Ron Netsky
This year’s Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival
opens with one of my favorite artists from last year’s XRIJF, Cecile McLorinSalvant. If you haven’t
heard this wonderfully expressive singer, come to Kilbourn
Hall and you’ll understand why she won DownBeat Magazine’s
Critics Poll as Jazz Artist of the Year in 2014.
I’m also looking forward to a concert of piano music by long-time
Eastman School of Music Professor Bill Dobbins celebrating the centennial year of
the great Billy Strayhorn at Hatch Hall. And I try every night to catch an act
I don’t know. Friday it will be Music MusicMusic at the Lutheran Church.
As far as the rest of the festival goes, there’s way too
much to recommend here. But in the short run, Sunday night looks great with two
more excellent singers: Tessa Souter at Kilbourn and Raul
Midon at Xerox Auditorium. It’s always exciting to
hear what Rochester native and world-class vibraphonist Joe Locke is up to. At Kilbourn Hall on Monday he’ll be playing tunes from his
great new album, “Love Is a Pendulum.”
And who isn’t looking forward to the transformation of
downtown during the nine days of the XRIJF when Rochester becomes the vibrant
epicenter of jazz?
My real job is Chairman of the Art Department at Nazareth
College but my love of music goes back to my childhood. My grandfather was a
bandleader, my uncle was a Broadway composer and both of my brothers are
musicians. My younger brother Hankus has led bands
with future jazz stars like Don Byron and Marty Ehrlich and my twin brother Steve’s
early groups included top players like Uri Caine and David Finck.
So I’ve always been around great music. I’ve been writing about jazz for City
since the late-1990’s.
Frank De Blase
The two months out of the year that we dare to call summer
are just the best, aren’t they? And I’m not just raving about the heat and the
fact that it’s tube top and bikini season. But here in our dirty little city
along the mighty Genesee, it’s Jazz Fest time where
all of downtown bristles with excitement and its own soundtrack. It’s filled
with all kinds of music within and outside the jazz idiom to love, to explore,
and discover.
For all the shows I’m excited to see — like Herb Alpert,
Gary Clark Jr., and homeboy Chet Catallo — there’s
stuff I know little about that I’m going to take a stab at, like GoGo Penguin. Join me while I stumble around the scene
keeping my ears open for something swingin’,
something boppin’, and something blue… and my eyes
peeled for those tube tops.
I’ve been City Newspaper’s staff music writer going on 15
years. I’ve covered the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival since its
beginnings, and I always leave room for dessert.
Daniel Kushner
I’m thrilled to be covering my second Xerox Rochester
International Jazz Festival and my first for City Newspaper. Rochester boasts a
fantastic local music community year-round, but for nine days each summer, that
community becomes even more vibrant and all-encompassing.
I have a soft spot for the idiosyncratic and avant-garde, so
you’re likely to catch me checking out the likes of Arstidir
at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation and Interzone
the Little Theatre at this year’s festival. Then there are not-to-be-missed
prodigious talents like trumpeter Theo Croker and straight-up curiosities like
former American Idol contestant Bo Bice fronting
rock-and-horns band Blood, Sweat, and Tears. But for all the musical fireworks,
there is no better jazz fest experience than the solo pianist series at Hatch
Recital Hall.
Music is my unabated passion: I play in local bands
including alt-country outfit Jackson Cavalier and the Fevertones
and folk mystics Bogs Visionary Orchestra, and I’m also an opera librettist
(The Fox and the Pomegranate) and the author of a forthcoming poetry book. You
can follow me on Twitter @danieljkushner.
Jake Clapp
As City’s Arts & Entertainment editor, I’ll spend a lot
of my time in the next week coordinating coverage — and burning the midnight
oil posting the great blogs our reviewers send in. But I’m hoping to squeeze in
as many Jazz Fest shows as I possibly can.
This will be my second Jazz Fest, and I just want more, more,
more. I was blown away by the talent and variety of performances at last year’s
XRIJF, and if it has taught me anything, it’s to soak up as much music as nine
days will allow.
Born and raised in Louisiana — where jazz and blues drench
almost every aspect of the culture — I count myself lucky to find a new home in
a city that truly appreciates jazz.
This year, I’m looking forward to seeing artists that are a
little out of the ordinary — those performances that are going to make your
body move but you can’t quite explain why — like trumpeter and rapper Dontae
Winslow, or Gypsy-jazz outfit Gypsophilia. If you
have any tips on who I should check out this year, contact me on Twitter @jake_clapp.
I’ll be up until the wee hours of the morning posting all of
our Jazz Blogs and photos, so that you have something to read while enjoying
your coffee and bagel in the morning. But we want to know what you think. Leave
your comments on the blogs, or post them to Facebook, or Tweet us.
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2015.
