Remember what I wrote about "grand plans" a couple days before XRIJF 2018 began?  All of those plans were founded on actually being at the festival.  I've had to sit out a couple nights already and, listening to my body and my doctor, I'm not planning on coming back tonight and tomorrow. While I'm sure that there are folks who are dealing with much more than I who are braving it, I don't know yet what it is so have decided not to try my luck (especially with the heat....). If you've been following my posts during this year's XRIJF, you know I've been hearing some great music on the five days I was able to make it. So please go out there enjoy yourselves during the final days of the festival!  And drink lots of water!

Here's what I was planning on catching tonight & tomorrow:

• Nicholas Payton Front & Center at Kilbourn Hall
• Gwyneth Herbert's Letters project at the Made in the UK Jazz series at Christ Church
• Miles Electric Band at the Chestnut Street Band (replacing St. Germain and hoping for some Bitches Brew and On the Corner style Miles....)
• Matt Wilson's Honey & Salt (putting Carl Sandburg's poetry to music) in Kilbourn Hall
• Thomas Stronen at the Nordic/Euro Jazz series at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation

I'll see you on Jazz Street next year and, I hope, more of you at live jazz gigs through the other 356 days of the year!

After the news of the day yesterday, with the Supreme Court issuing its last opinion curbing union rights (my parents were both teachers and I was a Teamster in an earlier life) and Justice Kennedy's decision to retire at the end of the month, I was worried about the state of our democracy. As a lawyer, what happens in the third branch of our government takes on much more significance. I was in a funk... but I started out at Kilbourn Hall with Ulysses S. Owens Jr.'s project Songs of Freedom and was reminded that music is one way to find our way through our current state of discord or, if necessary, call out what's wrong with our nation. Owens let the music speak for him... he wasn't there to harangue the audience (I'm sure some of you are just fine with the current state of the nation) but to remind them of the foundational principles of this nation and our failure to live up to them. And USO and his project delivered on the music. Songs of Freedom explored the music of the 60s through interpretations of the songs Joni Mitchelll, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone, imagined through the Quartet and the voices of Theo Bleckmann and Alicia Olatuja.  It was an abbreviated version of the 80 minute project that Owens was commissioned to create for Jazz at Lincoln Center.  Bleckmann and Olatuja were amazing.  Yes, I'm showing my politics on my sleeve, but the music was incomparable and it was very needed at this place and time.  

As I noted on Twitter and elsewhere, I next "called an audible," literally, and went to hear Torben Waldorff at the Lutheran Church.  After Songs of Freedom, I couldn't top the vocals there despite hearing so many good things about Jazzmeia Horn.  This was Waldorff's third time at XRIJF. He was joined by Jon Cowherd (piano), Jon Wikan (drums) and the great Drew Gress (bass).  The quartet glided through a number of cuts from Waldorff's new CD and some of his other compositions.

Ended the night with the Julian Siegel Quartet at the Made In the UK Jazz series at Christ Church.  While a number of the acts in this series are new, young artists rising in the British jazz scene, Siegel has been around and his Quartet has been playing together for a decade.  It showed.  I had heard that one unique thing about Siegel was that he plays the bass clarinet.  I wanted to hear that sound in this format and lcoation.  Fortunately, he finally picked it up from its perch for the last song of the night.  I enjoyed the journey to get to that as well. 

I'm not adding any picks for tonight as this is being published well after it would get out to potential readers.  Why? I'm sitting out tonight.  Last night was a bit rough, but I hung in there and made it most of the way through.  Today, I'm listening to my body, which is yelling at me that something is wrong and I need to figure out why.  I may or may not see you on Jazz Street for the rest of the festival. Go fest amongst yourselves!  I'll at least be watching online....

