Jazz@Rochester

The Rochester International Jazz Festival...now in High Def!

Our local PBS station, WXXI will begin broadcasting performances from the 2007 Rochester International Jazz Festival in high definition on Sunday at 7:00 pm on WXXI-HD 1011/DT21.2 and PBS-HD. The show, has played on PBS stations nationwide, but will now be presented in high-definition.  The series is six-hour long episodes shot in the historic Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music, including:

• Bill Frisell Trio: 7 p.m. Sunday, July 20th, 4 a.m. Monday and 11 p.m. July 25th.
• Geri Allen Trio: 7 p.m. on July 27th, July 28th at 4 a.m. and 11 p.m. Aug. 1. We interviewed Geri Allen last year.
• Harry Allen Quartet: 7 p.m. on Aug. 3rd and 11 p.m. Aug. 8th.
• Christian Scott Band: 7 p.m. on Aug. 4th, 4 a.m. on Aug. 11 and 11 p.m. Aug. 15.
• James Moody: 7 p.m. Aug. 17, 4 a.m. Aug. 18 and 11 p.m. Aug. 22.
• Don Byron’s Ivey Divey: 7 p.m. on Aug. 24th, 4 a.m. on Aug. 25th and 11 p.m. on Aug. 29.

Check the schedule.  They did the same for the 2008 RIJF, so we look forward to seeing those films.

Bonerama goes back to high school . . . Pittsford-Sutherland, that is

I was contacted recently by Ben, a student at Pittsford-Sutherland High School (which, by the way, has a Business Department with kids learning marketing . . . surprise, surprise), who let me know that Bonerama, a great New Orleans brass funk band fronted by no less than four trombones, will be playing a concert at the school to benefit the Arabi Wrecking Krewe of New Orleans, which is a nonprofit that has organized volunteers, many of whom are musicians or former musicians from the New Orleans area, to provide disaster assistance to victims of the hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Proceeds of the benefit will go to help rebuild homes for musicians in NOLA.

Many of you might have heard Bonerama play one or more of a number of great sets at the 2007 Rochester International Jazz Festival, including one that we really enjoyed at the Montage where the combined firepower of those four frontmen almost knocked us off our chairs. If you missed them at the festival, you should really try to catch them. Check out their cover of the Led Zeppelin tune The Ocean on the band's MySpace page to see (well, hear) what I mean.

Bonerama's coming to town (OK, near town) on December 6th at 7:308:00 pm (based on the group's website, they're also holding a workshop with the students, which is cool). The concert will be at Pittsford-Sutherland's auditorium (the high school is at 55 Sutherland Street in Pittsford, NY) Adult tickets are $12 and student tickets are $10. They will also be available at the door for $12 per student and $15 per adult.Tickets will be sold through Wegmans stores.  The Sutherland Jazz Band will also be performing.

Come out and hear a band that really has to be heard live to be appreciated and support a great cause at the same time!

I thought I was late . . . Another voice heard on the RIJF

I actually haven't forgotten that I had promised another post on the 2007 Rochester International Jazz Festival. Still have that one in the works (had to wait at least until my Geri Allen interview was posted), but just noticed in my Allaboutjazz.com feed in the left panel that Robert Iannapollo has written up his thoughts on RIJF 2007 for the online magazine.  Thought you might want to read his take on what we all agree was a great 6th Annual RIJF.

Here they are:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Flash! Jazz Pianist Geri Allen Does Interview with Rank Amateur!

On June 8th, the first evening of the Rochester International Jazz Festival, I conducted my first "jazz interview" with pianist Geri Allen. It was a wonderful experience.

Ms. Allen invited us into the "green room" at Kilbourn Hall in the Eastman School of Music, where she had performed a killer early set in Kilbourn kicking off the 6th Annual RIJF.  While I've edited out an interruption toward the end, and made a few other adjustments to try to make it easier to hear me or Ms. Allen, it is pretty much as we recorded it.  I left it as is as I think it is a true document of the experience.  Clearly, my interview style could use some work but I think that Ms. Allen more than made up for that with her thoughtful responses. This is an artist that knows herself and where she is going.

