Rochester never ceases to surprise when it comes to weather, so when the rains and clouds finally parted, we were greeted with gorgeous weather for the first night of the festival. The setting sun blanketed downtown Rochester with a golden sheen, and the temperatures were as mild and comfortable as a June evening can get. It was a nice change from recent years, where we had either extreme heat or ash-filled air from Canadian forest fires blowing smoke our way.
It was a great night to trek out to the Theater at Innovation Square (which many of us still longingly call Xerox), where Brandon Woody and his Upendo band brewed a dense mixture of contemporary jazz. In one tune, they just seemed to turn phrases and motifs over and over, with increasing urgency, as if they were trying to push up past some imagined barrier. But my favorite tune was a slower, grooving one with a real emotional core. Part of that is because of Woody’s extraordinary tone quality on the trumpet, which is dark but focused, with a control that made any effect needed seem within reach. His band was equally young and fresh as he is, and I especially enjoyed the creative comping and intricate solos from pianist Troy Long.
I also heard some of Danilo Pérez’s trio in Eastman Theatre, which found a sophisticated and gorgeous note that bridged Latin-American sounds and contemporary jazz.
I ended the night with a gaggle of tenor saxophones at the Joe Lovano and Friends concert celebrating John Coltrane: Lovano, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, and, eventually, Frank Tiberi (the 97-year-old responsible for the ‘Tiberi Tapes,’ bootlegged recordings of Coltrane’s 1960s club shows), and finally Tommy Smith. They began with a meditative, mystical brew from John Coltrane’s spiritual turn that set the mood, after which they took off in more hard-bop directions, including tunes from Sonny Rollins (who passed away in May). Each of the saxophonists took their turn whizzing around and wailing on their horns, and it was fun to hear the differences in tone and approach each took. The lack of diversity stood out to me–five white guys playing Coltrane–but they are certainly monster musicians and have an affinity for playing with one another. And, the supporting band was just as impressive: Leo Genovese on the piano, Peter Slavov on the acoustic bass, and Otis Brown III on the drums (who is a recent Eastman School of Music faculty member). Drummer Adam Nussbaum traded sticks with Brown during the last tune, which was fun to see and hear. (Nussbaum plays tonight at the Inn on Broadway.) I predicted that John Nugent would get up on stage with them, but unfortunately, that did not happen. But he did have some nice words for his friends to start the concert.
Several musicians were hanging out at the late-night jam at the Hyatt, and Brandon Woody even got up to solo. Check Rochester Overture’s Facebook and Instagram pages for photos and videos.
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Here’s my plan for Day 2 of the Jazz Festival:
1. Drummer Adam Nussbaum has played with Dave Liebman, Stan Getz, Randy Brecker, Gary Burton, Carla Bley, and others. He’s at the Inn on Broadway for two sets, the first at 5:30 p.m., which I plan to attend. I wasn’t necessarily planning on attending this a day ago, but after hearing him sit in at the Coltrane show last night, I’ve had a change of heart.
2. Keyboardist Bob James, in Kodak Hall tonight at 7 p.m., is definitely on my bingo card tonight, if for no other reason than his tunes from the ’70s are some of the most sampled in hip-hop tunes ever, only second to James Brown. No, he’s not a hip hop artist, but hip hop was built on a practice of sampling, layering, looping, and creating breaks and other effects, usually borrowing from especially funky music and bass lines. That funk was Bob James. Sure, he’s done a lot of other things, too, but I can’t help but want to hear someone whose music was indirectly responsible for one of our great American musical genres.
3. Sketches of Trane with Jon Ballantyne and Tommy Smith will be yet another of the Coltrane centennial celebration concerts, this one a duo concert in Hatch Recital Hall. Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith was on fire at the Coltrane concert, so it seems like he’s perfectly geared up for a great Coltrane celebration.
4. Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra alto saxophonist Alexa Tarantino plays tonight at Kilbourn Hall, and I am assuming this will be a packed show because she is an Eastman School of Music alumna with many supporters here in Rochester. You can read a profile I wrote on Alexa here. I would go early to get your wristbands for this one.
5. Although it hasn’t seemed to be announced much, there’s a thread of Herbie Hancock running through this year’s concerts, and that starts tonight with Harvey Mason’s Chameleon in Kodak Hall at 9:30 p.m. He’s another artist whose songs have been sampled in hip hop, but he’s best known for his collaboration with Hancock, as one of the quartet members on Herbie Hancock’s landmark recording Head Hunters, one of the great jazz fusion albums, and co-writing the famous tune “Chameleon.” I won’t miss Mason, and neither should you!
Others that are highly worth seeing: The Rodriguez Brothers’ Miles Davis celebration, if you missed it last night, and Nikki Hill and then Robert Cray on the free East & Chestnut Stage. Vicki Kristina Barcelona, playing at the Temple Theater, was a major discovery favorite when they first appeared at the festival in the aughts, so if you haven’t caught their quirky kind of jazz, you should.
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