After sitting out the prior night, and still feeling a bit rough at several times throughout the night, I hit the XRIJF for the fifth night.  Last night was a good example of one thing I love about the festival... it is "and now for something completely different" every time you move from venue to venue and pass through the streets within the footprint of the festival.  Here's how it went for me:

• I started out at Kilbourn with the Joe Locke Group.  Happened to run into Joe in the alley behind Kilbourn after his sound check and said hi. He told me I'd really love what he put together this year.  That's one reason I go to Joe Locke's performances at the XRIJF.  I tend to try to get out to hear those whom I haven't heard before.  As a Rochester native, Joe has been here quite a lot, but he always brings something different every time he comes.  This time he came with a band he has come to call "his tribe" as he enjoys making music with them so much, the core quartet from his new Subtle Disguise CD.  He also brought with him vocalist Paul Jost, who sang an arrangement of Bob Dylan's "Who Killed Davey Moore." The group was then joined by great Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith for "Red Cloud," a Locke composition inspired by a book (and stories he heard through his friend Tom Marcello) about the late 19th Century Oglala Sioux chief, with Jost singing and scatting in what at least sounded like Lakota (not fluent, I'm afraid).  It was over so soon (partly because Joe likes to talk, a lot, during the set and he had a lot of friends, mentors and others in the audience.  Knowing that Rochester audiences like their encores, Joe ended his set with a beautiful composition, "(Safe and Sound) At the Edge of the Milky Way" inspired by dialogue from the Albert Finney movie Orphans. 
• And now for something completely different, I headed over to the Lutheran Church for Lucia Cadotsch "Speak Low", with her bandmates Petter Eldh on the double bass (Eldh was also on the base in Django Bates Beloved this year) and Otis Sandsjö on the tenor saxophone. Even with such sparse instrumentation the sound was anything but spare. Tightly intwined Cadotsch's haunting vocals, the trio did modern arrangements of standards from the start with, of course "Speak Low."  Near the end of the set, Sandsjö began Mancini's "Slow Hot Wind" with an incredible solo of cascading notes powered by circular breathing, with the notes continuing to cascade after his bandmates joined in.  As I've noted before, I'm not big on vocalists, but this was so fresh a take on the standard songbook that I stayed to the end and it was mesmerizing.
•  And now for something completely different, I hoofed it over to Christ Church to catch Partikel here as part of the Made in the UK series.  Nominated for a 2017 Parliamentary award for best jazz ensemble, Partikel is Duncan Eagles (saxophones), Ant Law (guitar), Max Luthert (double bass) and Eric Ford (percussion).  The quartet took a less "wall of sound" approach as a group than some others I heard in that space with similar lineup, which allowed their individual voices to get through. At times etherial and others anthemic, the group filled the space with trippy sound.  Had to leave early to get to the next hit....
• And  now for something completely different, the music of Tom Waits sung in 3-part harmony by 3 women. Hailing from NYC, VickyKristinaBarcelona, moved through a set of well-known and not so well-known Waits tunes with two (Rachelle Garniez and Terry Radigan) trading off guitar, banjo and accordion, and the third playing percussion and squeeze box (Amanda Homi), digging deep "Down in the Hole" to bring something fresh to Waits great music.

So what's on tonight for Night 6 of the XRIJF if the rain and my health let me ... well, lemme see:

• Starting out again in Kilbourn Hall for Songs of Freedom, directed by drummer Ulysses S. Owens, Jr. and featuring Theo Bleckmann, Alicia Olatuja & Joanna Majoko. This presentation explores the 1960s through the music of Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone. I'm really looking forward to this one.
• I will head over to the Temple Theatre to hear Jazzmeia Horn. I've been seeing her all over the jazz press in the past years, so want to check her out.  What's with all the vocalists ... perhaps I'm changing in my old age. 
• Will catch the Julian Siegel Quartet at the Made in UK Series in Christ Church.  

This post features other live jazz gigs in and around Rochester (at least those that I've heard about). Yes, live jazz continues during the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival.  Not everyone is given a berth on the XRIJF ship each year, and those who are may have some extra time to do a gig here and there, so here are some more.  You should, of course, refer to the XRIJF website listings for finding something to hear at the festival. I will still be posting on what I'll be doing during the festival. Check back as I will be updating these listings as I learn more. 

As always, let me know if any gigs below are no longer happening, if I got something wrong wrong, or if you have heard of something that's not in these listings that I can add.  To do that just click on the Contact Us link above this post. 