In addition to Ms. Allen's voice and mine, the other voice you'll hear on the podcast is my wife Dianna.  She promised me going in that she'd just take notes . . . but anyone who knows Dianna knows that when she hears something that moves her, it is impossible for her to contain herself. I think you'll agree that her participation was invaluable in making the interview a unique document. 

Pardon the sound quality, but my "professional" equipment was a Griffin iTalk microphone plugged into my iPod Nano. The delay in posting this interview is my bad timing . . . it took me a week after the end of the festival to have the time to do the editing (and learn the Audacity software I used to do the editing). By that time, Ms. Allen was near to leaving for a European tour and I had promised I'd send her a copy to hear before publishing it on the blog. We finally connected over the weekend and she wrote it was "good to go".  So, here it is ... a bit over 11 minutes:

I note one thing . . . Geri Allen indicated all she needs to come back to play in Rochester is an invitation.  Someone going to step up?

You Never Stop Learning . . . RIJF 2007 Provides Some Lessons

Now that I'm done casting my "greater blogger than thou" stones, I think it is only fair to look back with a critical eye on Jazz@Rochester during the 2007 Rochester International Jazz Festival. While this year was a year where a bunch of new doors opened and this blog had unprecedented traffic and impact on festival-goers, I couldn't help but feel that I hadn't really fully realized the opportunities that were presented.  This post is just a mea culpa of sorts, to show that I'm not oblivious to my many shortcomings (I am oblivious to many things . . . just ask my wife), and a sort of blueprint for next year.  I'll just list a few bullet points:

• While I had a media access pass (as well as the Club Pass that I bought LONG before receiving the media access), I asked for it much too late and with my other responsibilities to work and our business didn't have enough time to do the leg work to set up the interviews even for the artists for whom I requested contact information and be ready to conduct an interview that wouldn't be a waste of their time.
• I did an interview with pianist Geri Allen on the first night of the festival. It was a wonderful experience. I think that despite my less than stellar interview skills, Ms. Allen provided me some real gems about her and her music (and I hope to be publishing the results soon in these pages). However, the experience also gave me an appreciation for what goes into doing them well and I dropped further efforts.  There were others doing interviews of the artists SO much better (I've been listening to the whole lot of them since, Jason, and you're a pro!). Although I want to try the interview thing some more, I need to find a niche.
• I admit it . . . my moblogging from the festival became old pretty fast.  I want to think about how I use it in the future as I think it is a great tool (as do Jason and Seth) that has potential for adding a great immediacy to coverage. I'm thinking of doing more "man in the street" (or more "person in line") interviews and "on the spot" reports. What would you like to know?
• I was unable to really provide images in posts (although, again, so many people were doing a really good job of that), which I love to include when possible.  With the media access pass, I was more restricted than if I'd just been there as a "civilian".  I didn't have the additional photography credential necessary (or perhaps I misunderstood?). My camera really wasn't up to the task, anyway.
• I didn't write enough.  I didn't have my laptop with me at the festival and at the pace I was hitting shows wouldn't have had much time to do any real writing if I had.  That left me the option of writing when I came home at 1-2 am most nights of the festival (with a few extending beyond 3 am), and then going into work (at which I sit at a computer and write).  This 46 year old body can only take so much.  I had so much to say, but I knew that something had to give.  That's why I'm still writing about the RIJF almost two weeks later.

OK, enough with the hair shirt. This blog and what it has become over the past years I've been writing it, who it has introduced me to in the Rochester jazz and blogging community, and the opportunities it has created made this year's RIJF a watershed for me.  Also, it was a lot of damn fun!

OK, one more to go . . . wherein I'll join Seth in putting some things out there for next year's Rochester International Jazz Festival.