500
musicians. 100 acts. Nine days. Feel confused? You’re far from alone.
It
actually struck us last year, as we wandered between sets from Max of Eastman
Place to Montage Grille while distant brass and percussion bounced off the
Eastman Theatre and down Gibbs Street: The Rochester International Jazz
Festival, now in its fourth year, is jazz.
Moving
about the city catching swatches of sound, making serendipitous discoveries,
witnessing ad-hoc collaborations…. Doing the RIJF is like life as jazz. Or jazz
as life. Much like the form, RIJF lives and breathes and evolves. Certainly
from one year to the next, but sometimes within mere minutes.
And
like most jazz, RIJF is often best enjoyed without a map. Slipping on a Club
Pass and just allowing yourself to really listen and be surprised — to truly
take it all in — is an immensely rewarding experience.
Still,
we understand the need for some explanation here. While there are plenty of
household names in this year’s festival (Chaka Khan, Sonny Rollins, Dave
Brubeck, Chick Corea) there are even more you’ve never heard of and would be
foolish to miss.
That’s
why we enlisted our long-time jazz critic (now also a Down Beat contributor) Ron Netsky to join some of our music writers
in making sense of all this.
There’s
really no summing up of this year’s offerings. But in our interviews with
performers one notion continued to arise: the need to discard all labels. Many
of the acts in this year’s lineup don’t fall tidily into the jazz bin. In fact,
several of them don’t make sense in any category.And that’s just fine with us. In our
interview with Ravi Coltrane, the saxophonist sums it up best when describing
the state of contemporary sound simply as “some nice music.”
At
the conclusion of last year’s festival, we made a few modest suggestions to
RIJF Artistic Director John Nugent. We wanted him to continue pushing the
envelope by offering invitations to deeply creative musicians like Argentina’s
Juana Molina and just about any representatives from Chicago’s thriving jazz
scene, particularly the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
Our requests were answered handily with not only two sets by Molina (see our
interview), but two sets from Chicago’s widely influential Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
(interviewed).
Nugent
also sought booking advice from Bop Shop owner Tom Kohn, who for years now has
organized the most forward-minded jazz shows ever to come to town. And we’re
willing to bet Kohn played some hand in the RIJF appearance of Holland’s
mind-bending Willem Breuker Kollektief and local trumpet experimentalist Paul
Smoker, not to mention Ethnic Heritage. And who knows where the inspiration
came for sets by the utterly unclassifiable Bad Plus, Bill Frisell, and
autorickshaw.
In
the following pages, which we hope you’ll read slowly and save for the duration
of the festival, you’ll find everything you need to know to navigate these
colorful waters. Our schedule grid is your nuts-and-bolts guide. To learn who
all these musicians are, consult our capsule descriptions or our in-depth
interviews. Lost? Consult the logistics — ticket, parking, and venue
information.
And
don’t forget: A piece on the Swing ‘n Jazz Festival — pros playing golf and
jamming for a worthy cause — can be found in this package as well. Finally,
next week we promise to bring you coverage of CounterFitFest, even more
experimental and international music slated for June 11 and 12 at A\V Space in
the Public Market.
We
hope we’ve established that you don’t have to be a jazz freak to take a ton
away from RIJF. In case you’re still wondering, consider the following pointers
from our own Ron Netsky:
•
Rock fans: Much of what you love is derived from jazz. That catchy bass line
from Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number” was cribbed from Horace
Silver’s “Song for My Father.” And other rock greats like The Doors and Carlos
Santana — known for long dream-like improvisations — were directly
influenced by the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and others.
•
Classical fans: The titans of your world — Bach, Beethoven, Mozart — were renowned for their improvisational skills.
Even after music was written down, when a concerto was played in a concert, the
cadenza was often improvised.
•
Humans: All of us improvise every day, in ways large and small, reacting to
situations ranging from life-changing decisions to ordering food in a
restaurant. We’re all making it up as we go along. So, when you come to the
festival and hear the pianists, saxophonists, guitarists, and trumpet players
brilliantly winding their way around chord structures, appreciate their
journey. You’re on one too.
Explore more of Jazz Festival 2005 by clicking here!
Download a PDF of our Jazz Festival 2005 Schedule by clicking <A HREF=”http://www.rochester-citynews.com/pdfs/jazz_fest_schedual.pdf”here!
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2005.