As I noted in yesterday's post, I was not feeling well yesterday (a bit too much XRIJF in Days 1-3, perhaps?) and sat last night out entirely.  I did listen to Zara McFarlane's latest album (it's a great album, check it out...), but finished the night off with the last episode of Westworld, instead.  Feeling much better today, so will be at the "office" after picking up a wristband for the first show.  

This post will be short and sweet as I'm just going to mention the artists I hope to hear tonight:

• I always try to see Rochester's own Joe Locke when he comes to town, so will start out in Kilbourn Hall.  He always brings something different and always brings a top-knotch band (I expect Geoffrey Keezer will be involved tonight?)
• I'm thinking that my next stop will be Partikel Band at the Made in the UK series in Christ Church. 
• I love Tom Waits' music so will end the night in Montage Music Hall with VickiKristinaBarcelona Sings the Music of Tom Waits.

What else I'd like to hear?  There's Lucia Cadotsch "Speak Low" at Lutheran Church, House of Waters, and this guy I saw in one of those big Fort Worth bars (the kind with a live bull riding ring in the bar), Junior Brown at Squeezers at Anthology ... he is always a lot of fun.

Over the years, I've developed what I've come to call "A Kilbourn night," which means that I start out in Kilbourn Hall and that sets up the rest of the night pretty well.  Usually, I leave Kilbourn and go over to the Nordic/Euro Jazz Now series at the Lutheran Church, then catch some of the Made in the UK Series before heading over to the Montage or Max's at Eastman Place to end the evening.  With one slight change to give some support to my friends in Paradigm Shift in a long-awaited return to XRIJF, that was last night's pattern.  Another very satisfying night of music was the result.  Here's my notes on what I heard:

•  As I waited in the Kilbourn line around 3:45 for my early entry wristband for the first set of One for All, I noticed that many of my line mates were known to me as straight-ahead jazz fans (some to the exclusion of anything else ....). That's exactly what they got ... in spades.  One for All is a sextet that formed in 1997, with jazz stars Eric Alexander on tenor sax, Jim Rotondi on trumpet, Steve Davis on trombone, David Hazeltine on piano, John Webber on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums. Some have compared One for All to 1960s-era Blue Note jazz and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Every one of them are consummate musicians, leaders in their own right, and they've been playing together for a LONG time, so they're tight and seem to enjoy making music together.  The crowd went wild as they burned through a set with plenty of solos and the great big sound that a sextet with that instrumentation can bring.  
• I count the members of Paradigm Shift as true friends and was happy when I found out that they had finally been brought back to the Rochester jazz festival after an absence of quite a few years. The trio, with guitarist Mel Henderson, Gerry Youngman on organ and drummer Sean Jefferson.  Last night they were joined by Brian Thomas (now in Boston, but grew up in Rochester) on trombone and Jared Sims on bari sax.  Their set was full of those Paradigm Shift originals I hear a lot with the trio when they play around Rochester, but with the added funk and umph of horns, and originals by Thomas and Sims.  They had a good crowd on Jazz Street and there was much head bopping going on.  I hear the second set had dancers as well.
• I headed from there over to Christ Church and caught some of the 18-piece Beats & Pieces Big Band.  These young guys from Manchester, Liverpool and other places in the UK so packed the stage that I'm afraid from my vantage point I couldn't get all of them in the image I shared on social media!  Big band, big sound in that cavernous sanctuary. It was the band's first time in the States. Saw three members of the band at the "office," which I hit at the end of the night to hang with my buddies in Paradigm Shift. They're heading to Toronto today and they were excited that they might be able to stop and check out Niagara Falls.  Their music was modern reminded me of some of the things I've heard from Darcy Jame Argue's Secret Society, with some rock guitar thrown in with the big band sound. 
• Left Christ Church and headed over to end the night with the Christian Sands Trio. At least 1/3 of the packed audience were also at the first set. Christian Sands has been the pianist for Christian McBride's trio, but is a born, self-assured leader himself. The young cats he brought with him, Noah Jackson on bass and Jonathan Barber on drums were fantastic support as the trio burned through a set with Sands' dazzling piano in front. The highlight for me was an arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" that was both grounded in that standard and explored many new facets (and some other songs) as the trio rollicked through it. 

