Jazz@Rochester

A year after its opening, Clarissa Room owner John Starr died of a heart attack on Saturday at the age of 50. From what I’ve heard from musicians and seen of myself the times I’ve been at the club, and from the writeup by Jeff Spevak in the D&C, Mr. Starr was an interesting man who I would have liked to have the opportunity to meet and get to know. I didn’t know about his activist side, although it doesn’t surprise me. I heard about his death via an email from the Bill Welch Band (thanks), who had played there last Friday, opening for the Bill Tiberio Group. I was planning on going to the Sonny Miles show there on Saturday.

As I have said elsewhere I really was impressed by what he was trying to build at The Clarissa Room and have written it up on occasion (here and here). The Clarissa Room always seemed to be (and will continue to be, I hope) about the music and also seemed to be becoming a neighborhood institution in Corn Hill.

According to the D&C article there will be a celebration of John Starr at The Clarissa Room this Friday, beginning at 4 p.m., with donations accepted to help the family re-open the club, which according to the article was in Starr’s plans all along. Although this is a reminder in this week of reminders of how life and dreams can be cut short, John Starr, a former maintenance mechanic at the Greece Central School District for nearly 20 years, seemed by all accounts to be living his dream. That is a testament to him.

Over at AllAboutJazz.com, Robert Iannapollo recently posted a review of the 2005 Rochester International Jazz Festival. One fact that I hadn’t seen brought out was the difference in the number of attending the festival this year as compared to earlier years. Iannapollo writes:

An early summary of the attendance figures shows as many as 65,000 people attended this year. The original 2002 festival had an attendance of 15,000. It’s definitely a festival on the upswing and one that’s found its own character. And with the increasing attendance figures, it’s an encouraging sign that if you don’t underestimate the intelligence of the audience, good things can occur.

Like Iannapollo, I think that one mark of John Nugent’s approach to programming the RIJF is pushing the envelope while doing enough with “known” and “safe” artists to get enough “bums in seats” to keep the festival going financially. The fact that festival attendance has gone so far up is a sign that this approach is doing airight.

Ducking into the Clarissa Room out of the rain yesterday afternoon during the Clarissa Street Reunion to eat my pulled pork and have a beer, I found a card on the table for shows there by Sonny Miles & Smiles, who was just finishing a set on the stage outside, for August 27th and September 30th (10pm to 1am). Arriving at the fest later and starting at the other end, I had missed most of his set, but really enjoyed the small part I heard. Sonny plays jazz organ. I didn’t see a Leslie box or a Hammond B3, but that was the sound coming out of synthesizers. They cooked. I’ll have to check them out.

On Friday, August 26th at 9:00 PM, the Clarissa Room will host the Bill Tiberio Group, who we were force to miss at the Reunion. Just into their set, the sky opened up. My wife and I were there without an umbrella. Also sorry to have missed Tony Monaco, who was scheduled to headline an hour later (did he?), but we were pretty close to drowning by the time we reached the car. I wrote about a previous show by the Bill Tiberio Group at the Clarissa Room here. As before, the Bill Welch Band will be opening for them.

I recently re-ran across the MusicMoz site that I found awhile ago (before I started this blog) and which I’m glad I’ve rediscovered as it is a rich source of information. MusicMoz includes the following in describing itself on its About page:

Music information is one of the most searched topics online and a very important application of the internet. Commercial and fan websites offer an abundance of information on thousands of bands, artists, orchestras, composers and just about every other aspect of music. One of the biggest drawbacks to this wealth of information is that it can be very disorganized and can often disappear as websites continually shut their doors.

Based around the Open Directory editing model, MusicMoz aims to be a comprehensive directory of music, built by volunteers around the world, with contributions from the web public.

The open directory editing model is basically the same concept as a wiki; however, unlike many wikis, you have to apply to become an editor. While not all information can be trusted and if the volunteers who maintain an area have been derelict in their “duties” some of the information and, especially, links can be stale, sites like this are a great place to begin looking for information. There is some content associated with it relating to jazz, which can be accessed here.
[Note added later: OK, so I’m recycling this item as well…my mind must be slipping more than I feared.]

Obviously, I’ve been having trouble posting. I’ll spare the usual blather I’ve put elsewhere about being “busy at work” etc. The reality is that I’ve just been distracted. Even though they are just a few posts below, I wanted to call your attention to some upcoming shows between now and the end of the month that I’ve posted elsewhere. Check out the Clarissa Street Reunion, which will have a lot of great jazz, blues and gospel music on Saturday, August 20th. Dianna and I, celebrating our first anniversary on Sunday, are making plans to be there. Lew Tabakin will be playing at Woodcliff Lodge on August 24th and 25th, and Alex Skolnik will be playing Montage Grille on the 30th, both of which I posted about here.