Something for everyone at the Jazz Fest

Rochester International Jazz Festival is a mere upstart, a tender seedling in a forest of mighty jazz oaks-New Orleans, Montreux, Montreal, Monterey.
Some of the granddaddies have been running for close to 50 years. Rochester’s version electrifies the city, no doubt, and Rochesterians are the better for it. But it’s been doing it for a mere six years.
You would never know it.
I’ve attended the fest for five of those years, all of them memorable for their gifted musicians and appreciative, knowledgeable audiences. This year, something shifted: It was bigger, busier, bombastic. There was a swagger in the air-an easy, big-city sophistication.
If there were cranky locals or fearful suburbanites, I didn’t see them-just happy people who knew what they wanted to hear and where they were going to go hear it.
It was as if everyone knew: We get this right. We do this well.
The nine-day festival may be an upstart, but not for long: 2007 estimates put attendance at 121,000-up from 15,000 only five years ago and a cool 51 percent over last year, its biggest single-year jump. People come from all over to attend. Musicians repeatedly comment they like playing here.
This makes sense in a city with such impressive jazz roots. The dean of American jive, Cab Calloway, was born on the southeast side a hundred years ago. I still get chills remembering the day in 1993 he led 9,000 University of Rochester graduates and guests in a rendition of “Minnie the Moocher,” the year UR gave him an honorary degree. The 1950s and ’60s were the heyday of Rochester jazz. Gap and Chuck Mangione collaborated with a bevy of luminaries-bassist (and high school classmate) Ron Carter, saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, Chick Corea, Steve Gadd, Joe Romano and Frank Pullara among them. National acts performed at now-defunct clubs.
Music is the common denominator that brings Rochesterians together. George Eastman, who built the Eastman School of Music, believed strongly in the power of music to build community. And thus it is that the summer concerts calendar is jammed with shows at High Falls Party in the Park, Rochester MusicFest, Bands on the Bricks and the East End Festival. There are lunchtime concerts downtown, band shell shows in the villages, Charlotte crowd-pleasers at the beach. We love classical, jazz, salsa, hip-hop, blues and rock.
I tried going to see Robert Cray at High Falls Party in the Park the other night. I drove all over looking for a place to park. Like most Rochesterians, I think I can arrive at the last minute and still find a primo spot. What I found was myself way over by City Hall, still hoping to snag an elusive (and free) spot on the street. I gave up and went home, a little wiser, later learning the crowds were so big people were turned away.
Good music of any kind finds an enthusiastic audience here. But something about jazz and improvised music make them a perfect fit for Rochester. And thus it was that there was something for everyone at the jazz festival. From the famous-Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck (my favorite), Dr. John, Jean Luc Ponty-to the not-famous local high school jazz bands, who brought families and friends downtown for free shows on Jazz Street. From straight-ahead jazz-Don Byron’s Ivey Dyvey, for one-to decidedly not jazz but innovative music nonetheless, such as Rusted Root and the Cardinals.
That’s the beauty of a jazz fest; the genre is rooted in and linked to other traditions. Programmers can improvise. Rochesterians know jazz-at least we know good and interesting and fun music when we hear it-and you could see it on people’s faces out on the streets and in the clubs.
The second Friday night of the festival, I took in Dr. John’s show at Eastman Theatre, wishing it had been held in a venue more conducive to dancing around. You can’t watch Dr. John nailed to your seat. Madeleine Peyroux came on next. She was sweet and talented but lacked the stage presence to fill that massive place, especially after the powerful Cajun. Shortly after nine, stomach growling and eyelids drooping, I escaped to catch the funky Maceo Parker at the free stage at East and Chestnut and Toots & the Maytals at the East and Alexander stage. I immediately woke up and was good for a few more hours.
It was the festival’s outdoor mega-stages that brought things to a bombastic boil-and boosted attendance. The next night, before Rusted Root performed at East and Alexander, co-producers John Nugent and Marc Iacona bounded up on stage, punching the air with their fists. Before them, a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd extended a block down East and half a block either way on Alexander.
Nugent took the mike and shouted something like, “Look around you. This is your city! You’re in Rochester. This is what it’s all about!” The crowd cheered, and when Rusted Root took the stage, the sea of bobbing heads and twisting shoulders, jostled beers and stepped-on toes somehow managed to dance.
-Sally Parker

6/29/2007 (C) Rochester Business Journal