Midpoint, already? Didn’t this just start?  We are already tired and thoroughly into the mood.

Last nights journey started at Harro East with Jeff Lorber Fusion.  I am not sure what fusion means in this case, it was just great music with Lorber working with a piano and keyboard, sometimes one with each hand and a great group with him.  They passed the music around featuring the each instrument numerous times.  We stayed for about 45 minutes and then left to catch the Mike Cottone Trio at The Rochester Club.  This was a double win for us.  Once we got in after wait that did not seem brief we really enjoyed Cottone and his trio.  The music was well performed straight Jazz with no electronic monkey business.  The menu had attracted Carol because it seemed to include some reasonable veggie choices.  It being Jazz Fest food is food for me, just fuel to keep me going, but the fuel at Rochester Club was a cut above, really enjoyable along with the music.  Now they just need to get the air conditioning under control, brrr.

After the set was over we went to Lutheran Church to hear Sunna Gunnlaugs Trio, don’t ask me to pronounce the name, I can barely type it.  She plays a very controlled and expressive piano and her bass and drums provide wonderful support.  We stayed for the entire set before leaving to continue our ritual journey to Christ Church where Fraser Fifeld was playing on Scottish Pipes.  Actually he only did a small bit with a bellows driven bagpipe.  The rest he played on whisltes that looked like small chanters.  He and his guitar support spent rather more time then we cared for twiddling knobs to get just the right loops going.  I am not opposed to the use of electronic enhancement and modification, I rather enjoy it, but it should be seamless and seldom is.  We left early to get in line to hear Terence Blanchard in Kilbourn.  When we got there at 9:50 the doors were closed and the sold out sign was up.  We settled in to wait for enough people to leave so they could admit those waiting in line.  Unfortunately we were forced to experience Calle Uno on the Jazz Street Stage.  I cannot say whether they were good, bad or indifferent, they were painfully loud from  a block away.  Our ever ready earplugs were useless against the onslaught of loud discordant noise.  Why does every group on that stage think that louder is better?  why do they have to cause physical pain?  We endured and got in to Kilbourn and enjoyed an hour of Terence Blanchard and company even though we were 30 minutes late.  I will admit that when he doubled the trumpet line electronically he sounded more like a locomotive whistle then two trumpets and I could have done without that.  But that is a quibble, the total performance was transfixing and we didn’t want it to end even though we were exhausted.  We missed Eldar, who by all accounts was the best of show so far.  People waited in line to get into Hatch Hall, the smallest venue from 3 PM until show time at 5:45.

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Bill Towler commented last night that he couldn’t keep up with these posts and apparently neither can I.  I never got to post the 4th nights experience above and now it is time to talk about night 5 and what we are doing tonight, Wednesday night 6.

We got to Max way too early last night, like 4:10 for a 6:15 show.  We were impatient to leave the house and walked faster than usual.  Jayme Stone Group features Jayme on the 5 string banjo backed by violin, cello, string bass and tabla.  The music ranged over even greater diversity than the instrumentation would lead one to expect.  It was wonderful and very few left during the performance.  At one point Jayme was bowing the banjo and  the cello was being plucked, go figure.  He also performed a Bach Invention with the Banjo taking the right hand and the cello taking the left hand.  Mix in some Bulgarian folk and mountain folk and you get the idea.  On from there to Lutheran Church for a couple of numbers by IPA, not the beer, which carried discordant to a new high (or is that low).  Two numbers was all we could take before moving on to Abilene where Clinton Curtis was heavily into country, although the volume was high, it was not into earplug range and we really enjoyed it until we decided to move on to Christ Church where the “Made in the UK” event was featuring NeWt.  Three men in kilts making funny noises on guitar drums and trombone!  We were not really in to it and left half way into the second number to get in line at Kilbourn to hear Benny Green Trio.  This piano jazz trio really was wonderful playing straight Jazz mostly written by Benny.  They wrapped the show at 11:20 and then came back to play a jazz standard for an encore.  The hall was half empty and those who left missed out.

Tonight our grandson Josh is meeting us to hear Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers at 8.  We hope to have him join us at 4 or 5 and we will wait in line to hear either Eliane Elias Quartet at Kilbourne or Shirantha Beddage Quintet at Max unless we go someplace else.  After the Steve Martin show it is an open question as to what we will do.  If it runs late, past 10, we will head home early otherwise we may take in whatever we missed earlier depending on what we hear.  We will be paying to take Josh in with us where ever we go as we do not have a spare club pass – anyone have one to loan? (joke!)