhode Island-born musician was just 13 when she made her debut at the Mission Valley music fete in 2005. She has since played the event every year, except for 2013, when she was on her first tour with LaFarge and his band.

“The festival has started to bring in a lot of swing dancers and introduced swing dance workshops in recent years,” Feoranzo said. “And that’s wonderful, because it’s very important for Dixieland to build a new audience.”

Feoranzo grew up, at least in part, at this homegrown festival.

Her command of Dixieland classics, swing-era chestnuts and weathered torch ballads that predate her birth by more than 50 years is impressive. So is her ability to shine as a soloist and supportive ensemble member. As a teenage musician here she studied with jazz sax legend Charles McPherson and attended the annual UC San Diego Jazz Camp. In 2007, she became the San Diego Jazz Fest & Swing Extravaganza’s first youth guest artist.

Feoranzo’s San Diego visit this week comes on the heels of her latest tour abroad with LaFarge. She is the sole female member in his six-piece band.

“We’ve toured Europe at least six times since I joined the band,” said Feoranzo, who put her studies as a music performance major at Webster University in St. Louis on hold to tour with LaFarge.

“A lot of bands do two weeks on and two weeks off. We’ll do a month of shows, then take a few days off, then a week of shows, then a day off, and then back out for a couple of more weeks. This year we went to Australia and Europe, with a U.S. tour in between. It’s a lot of traveling and really tiring. But you get to see a lot of cool places around the world and meet some very eccentric people along the way.”

Worn out by so much road work, and by traveling tens of thousands of miles in cramped vans, Feoranzo hopes to become a studio musician after she leaves LaFarge’s band in January. To date, she has appeared on nearly a dozen albums, including her 2008 solo debut, “Learning to Fly.”

“This is my third year with Pokey, and we do about 200-250 shows a year,” she said.

“I have a place in St. Louis, but I’ve been gone so often that it feels like a vacation to be here!”

The 36th annual San Diego Jazz Fest & Swing Extravaganza

With: Chloe Feoranzo, Night Blooming Jazzmen, Euphoria Brass Band, Dick Williams JazzSea Jam, Sue Palmer & Her Motel Swing Orchestra, Stephanie Trick, Mission Bay High School Preservationists, Carl Sonny Leyland and others

When: 7 to 10 p.m. today; 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 10:45 p.m.; 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Saturday; 9 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. Sunday

Where: Town & Country Convention Center, 500 Hotel Circle North, Mission Valley

Tickets: $20 Wednesday; $25 Thursday; $50 Friday and Saturday; $30 Sunday; $30 for tickets bought after 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; $100 (three-day pass); $105 (four-day pass); $105 (five-day pass) ; U.S. military members admitted free; military dependents and kids 12 and under pay half-price.

Phone: (619) 297-5277

Online: sdjazzfest.org