June 23, 2006
So many have gone before me in doing a post-mortem that an attempt to have an overall post seems like overkill. There was a lot of coverage over at the D&C site (although as Seth points out over at Cup O’Books, you can’t do the internal link thing over there and expect that they’ll stay live or even find them yourself a mere days after the event) and the posts on City Paper’s jazz blog have been congealed into a post-mortem in that medium, so I’m going to take the approach that Ken does over at Fretful Porpentine and provide some thoughts and observations on this year’s Rochester International:
First the obligatory “favorites” list. I find it hard to limit it so I’m going to pick 1/4 and go with that (i.e., 56 of the 20 acts I saw): Kenny Garrett, e.s.t., Charlie Hunter Trio, Tom Harrell, Eddie Harrison, and BraamDejoodeVacher. Each of these was a singular musical event for me. However, I enjoyed ALL of the 20 Club Pass and Eastman Theater gigs I hit. I was exposed to wonderful music and to musicians that even I, somewhat of a jazz hound, had never heard. Musically, it was one of the finest jazz festivals I’ve attended.
In addition to the growth in the festival (the “official” estimate was 80,000, a respectable rise from the unprecedented 65,000 in 2005), diversity was not only evident in the music. Perhaps my wife, who is black, didn’t feel the “dot factor” (where she’s a black dot in a sea of white) quite so heavily or often during the times she joined me at the fest. Although there is still much room to improve on briging the diverse populations of Rochester into participating in this festival, John Nugent and Marc Iacona continue to program in ways that will broaden the audience and that is very important to me.
After a change in leadership, the City of Rochester was a visible force in this year’s festival, where it had been absent in past festivals. Perhaps it is because new Mayor Duffy is a jazz hound (he came to the stage and welcomed the audience at Wayne Shorter’s appearance in Eastman Theater), or perhaps it is because his team realizes the tremendous potential benefits Rochester derives from the RIJF and its continued success. In the past two years, those nine days in June have put the city on the map internationally in ways that millions of dollars of “Rochester is for Living” campaigns could not. I heard a lot of voices from other countries while attending and they weren’t all members of the bands we were hearing. As this festival grows (it is not unlikely that next year’s festival will reach Nugent’s goal of 100,000) it could be made a part of the rebirth of downtown Rochester and help to rehabilitate some venues that have sat vacant and under- or unused for far too long. The money such an event brings into Rochester is nothing to sneeze at either (I’m wondering if anyone is doing that calculation for the city?). Just look at the difference with the festival at our sister city to the East.
One of the most enjoyable parts of this year’s festival for me was meeting and talking with so many people. The crowds clearly were enjoying themselves and the facility with which conversations started in line or with folks sitting next to you showed how at ease they were. In addition to meeting my fellow bloggers Ken and Seth, there were some really interesting people who I ran into again and again during this year’s festival; so much so that we have gotten to know each other a bit (Hi Jimmie!). My previous years’ festivals were sometimes somewhat of a solitary affair. If my wife didn’t join me, or my friend John, I was pretty much on my own.
The coverage by local media was much broader this year. I especially liked the photo/sound montages that were produced by Will Yurman at the D&C. As Seth pointed out, sometimes our critics dropped the ball, such as with the comments on Tom Harrell that were printed without even a cursory glance at Google (heck, I even confirmed that I wouldn’t have been the first to call him the “John Nash of jazz” by using that trusty tool). As I pointed out in my post, Harrell’s own site (which came up early in the Google results) had a great article on the interplay of Harrell’s schizophrenia with his music and performances, and City Paper critic Ron Netsky waited before posting on the blog until he’d had a chance to talk with John Nugent. I didn’t know anything about Harrell when I got in line other than over-hearing some other folks wax poetically about his playing and was lucky enough to strike up a conversation with someone who had heard him perform a number of times and filled me in prior to us going inside. However, regardless of the flubs (of which I have made some whoppers in my time), as the number of voices increased, so did the diversity of available opinion and that was a good thing.
I also liked that the City Paper tried its hands at using the blog as a tool to get the writing of some of its music critics out there on a daily basis, rather than waiting for a post-mortem on the Wednesday after the last note was played. I anticipate that now the blog will disappear into the ether. While this was one way to use this technology and I applaud the City Paper for doing it, their jazz blog missed out on what makes blogs different—allowing a conversation to develop with readers or other bloggers. It would have been nice to get a reciprocal link for all the people I steered your way folks….;-).
As usual, the Eastman Theater events were just too pricey for me to go to more than the one I ended up seeing—Wayne Shorter. I was helped this year as many of the artists featured there this year I had heard elsewhere, sometimes in a context that I wanted to keep as my memory of that artist (for example, I heard Phil Woods with a trio at Birdland in NYC a couple of years ago and sat at the bar next to him between sets). I saw some great music elsewhere in its place.
More venues will be needed to accommodate the rising number of passes that are being purchased and, apparently, used and Club ticket sales (I didn’t see any figures on how many of those were sold). Seth mentioned some of them (I especially like the Cadillac bar idea or the bar next door (the one with the “Knight” theme?). Another possible large venue (perhaps a second Kilbourn-type) might be the Xerox Auditorium on the corner of Chestnut and Broad. While I don’t begrudge the club venues the ability to make money between the 6:00pm and 10:00pm Club Pass shows, taking reservations undermines the “first come, first serve” foundation of the Club Pass for people who are there to see music. This problem seemed to be on the minds of a lot of people. This may be alleviated by additional venues, but isn’t there some other way to handle it?
Seth’s comments on the food were spot on (I know polish sausage and that was kielbasa, not andouille).
As Ken has reported in his RIJF post-mortems (with Seth’s “Yup” in the comments), the three of us are planning on hosting a podcast for next year’s festival, providing a “regular guy” (and maybe even some gals?) perspective on the festival’s goings on. I’m looking forward to that.
John Nugent, Marc Iacona and the RIJF staff did a really good job this year in programming and running the festival. Really, there were very few glitches for a growing festival like this.
This post-mortem post is not my last thoughts on the subject of the RIJF. I’ve got a few ideas that I’m going to be unfolding as time permits. Check back here again soon.
Note: Jazz@Rochester will be moving in the not too distant future. As you might have noticed, throughout the festival my free blog host let me down a number of times, making it difficult for me to post in a timely way. Although it would have been worse if no one could access the blog during those down times, it was frustrating and my inquiries have gone without a timely reply. It happened again last night. I have decided to re-brand and move the blog to Typepad, on which I have a professional account. It may take some time, but I’ll keep blogging here until then and will probably leave this one up (I’m not sure how successful I’ll be in transferring my posts).
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