I decided not to try to hear everything on my list for the fourth night of the Rochester International Jazz Festival, so trimmed off the 10:00 pm performance in a (albeit failed) attempt to get home a bit earlier for some much needed sleep.  From what I've heard about Paa Kow, I have a bit of regret... oh well. Ended up hanging a bit at my "office," for a time with the members of the band Enemy and tonight's Made In the UK Jazz group, My Iris.  Tonight, I'm really going to do it... really. 

Here's what JazzRochester's ears were up to last night:

• Hiked over to Geva Theatre for the Brazilian percussionist Cyro Batista. Spread out before him on a table was an artist's palette of percussion instruments and various noisemakers. Batista started out using one that most in the audience probably thought was there to cool him down... a cheap handheld fan, which he used with another object and the microphone to create a rushing sound. Other sounds were made and the objects that made them were then thrown aside as there was plenty else there to make the next one.  Behind him, Batista had a PVC pipe "organ" that he slapped the tops with mallets, a la Blue Man Group.  Picking up an African instrument called a berimbau, which is a single wire attached to a bow with a gourd sounder on one end.  He called it amongst his "weapons of mass percussion" and I knew what was going in my next posting to Twitter.  His band (especially that accordion player!) was outstanding, even as it was the first time they'd played with Batista.  After a standing O that brought the band out for one more, as I saw the audience walking out, I noticed that most of them had a big smile on their face.  His work here was done....
• I saw about 15 minutes of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio who were putting some "stank" on the Squeezers stage. I was there mostly to check out the new venue, which could pretty much be called the "Almost Big Tent" as it is very close to the same experience in there. 
• While I enjoy most of the acts that are pulled into the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, I pretty much never miss when there are Finns on the stage. I'm not sure why.... I was familiar with Kari Ikonen as he has appeared at the RIJF 4 times, either as a leader or in another band, and knew that I was in for writing that Ikonen and the band would be building a sound collage, starting quite sparse and building to an anthemic climax. They delivered....
• After downing some street meat (in this case Marty's Frisket...), I made a beeline to the Christ Church for Enemy, a trio of young Brits (but this time not in sharp suits with pencil leg trousers).  The band includes Kit Downes on piano, who the previous night had improvised on the church's unique pipe organ, Frans Petter Eldh on bass, and James Maddren on drums. These four are explorers, venturing out to the edges of what you think of when you think "jazz trio" music, moving from a simple melody to the carefully structured chaos of free jazz in an instant and then back again.  Great sounds.  Nice guys, too, I found when I was introduced to them when they came by Havana Moe's for a nightcap after the second set. 

Here's where my ears may find some music tonight....

• Ozmosys (Temple Theatre)
• Trish Clowes My Iris (Christ Church)
• Mikkel Ploug Trio (Lutheran  Church of the Reformation)

I'll wander around until time to go to the first gig, but may cut out after the second to get some much needed sleep...