Tonight, I'm afraid, I have to sit out the XRIJF.  I'm not feeling well and think it better that I rest these old bones than come down for my usual night of music and over-indulgence.  I'll be on the interwebs, though, and share what I find on Twitter, etc., but tomorrow's post will be just the picks for Tuesday.  If I had come out, I was looking forward to:

• Zara McFarlane at the Made in the UK series at Christ Church
• Jane Bunnett and Maqueque at the Temple Theatre
• Trail of Souls at the Nordic/Euro Jazz Now at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation

If I could have worked out the schedule, I might also get over to hear Moon Hooch at the Montage. I'd also recommend Joe Farnsworth Quartet featuring Eric Alexander. I saw them at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago when I was there on business in April.  

Those reading my post yesterday about Day 1 and Twitter will know that I had a car issue yesterday that threatened to delay me getting downtown for the second night of XRIJF.  The AC started pouring water into the passenger side of the cabin while we were driving to a graduation party for a friend.   Since our house AC went out a couple weeks ago, I thought "oh no, not the car too!).  As we happened to be near the dealer, we took it in and luckily it wasn't a big deal.  I made it downtown a little late to go to anything early, but managed to catch all the acts I had planned to hear....

A short recap of last night:

• Although I've heard the Bad Plus several times, I made an exception to my XRIJF "rule" as I was looking forward to hearing them with Orrin Evans on piano.  Evans recently replaced original Plus pianist Ethan Iverson and I had seen him with his Quartet in NYC a couple of years back and really enjoyed his music.  I wanted to hear how (and whether?) he clicked with the BP.  He did.  The band started off with a burner and moved through a set list that included some of the old tunes and a number from their new album Never Stop II, alternatively quiet and introspective and dynamic and intense.  A note about the new Temple Theatre venue.  At least to my ears, the sound was great in the space.  The Theatre well-handled the BP's music, which moves quickly from soft to the point of a whisper to intense, high volume, walls of sound.  Reid Anderson took a quite torturous route involving smart cars and CB radio in announcing the tune "Keep the Bugs Off Your Glass and the Bears Off Your Ass" from their second album These Are the Vistas.
• Next to the UK series at Christ Church for Django Bates Beloved Trio.  Bates and his trio had studied the space in Christ Church and selected music to suit that space.  It worked. The music, including The Study of Touch, the title track from the Bates' new ECM album, was impressionistic and introspective, and enveloped the sanctuary with intricate patterns of sound. One interesting aside was that the organ in the Christ Church was made in Gothenburg Sweden and Django's bass player Petter Eldh believes his father may have worked on the building that organ.
• Ended up with Iceland’s Sigurdur Flosason with an great quartet at the Lutheran Church.  His music is evocative of the natural surroundings of his native land and his saxophone was rich and beautifully played.  After the intensity of my first two musical forays on Day 2, this was a welcome and comfortable place to end.

What's on for tonight?  Well, lemme see... (open up the XRIJF app, which has made my spreadsheet superfluous...):

• One for All in Kilbourn Hall
• Paradigm Shift with the PS Horns on the Jazz Street Stage (the PShift guys are my buddies and I can't miss their return to playing at the festival). 
• Christian Sands Trio at the Montage

I would like to get the Kuara Trio at Lutheran and Beats & Pieces Big Band at the Made in the UK series at Christ Church in, too, but schedule won't work that way.

I was quite worried before the music began yesterday.  So much going on in my brain, I barely slept on Thursday night. Things started to click into place when I took a tour after emerging from the garage, poked my head into “Jazz Street” and saw the preparations and familiar faces I always see, and then I hit my “office” at Havana Moe’s on East Ave, worked on the blog and watched the crowds start to arrive.  It really clicked in when the music began.

A quick recap from last night...

