Well, another stellar year at the Rochester International Jazz Festival.  Looks like one will need to get the Club Pass early next year, if Jane is any measure.  Nugent’s baby has grown into what I believe is Rochester’s premier annual event.  There is great and diverse music from all over the world and local music, from the high school level to the professional level, gets featured as well.  There are lots of knowledgeable jazz fans, lots of amateurs, and lots of people in between enjoying one of Rochester’s nightlife districts.  The festival gains supporters every year and has managed to solve the associated growing pains.  Here are some closing thoughts:

• Between the Club Pass, Woody Allen for four, Etta James for two, one dinner at Max, food and beer from vendors and bars, and one hat for a future festival goer, I think I was just shy of a grand invested in the week.  I think the festival needs to put my name on the damn brochure.  Even though I really don’t mind the money (father’s day and my wife’s birthday are included in that figure), and I basically got the fun of a week’s vacation while staying at home and being with friends, I will be scaling back a bit next year, I think.  Of course, I haven’t seen the Eastman’s show list yet…
• Be sure to check Greg Bell’s website for local jazz coverage all year.  There are great local acts playing here on a weekly basis, and are worthy of support.
• I’d like to see the food vendors either changed or added to, next year.  The booth serving kielbasa as andouille sausage with a side of root beer foam served on your socks and shoes needs to go.
• If you go to Max or the Montage for a six o’clock show next year, think about making dinner reservations, as that will guarantee a spot for you.  I hope the festival will add venues next year.  I know that there are lots of logistics and not all business owners would be interested, but the following would be excellent in my opinion:  Eros at Charlotte and Mathews, Spot Coffee on East, The Rochester Club on East (great place for big bands), and maybe the Cadillac Hotel Bar for the ambience.
• I did not see a show at Milestones this year.  That was not planned.
• John Pitcher from the D&C really dropped the ball covering this event.  I know he is getting hammered for his comments about Tom Harrell, and rightly so (a quick Wikipedia trip might have saved him), but his take on Woody Allen was also dead wrong.  Pitcher criticized Allen for being an amateur.  Well, that was the whole point.  Allen is a jazz fan, not a professional.  He is the ultimate fan because he picked up an instrument.  The evening was about fans seeing a fan, and most of the criticism I hear comes from people who were not in attendance.  Allen was a great pick to open the show.
• After writing that last post and trying to access some of the articles, I have this to say: The D&C website sucks!
• My favorite shows were Etta James and Billy Bang.  I also loved Papa Grows Funk.
• I wish I had stayed at the State Street jam on the last night.  Both Ken and Greg were rewarded for their patience.
• I will buy the 6th Annual Club Pass the day it goes on sale!

 

I am glad I took the night off on Thursday, because I needed my rest for Etta James.  This show was my wife’s birthday present and we had pretty good seats on the left side of the lower level.  Etta just strolled onstage in the middle of the third song of the Roots Band set.  The crowd had been well warmed by Susan Tedeschi, and a roar followed Ms. James to her chair.  Her antics on stage began almost immediately.  I have to say that it is amazing to see a woman so close to seventy years of age simulate felatio onstage with her microphone and still look like a lady.  There is something regal about her.  And man can she sing.  And she goes where she wants with each song, daring the band to keep up.  Her version of Kiki Dee’s Sugar on the Floor was the best blues I’ve seen live since John Lee Hooker’s 1990 benefit concert in New York.  I had heard from people who saw James Brown that he has lost his touch.  I cannot attest to that, but Etta sounds better than ever.

 

 

 

Susan Tedeschi was also fantastic.  She has an amazing voice as well, her band was first rate, and I saw yet another Hammond B3 organ with attached Leslie Speaker.  Tedeschi’s organist was particularly notable.

Well, I’m off to the finale, so not more to write.  I’ll wrap up tomorrow.  The USA – Italy match has me fuming!

 

Papa Grows Funk couldn’t blow the doors off becasue they were in the Big Tent.  It is entirely appropriate that this act be staged in a venue modified by the adjective “big.”  They went big, and engaged two audiences like I’ve never seen at this festival before.  But I’ll get there directly, lets do this in order.

 

I should start with my first set of the night from Roger, who many of the festival goers may have seen on the way from the parking garage to Gibbs Street.  He was sitting, jamming some Dylan.  I dropped a dollar in his case and chatted with him for a couple of minutes.  It was worth the dollar.

I was meeting my wife, sister-in-law, and sister-in-law’s fiancé, all of whom were Club Pass-less, so it was to the free show for us and the MK Groove Orchestra.  Actually we first caught the tail-end of a set by local artists Bob Schnieder and Paul Hoffman, who you can catch every Saturday at the Strathallen.  Then the MKGO.  It was a good thing we were outdoors becasue all that brass upfront gave the group lots of power.  The horns were like an offensive line blocking for the organ, drums, electric guitar and bass.  These guys were hotter than the sauce on my andouille sausage platter!  (Speaking of food, I think the festival “kneads” some fried dough.)  Mike Krammers on tenor sax did an excellent job leading the group through a great first set.  He was also funny, calling to an audience member, “Hey guy in the Sun-Ra T-shirt!  Do you really like Sun-Ra?”  After receiving an affirmative, he said, “Then this next one is for your T-shirt!”  I stuck around until Ken arrived to catch the beginning of the next one.  We caught the first song, then left the aftermath for the Big Tent.

