Jazz@Rochester

Coming home from Kansas a few days before the start of RIJF, I had a few musings and notes on this year’s Rochester International Jazz Festival:

There’s something in the air, I think. Perhaps this year may be the year RIJF breaks out in Rochester (it’s already breaking out nationally and internationally).

With this year’s RIJF approaching I was hoping to do a whole lot of posting, with lots of new material and some in-depth “reportage” on the upcoming festival activities, including my earlier mentioned “series” on my plans during the fest. Well, clearly that was not fated to be this year. There’s my day job and the new business that my wife and I are starting (which apparently has become my second job). Additionally, my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary was on the 3rd of this month, in SE Kansas (from where my post last Wednesday originated). I have been planning and working on that for months now. My parents live in a small town of about 2,500 souls and have not found the wonders of broadband Internet access. I found it difficult to compose and post without getting booted off their dialup (not to mention the need to use the computer for last minute adjustments and additions to the PowerPoint slideshow that I was putting together for the reception). We returned home on Tuesday morning (around 1 a.m) and I returned to the day job a few hours later. Sorry to have let you all down…those of you that care (there’s got to be one or two of you….hopefully?). I’m going to try to make up for it somewhat in the next few days before the fest, so look out….

Although I meant to post about this WHILE in Chicago, I just could not fit it in with the conference and other activities thereafter (not to mention spotty wireless access…). As my hotel for the ABA Legal Tech show in Chicago was in Chicago’s Loop, it was walking distance to some of my haunts from “back in the day” (OK, not so long ago—about 4 years). One was Andy’s. When I worked downtown years ago, beginning to nurture my jazz jones, I used to go to Andy’s fairly often. One reason was that it was nearby my then office; the other was that it had live jazz at noon, 5pm, and later. Back then, the sidemen for whomever was appearing at other clubs would come to jam with a pickup band or you’d get treated to a few solos by a “old head” who used to play with Satchmo or Duke Ellington sitting in with the house band. That was then and when it was in a part of town that was just on the edge of a “bowery” district—now it is in the midst of the booming River North area. Andy’s was always kind of hard to handle as it has some very weird “rules” about seating and eating. If you sit at the tables, you have to eat. If you’re there alone, as I was, you pay your same cover but have to sit on the side where the loud drunks are and the music isn’t. I understand rules like that when the place is hopping, but on Wednesday night it was almost empty and despite my assurance that I would get up if suddenly it filled, I still found myself ordering some food. The entertainment for the evening was a local that I remembered played there when I was in Chicago, Henry Johnson’s Organ Express.

On Thursday, I went to see the Mulgrew Miller Trio at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase, now also located in River North. Segal’s place is one of the places where the “names” come to play in Chicago. I took in the early show and showed up early, remembering my “Chicago Rules” on seeing music in the city—you show up early so you can get a seat—I caught a cab to the joint when I could have walked in the beautiful evening air. Well, I was the first one there and Joe Segal was giving interviews in the club due to his 80th birthday coming up, so I just sat there waiting and talking to the cameraman who was setting up for the next interview. On the other hand, I drew prime real estate directly in front of the stage as there were only about 15 of us for the first show—some nights even Chi-town can’t get bums in seats to see a nationally known artist. After “struggling” through a dry martini on an empty stomach (I forgot Jazz Showcase didn’t serve food and had rushed over without grabbing anything), the trio came on stage and for the next hour or so I was feeling great (not just from the martini). Miller was playing with two young guys—Rodney Green on drums and Ivan Taylor on bass. Highlights were a great interpretation of Un Grande Amor by Jobim and When I Get There, an Miller original blues with an interesting twist in the chord structure.

Unfortunately, I was not able to catch anything at some of my other favorite haunts, like the Velvet Lounge, which has disappeared for awhile due to the massive gentrification of its neighborhood, the Green Mill on the north side (where some of the artists mentioned here play quite often), the Hot House, and Pete Miller’s Steakhouse in Evanston (where I used to live in a previous life).