• The first show of the night was Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez, two incredible musicians with deep roots in Cuba and its music.  I had seen both play with groups separately, but hearing them together was a wonderful way to start the 2018 XRIJF. I suspected it would be, which was why I made a exception to wanting to hear new artists this year (and my love of the music of that island).  Both are such consummate musicians, both throwing flurries of notes and also pulling back and playing delicate figures. The connection between these two musicians was palpable.  
• Hoofed over to the Lutheran Church for Marius Neset.  Another good choice. Neset and his quintet were on fire at times.  Although Neset’s saxophones were up front, his band stretched out throughout the performance. The band was tight. the music was not simple, with shifting tempos and time signatures. As often happens in the Nordic (and now Euro) Jazz series at the Lutheran Church, there was a standing O at the end.  For good reason....
• I headed over to Christ Church for the first Made in the UK Series gig with the Will Vinson Trio.  Vinson noted that while English, he’d been “marinating” in the States for awhile.  He was celebrating release of a new bass-less trio recording, It’s Alright With Three, and brought along guitarist Gilad Hekselman and drummer Ziv Ravitz.  Hekselman was outstanding.  Vinson and the band filled that huge space with sometimes anthemic sounds. 
• I actually was able to get into The Wilder Room for the Sara Gazarek Quartet. It was SRO, with the reconfiguration of the Wilder Room seeming to reduce the amount of space (although moving the bar out outside must have created more space?). Vocalists are not my thing most of the time and while she has a wonderful way of putting together a song and her voice is beautiful, I slipped out the back after  the first few songs of her set.

So what’s on for tonight? Lemme see...

• Django Bates Beloved Trio @ Christ Church
• Sigurdur Flosason @ Lutheran Church of the Reformation
• The Bad Plus @ the new Temple Building venue

Depending on timing, weather, etc., I may trade off to see Mwenso & The Shakes or the late show of Gypsy jazz group Des Sourcils.  On the other hand, I’m finishing up this post in Van Bortel Subaru. We were out near the dealership for a graduation party and water began to pour into  the passenger side of the cabin from the dash.  So, it may be that my “grand plans” will be dashed ... with a fat repair bill to boot.  

Unfortunately for me and fortunately for you, the first day of the XRIJF is chock full of great artists I want to check out.  Timing to get to all of them is tough, so I'm concentrating getting out to hear:

• Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez @ The Xerox Auditorium
• Marius Neset at the Lutheran Church
• Will Vinson Trio @ The Made in the UK Series at Christ Church
• Sara Gazarek Quartet @ The Wilder Room

I'm sorry that I'm likely to miss Terell Stafford Quintet in Kilbourn and Joey Alexander  Trio at the new Temple Building venue.  I've heard them both before and know they'll both be fantastic.  Just concentrating on folks I haven't heard or, in the case of Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez, just love the LatinX side of jazz. XRIJF is all about choices... I reserve the right to change mine, but there it is.  

Every year, I make a “grand plan” for JazzRochester's coverage of the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival. Most years, the amount of time I have to implement these plans falls short of my grand plan. While this summer at least I’m in town for it (see 2016), and I plan on the usual crazy nine days of music, liquid refreshment, street food, etc., the combination of being a new homeowner (and learning what that means… just had the AC go out) and an unanticipated uptick on the attention I’ll have to give my day job during the festival are conspiring to undermine my plans even more. So much for my “grand plan”….

In some ways, my worries of not meeting expectations are really just a reflection of the knowledge of what I wanted to do compared to the reality of what I can do with the time I have given my “real” life. Over the 10+ years that I’ve been doing JazzRochester, and covering the jazz festival in these pages, the success of the festival has changed my relationship with it. When I started this blog, there was not very much coverage of the Rochester jazz festival in the major media in Rochester and the traffic to JazzRochester would triple or better during the festival. Now, the media market is saturated with coverage and my little old JazzRochester blog is just another voice among the many news and other outlets that have much louder "voices." My traffic actually goes down during XRIJF! While I would hope to gain new readers, the reduction in traffic is fine with me; it shows the success of the festival, and I hope that success may translate into an expanded audience for live jazz in and around during the other 356 days of the year (in fact, that has become my catch phrase as you see by the image accompanying this post). And this blog is mostly about the 356 days of the year.

