I
initially got into jazz because, frankly, it didn’t always make a lot of sense
to me. And I liked that. It was a soulful respite from the day-in day-out
cacophony of rock ‘n’ roll. It soothed, it swung, it eluded.
The second annual Rochester
International Jazz Fest offered more than I could eat, but I scarfed whatever I
could wherever I could. This year’s highlight was clearly the Dave Brubeck
Quartet, which bopped and swung at the Eastman Theatre with class and elegance.
The group offered honeyed glimpses of pure melody before launching into parts
unknown.
The U Street All Stars played shows
at Max Of Eastman Place and Milestones with a twin sax attack that was dizzying
and fun. The rollicking notes seemed to excitedly scale the stairs two at a
time. The Finnish band’s horns were harmonious and cooperative one moment,
combative the next. They swam experimental while still dangling one foot in more
accessible, hard-bop waters.
Tony Bennett offered nothing new.
But honestly, he doesn’t need to. He is a cool and genuine talent. And what a
gentleman. Toward the end of the show, Bennett had all the microphones shut off
so he could fly the sold-out audience to the moon with the Eastman Theatre’s
acoustics as the only amplification.
Jazz fans from all over flooded the
downtown streets, eagerly bouncing from one venue to the next like pinballs.
Not all were jazz fans, and not all had manners. At vocalist Claudia Acuna’s
sold-out Max Of Eastman Place show, wine-sipping yuppie-scum had to be invited
to shut up by Acuna’s fed-up bassist.
I hadn’t seen X in 18 years —
exactly half my life ago. Funny, I still dress the same. Los Angeles’ X was one
of American rock music’s last successful experiments. Sure, musicians have
always mixed odd since then, but X, in the midst of the LA punk era, took
rockabilly, jazz, country, soul, and rock, cranking it out with a female
poet-singer who sang off-key, a bass player who successfully harmonized with
her, a slick guitarist culled from the late Gene Vincent’s band, and a drummer
who could pound out separate rhythms with each limb.
The Tuesday-night show was full of
nothing but the hits, as X rocked for close to two hours at Buffalo’s
Continental. Singer Exene came off as both enigmatic and annoyed as guitarist
Billy Zoom picked and grinned. He smiled and winked so much that many of the
young ladies in front grew uncomfortable. Bassist John Doe was on fire, dancing
all over the stage and falling approximately 10 feet off a PA speaker without
missing a note. My ears are still ringing.
—
Frank De Blase
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2003.
