Jazz@Rochester

Sleeping in following my Friday night first foray into the State Street Bar & Grill after-hours land, I awoke at 10am and finished the work on an editing project before heading down to the East End to get in line for my final Kilbourn Hall performance of the RIJF 2006. Sitting with some friends about half way up the hall, the Kenny Garrett Quartet peeled my ears off, handing them back to me inside out. There was no warmup for Garrett and his band. Right out of the box Garrett and the band delivered blistering salvos of hard, driving bop, followed by a smoother, more sophisticated mood and a trio of Japanese and Korean folk music. Ron Netsky had serious problems with the sound level at Garrett’s and other performances in KH. It was loud, it was in your face and then, later, lyrical and sophisticated. Garrett’s quartet (sorry, but I couldn’t hear the names of the rest of the quartet—no connection, I’m sure—and couldn’t find them online either) was white hot, with the pianist playing his solos with such an attack that he was bouncing on the seat. The drummer was slamming his bass drum so hard that he had trouble keeping it from moving across the floor, catching and pulling it back in every so often IN THE MIDDLE OF A BEAT. Damn that was a hot set….

Pretty much wandered around during the interim period, regrouping after the storm that was the Kenny Garrett Quartet. Caught a bit of Kelly Hunt and a very little bit of Dickey Betts before heading into Montage at 10pm for the Magnus Lindgren Quartet from Sweden. The young Mr. Lindgren, who is married to another festival performer appearing Saturday, Rigmor Gustaffson, played both tenor sax and flute. With him was a quartet of pianist Mathias Algotsson, bassist Fredrick Jonsson and drummer Jonas Holgersson who were all fine musicians. The set was pretty straightahead, including an extended arrangement of “Caravan” with Lindgren on flute (and use of effects). We got in at Montage easily and found a wonderful table. I didn’t see any indication of reservations or much in the way of dinner already being served, so perhaps someone finally got some sense there.

But I wasn’t done yet. I made my way over to the after-hours gig at State Street Bar & Grill for a second night, hoping to find my new friends Ken (Fretful Porpentine) and/or Seth (Cup O’Books), or some of the others I have met while attending the last 9 days. Seth and Ken were both just inside the door when I arrived. Athough Seth had to leave just after, Ken and I stayed and got a treat. After the sets with a number of amateurs and Eastman students, many of which were truly excellent, the stage was then filled with Swedish horn players, including Sliding Hammers and Magnus Lindgren, backed up with the Kenny Garrett Quartet, minus Kenny. I also finally witnessed what has come to be a traditional end to each RIJF—a rendition of “We’ll Be Together Again” by Mordecai Lipshutz, WXXI classical radio DJ, who I saw all over the fest in his Panama hat. Not much of a singer, but his heart was there. That was it . . . fini . . . I’m spent. More later in some post-mortems. . . .

This post was actually written this morning, but had another “issue” with accessing my blog host at a critical juncture (one of several during this festival)—just as I was about to publish. Looks like I will be moving my blog to Typepad….more on that later.