So, what can you expect from JazzRochester during the nine days of the XRIJF? Here’s what I plan to do:

• Increasingly over the past years I have been focused on getting out and hearing the music during the festival, and … frankly… enjoying myself. The lineup this year has the usual mix of those who I know and those I don’t. There are no artists this year who are on my “bucket list.” That’s not a bad thing…. As I’ve said before, it just makes it likely that my “picks” morph during the festival and that I’ll create opportunities to discover new sounds and artists in real time. As John Nugent has said over and over, “it’s not who you know, it’s who you don’t know” that matters. I plan on hearing as much of the latter as possible, so my “itinerary” will be in flux … on purpose. I’ll try to let you know the ones I think are “must sees” each night, so check out the blog and other channels for that.
• I will use the other JazzRochester platforms, especially Twitter (currently at over 11.7K followers), the JazzRochester Facebook Page and JazzRochester on Instagram, to connect festival goers with the artists as they communicate about the festival and their music and images from the XRIJF. . In addition, I have a list of the Twitter handles of artists at XRIJF that I’ll be checking out (and you can too, if you’re too inclined). I’ll also use Twitter and Facebook to share the information about the festival being put out by XRIJF and other ROC coverage of the festival. Follow me if you’re on those platforms.
• I will try to do a recap post each day of what I ended up hearing the night before and a preview of the music I hope to hear that evening. I’ll try to get these out to subscribers in real time on the blog, so check your email before heading down to the festival. But don’t be too surprised if my aforementioned life gets in the way.
• I will continue to do the Wednesday listings post to let you know about other live jazz in and around Rochester. 

I hope that you will let people know about JazzRochester during the festival, so more people who are discovering the wonderful music at XRIJF and especially that played by the many local artists and bands and musicians who will be participating this year, are also hip to where to find the most complete listings for live jazz during the rest of the year. Tell your friends; tell people you’re standing next to in line!

See you on Jazz Street!  Say hi if you see me....

This post and next Wednesday's will feature other live jazz gigs in and around Rochester (at least those that I've heard about). Yes, live jazz continues during the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival.  Not everyone is given a berth on the XRIJF ship each year, and those who are may have some extra time to do a gig here and there, so here are some more.  You should, of course, refer to the XRIJF website listings for finding something to hear at the festival. I will be posting tomorrow on what I'll be doing during the festival.

I will add to this post and next week's as I hear of more, so check back.  It's going to be a bit light... as it always is as the big festival sucks all the jazz out of the air. But that's not a bad thing...!

As always, let me know if any gigs below are no longer happening, if I got something wrong wrong, or if you have heard of something that's not in these listings that I can add.  To do that just click on the Contact Us link above this post. 

Here are the live jazz gigs for the next week, served up hot. Hope you get out and hear some before the nine days of XRIJF begin.  City has published their Jazz Festival Guide 2018. 

We collect as much of the live jazz in and around Rochester as we can find so you don't have to do it yourself ... right here, every Wednesday in JazzRochester. I really need your help to grow a more vibrant community for live jazz here in Rochester by sharing this post or this site with those you know who love live jazz.  Share with the buttons! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram! Sign up to receive our posts via email (there's a link at the top of the site).  

As always, let me know if any gigs below are no longer happening, if I got something wrong wrong, or if you have heard of something that's not in these listings that I can add.  To do that just click on the Contact Us button above this post. 

It's June! Just a few weeks until the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival begins. Until then, you can continue to feast your ears on the jazz you can hear throughout the year! Check out the goings on in Geneva this coming weekend!

We collect as much of the live jazz in and around Rochester as we can find so you don't have to do it yourself ... right here, every Wednesday in JazzRochester. I really need your help to grow a more vibrant community for live jazz here in Rochester by sharing this post or this site with those you know who love live jazz.  Share with the buttons! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram! Sign up to receive our posts via email (there's a link at the top of the site).  

As always, let me know if any gigs below are no longer happening, if I got something wrong wrong, or if you have heard of something that's not in these listings that I can add.  To do that just click on the Contact Us button above this post.