We heard the tent a bit before we saw it.  We figured to beat the line in, but no line existed, so we walked in and began dipping and sidestepping our way through a very active crowd on its feet and sweating to some funk.  PGF is very well named, in spite being (as Ken pointed out) on a “worst band names” list.  Ken and I found a spot on the side of the stage as the end of the first set happened well after it should have.  The band was obviously having a good time and was reluctant to go.  Anchored to a tight bass, the band’s impact on the crowd was absolutely amazing.  At one point I thought I would be ordered to “shake somethin’” as John “Papa” Gros put it.  Ken and I found ourselves on the set of “Jazz Fans Gone Funky.”  Their version of “Come Together” was fantastic.  The guitarist, June Yamagashi, was particularly noteworthy and let loose with the guitar solos.  I think this is one of the bands I have seen here that will most likely become almost famous.

I don’t know what I’ll be seeing tonight, but if things go as they have so far, I’ll see something excellent.  By the way, make sure you are checking out Ken’s site and Greg’s for more on the RIJF.  Greg catches many of that Ken and I miss, and is a much more informed jazz fan than I.

When asked by Nick Basbanes, what is most important in a good wingman, most important in a pilot into whose hands one would place his life, Chuck Yeager did not hesitate.  He answered with one word.  “Experience,” he said.  Yeager wanted a guy who had lots of “stick time”.  You can’t fake or substitute for it, and it is why Billy Bang’s set on Monday night was one of the best I’ve seen so far, and why Sonya Kitchell, who has a wonderful voice, isn’t there yet.  This is not a criticism of Kitchell.  As a teacher of 11th and 12th graders I know better than to judge based on youth.  Added to the lack of experience was the fact that the singer/songwriter thing isn’t my bag.  The beauty of the Rochester International Jazz Festival, however, is that it is diverse, and from the comments, Kitchell did appeal to many of the others in attendance.

A quick note to the festival organizers, another 8:30 show would be a welcomed thing.

So the Bang set.  Yeah.  Oh, yeah.  As many know by now, drummer Newman Taylor-Baker took a later flight and missed the first song of the set.  Local Drummer Dave Cohen sat in and sounded like he had been playing with Bang for years.  This was one of the best sets I have seen in four years of the jazz fest.  Bang played mostly tunes off Vietnam: The Aftermath.  Artists who are so heavily influenced by a single event often don’t appeal to a larger audience, but like the author Tim O’Brien, who also uses his experiences in Vietnam as brain fodder, Bang is able to tap into the universality of the experience.  Before playing the song KIAMIA, he described how the emotions associated with loss of fellow soldiers can be translated to the loss of anyone.  “Even yourself.” he said. 

I really enjoyed the opening song called, Yo, Ho Chi Minh Is in the House.  Opening with a trumpet salvo and drums firing for effect, the tune was then handed to Bang’s violin, which was plucked through an Asian melody before the whole band joined in.  Bang’s songs are chaotic and frantic.  As a performer he is very active, moving constantly, signaling with the wave of an arm to the other members of the band.  He is part band leader, part platoon leader.  Going on stage with Bang may be a bit like going into combat.

As I write this I am realizing again, just how good the set was.  As the room grew hot and humid from the body heat and the musicians filled it with a nervous energy, I clung to my little piece of wall space listening to tonal tracers and melodic grenades…

Sorry.  Thought this was the City Blog for a moment.  Anyway, Bang was terrific.

After meeting Ken and Greg (be sure to check their sites for more festival perspective), Ken and I headed for BraamDeJoodeVatcher playing Max at Eastman Place.  Playing from their musical tome entitled Change This Song where all the pieces contain the same letters as the name of the book.  Huh?  I think he meant anagrams, as in Angsts, Once High, and Gosh, Ethics Can, and Hotch as Ginseng.  Here is how the repertoire is described on Michiel Braam”s website:

For 2005’s new program Change This Song Michiel Braam wrote 18 pieces of music, which can be played in any given order, mood or style, depending on decisions made on the spot.

This was an excellent set with frantic, hectic music that came from instruments pushed to their limits.  The band was animated, enthusiastic and drew a standing ovation from the audience.  This was non-traditional, experimental improvisation at it best.  The band seemed to pulse, each instrument to its own concept of an inkling of an idea, then come together for a few moments, only to whirl away again.  The music was like a series of puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit, but did anyway.  There was paradox in the music and like a Zen riddle, unraveling was the answer.  I don’t know the sound of one hand clapping, but after this set I know the sound of a wet finger rubbing a snare.

And now for a bit of Photo Jazz.  Improve with a broken camera on Day Four 2006.